The Flying Shoes

When an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at George W. Bush in 2008, western journalists were quick to ask about the ethnographic explanation of shoe-throwing in the Arab culture. The western gestural vocabulary for public displeasure appears to be limited to rotten eggs, soft fruits, custard pie and more recently, green slime. But throwing shoes? Western media sought anthropologists for answers to the unfamiliar gesture. Although with all honesty, does one really need an ethnographic reference to understand why an Iraqi journalist would launch his shoes to the unpopular US president? Bush could only thank his lucky stars there is no chair-throwing tradition in Baghdad.

Model 271 aka 'Bye Bye Bush'

Muntazar al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who lobbed his shoes at Bush, was unfortunately sentenced to three years in prison despite missing his target. The recorded incident was played in YouTube millions of times around the world and it became a modern symbol of the Arab world’s disrespect and defiance to the US. Bush may have dodged Zaidi’s shoes but one can only imagine that he was shaken despite appearing casual and unperturbed after the incident. There is no doubt he will always remember Zaidi’s clear message to him on that fateful day in Baghdad: “This is a gift from the Iraqis. This is the farewell kiss, you dog!”

It also comes in brown, camel and sand

Overwhelming interests in Zaidi’s pair of shoes reached far and wide too. In fact they were treated more heroically than the thrower. An Iranian Ayatollah even demanded that the shoes be preserved and placed in a museum. There was also a wealthy Saudi businessman who offered to buy the shoes for $10 million for its “high moral value”. Unfortunately, the shoes were dismantled and destroyed when police inspected it for hidden explosives. The Arab world was dismayed over the loss of the iconic shoes. But only until the enterprising shoe manufacturer of the famous footwear came to the public and re-produced thousands for posterity.

Proud shoemaker Ramazan Baydan

Ramazan Baydan is a shoemaker from Istanbul and the owner of Baydan Shoes, the manufacturer of Zaidi’s pair. His factory shoe designer personally identified the shoes as Model 271 after repeated viewing of the footage. The designer was so convinced; he left no room for doubt, "How could I mistake my own model? It's like my child".  Riding the bandwagon of Model 271, Baydan renamed the model as the 'Bye Bye Bush' shoes. In an interview a year after the shoe-throwing incident, Baydan have hired 25 extra workers and have produced half a million pairs to cope with the demand for the iconic shoes.  His online website has been receiving orders from Europe, Asia, Australia and America. By the way it is going, there is no stopping in seeing 'Bye Bye Bush' from the streets of Baghdad to Bristol to Baltimore or even in Brisbane.  Despite its success, Bayden  innocently insisted that he was not aware of the Arab shoe-throwing tradition. There is no such culture in Turkey, apparently. However,  Bayden attributed another reason for the popularity of Zaidi's shoes: “It is a good shoe. It was not designed for aerodynamics but if you throw it well, it will fly well.”

Imelda and Marikina

Painting of young Imelda

­The "legacy" of Imelda Marcos’ shoes has always been a fixture of my social introductions in Australia. As soon as new acquaintances learn I'm from the Philippines,  they would right away drop Imelda Marcos and her shoe collection. ‘What happened to her shoes?’  they would curiously ask. 'Well, they are kept in my hometown's shoe museum, as a matter of fact', I would reply, smiling. Shoe talk, not surprisingly, is always a good ice-breaker especially among women. Even after twenty seven years when the Marcos family fled the Philippines (and eventually returned to politics), the interest about Imelda and her shoes never wanes.

But every now and then, there is a feeling of discomfort whenever Marikina is associated with Imelda Marcos. After all, I grew up during the Martial Law era, a period where systemic oppression was commonplace especially for those who opposed the Marcos family and their cronies. In the guise of the“New Society” every one was expected to be a ‘disciplined’ citizen. Government controlled media reinforced it with repeated reminders of the slogan, ‘For the country’s progress, discipline is necessary’. It was the time when television broadcasting stations started and ended the day with what became the most mocked and satirised song, “Bagong Lipunan”.  It was played over and over that even after forty years I can still sing the version that my siblings and I were warned not to perform in front of anyone outside our family. It was the time when midnight curfew was imposed and when progressive newspapers and media outlet were shut down. It was the time when thousands of people were arrested, imprisoned and countless others disappeared or paid the highest sacrifice and lost their lives. Now you know where all the discomfort is coming from.

Part of  Imelda's 800-pair collection

Although my hometown is known for producing quality shoes, tourism has never been a priority until the opening of the Marikina Footwear Museum in 2001.  The old building that became the museum has always been a landmark in the centre of Marikina and it is also surrounded by historical buildings. Alongside is the current cultural centre building and former mansion of Kapitan Moy, a wealthy businessman who started the shoe industry in Marikina; and across the road is the old Our Lady of the Abandoned Catholic Church. Nonetheless, the museum that now housed at least 800 of the 3000 pairs of Imelda Marcos’ shoes had an interesting claim to history. It was used as an arsenal during the Spanish period; a detention cell for General Macario Sakay, a resistance leader during the Filipino-American War; and a rice mill for the Tuason family, one of the wealthiest landlords in the country.

