The Philippine Library and Museum in Downtown San Diego, California

I bet most people walk past the Philippine Library and Museum in downtown San Diego everyday without even noticing that it is there, unless you happen to walk by when the stained glass door is propped open with a friendly sign put up inviting one and all to come in for a look. Then you'd go,' Hey! Where did this thing come from? I thought it was just a souvenir shop before!'

This little well kept museum occupies a long narrow room at the basement level of the Lincoln Hotel Building on 5th Avenue (right next to the San Diego Store). It doesn't seem to get visited much even though it enjoys perhaps the stretch of Gaslamp Quarter with the heaviest foot traffic (courtesy of being flanked by 2 of the busiest bars in the area, The Field and Blarney Stone Pub). What can I say? The green door just blends right into the green wall and the stained glass on it somehow even blends right into the neon signs and ads on the large window of the San Diego souvenir store next door. I had passed the door many times before finally worked up the will to go in recently when I walked the blocks gathering information for my previous article on the Asian Pacific Thematic Historical District.

Walking in you are faced with a giant painting, Bai Piang's World in the Mindanao Islands, by the Filipino artist, Danilo Sola... complete with a description of what it depicts. It is a rather politically charged thing worth puzzling over, I think. I had no idea who Bai Piang is (still don't, actually... She appears to be something of a legendary native princess who isn't written about much on the internet), and her mournful stare surrounded by bodies and paper money is something unsettling to behold. To the left is a little table with a guest book for you to sign along with a bunch of donation envelop you can take home. This museum doesn't charge admission fee, but appears to accept mail-in charity.

To go further means to navigate down a rather steep set of stairs to the basement level, though (and, remember, you have to climb back up the thing on the way out). So, if you are disable and can't cope with the thing, then this is as far as you go.

Down at the bottom is a narrow hallway lined with busts of past presidents of the Philippines. The museum itself consists of a long and narrow room parallel to the hallway, and overseen by a lady curator from Mindanao. Her English is rather hard to understand... and she enforces a strict no photography policy. But if you are really interested in learning about the exhibits on display, she is a walking mine of knowledge about all things Philippines (she already watches you like a hawk anyhow. You might as well make her work for your enjoyment as well as for the museum as their animated anti-theft device).

The exhibits are interesting and cover many fields even in this very limited space. Wood carved table and chairs with a beautifully polished wood set of Sungka game with shells (no touching, though), handmade native hats, clever gadgets, and ceremonial relics along with other memorabilia from the fatherland (money, stamps, carvings, paintings). From tribal stuff of the islanders to the modern paintings from the Manilans. There are loads of colorful murals by Filipino artists... usually with either a religious figure (Christ or Mary) or a current or ex- president. There are black and white photos about the Philippines' time as a Spanish and then an American colony, all the way up to WW II and the present. Walking through the hall I get the feeling of the Philippines as a rather restless young country that is somehow insufficiently haunted by the more tranquil pre-colonial past.

At the very end of the museum is a fascinating exhibit on Dr. Jose Rizal, the nation's first national hero whose amazingly prodigious life was cut short when he was executed for being such an annoyingly bright and persuasive revolutionary in 1896. There are also lots of books on all things Philippines you can borrow.

The museum doesn't seem to open regularly. So... if you happen to be in the area and sees its door open, do go in. Browsing through that small and narrow hall doesn't take long and you'll likely emerge back into sunlight in 10 - 20 minutes knowing a lot more about the Philippines and the impressions the USA had left there. Time well spent, it is!

The Philippine Library and Museum: 536 5th Avenue (between Market & Island), San Diego, CA 92101.