Museum entrance

Bayani Fernando, a wealthy engineer/developer and the then mayor of Marikina, conceived the idea of the shoe museum as early as 1998.  The project brief was to turn the museum into “a significant venue for nurturing the historical and cultural values of the shoe industry”. Sounds like a very noble idea for a town known for its shoes. However, as a publicity ploy, the forward-thinking mayor rode on the coattails of Imelda’s gown and allocated at least one third of the museum display with Imelda’s shoes. And to complete the publicity exercise, he invited Imelda to officially open the museum where she was quoted as saying:  “This museum is making a subject of notoriety into an object of beauty. They went into my closets looking for skeletons, but thank God, all they found were shoes, beautiful shoes.”  As any journalist would know, Imelda is a bottomless well when it comes to quotable quotes. She is the complete media ringmaster who always get attention whether she is doing a rendition of her signature song, ‘Because of you’; kissing the coffin of her frozen husband; or on this occasion, opening a small town museum.

Korean tourists excited over Imelda's shoes

When I visited the museum in January this year, there was a bus-load of Korean tourists excitedly taking photos and obviously awed by the collections. The ground floor also contains shoes from around the world and shoes from other famous people and celebrities. However, the tourists were not there for reasons other than to see the Imelda collection. Interestingly enough, I didn’t find any Marikina-branded shoes on display. A museum poster claims shoemakers from Marikina gave Imelda at least ten pairs of shoes every week during her time as the First Lady. But where are they? All I could see were famous foreign brands like Gucci, Pierre Cardin, Christian Dior, Ferragamo, Chanel and Prada. Are Marikina-made shoes not good enough for Madame Marcos’ discriminating taste? Was she being duplicitous when she told the media that the 3000 pairs are her way of supporting the local shoe industry? Hopefully, the museum will at least will serve as a shrine to constantly remind Filipinos of the Marcos' excessive lifestyle and corruption while most of its people live in abject poverty.

Not a single Marikina brand in sight

In 2007, Imelda’s doctor announced that his patient has to wear orthopaedic shoes because, “years of wearing ill-fitting shoes has taken its toll on Mrs Marcos”. Poetic justice? Maybe. The cycle of karma continued last year when curators of the National Museum in Manila discovered that the clothing and shoe items of the Marcos’s kept in locked storeroom were destroyed by water from leaking ceiling during storms. As a consequence, the remainder of Imelda’s shoes were damaged and eaten by termites. In retrospect, these clothing items and shoes may have lost their material worth, but their real value lies on conveying to Filipinos that we should not be complacent to the continuous political rise of the Marcos’s and their cronies. Accidentally, but of great importance nonetheless, we should never be complacent with termites and leaky roof in our National Museum.

Men in Heels

Feminists hate them and podiatrists warn you about them. But who would have thought that the much-maligned heeled footwear was instrumental to the victory of the Persian Empire against the fierce Ottoman army?  It all started when Shah Abbas, a Persian king of the Safavids Dynasty apparently had a gut-full of arrogance from its western neighbour who had taken some of their territories under the reign of his weak predecessors. To make his statement even more evident, the Shah cut a Turkish official’s beard and sent it to the Ottoman’s leader as a sign of defiance. And we all know how those men love their beards, right? Needless to say, such gesture aggravated the already strained relationship of the then powerful empires.

The Persian riding heels made from horse-hide

Expecting retaliation, the Shah consulted with his generals to plan military strategies and to ensure victory over the Turkish army this time around. The Shah had everything covered; his horsemen were made to wear footwear with heels during battles. Now, I’m no authority with horse riding. The last time I was on the back of the horse was when I was in Tagaytay a few years back. And you know those horse operators are so good in selling the ‘cowboy experience’ to unsuspecting tourist like me. But anyway, going back to my point. The horsemen wore heels not for fashion statement; the choice of footwear had practical application. The heels were worn to prevent their foot from sliding through the stirrup hence, giving them secure stance and precision while shooting arrows at their enemies. The use of heels during battles may have been a success that the Persian cavalry of 15,000 consequently claimed a decisive victory against the Turkish army in 1605 and the eventual return of their territories. The fateful battle became known in the Ottoman military history as “The War Against Heeled Horsemen”. True story.

These shoes are made for ruling

The victory associated with men wearing heels reverberated around Europe. For one, the nobility of France under Louis XIV took the footwear elevation on board and made the heels de rigueur to men of influence. So while the farmers toil the land and impossible tax rates were imposed on them, there was dandy Louis sashaying on his 4-inch heels with his mates from the Second Estate. He wore impractical footwear and probably had an amusing gait, but no one cared, he was the king! Last person who laughed saw his head rolled in a woven basket. But of course we knew that men of short stature like Louis, who stood at 5ft 4in, wore the heels to puff-up their physical authority in the same way Marie Antoinette puffed her famous beehive hairdo. The only difference is that Marie did her bouffant while telling the people of France to ‘let them eat cakes’.  

But Louis was married to a different woman, an equally forceful Francoise d’Aubigne. So as not to appear that Francoise wore the pants (or culottes) in their relationship, Louis asked his shoemaker to decorate his heels with scenes that depicted famous battles to make him a little bit, eherm, masculine. And while the shoemaker was busy with  heel decorating, Louis suggested that the heels would also look good if painted in red. From then on, red heeled footwear became a symbol of high status in Europe. Four hundred years later, Christian Louboutin, a French shoe designer, made red sole as his trademark signature, an attributed link to Louis, no doubt. Every year, thousands of women fork out big money to put their dainty feet inside his decadent skyscraper heels. But then, that’s another story.

Shoe Shame

I believe I hoard shoes by default. I was born and raised in Marikina, a town that has the coveted title of  'The Shoe Capital of the Philippines'. The same town where you can find the 'Biggest Pair of Shoes in the World' and a museum that displays the 800 of the 3000 pairs of shoes accumulated by the corrupt political matriarch, Imelda Marcos. On a personal level, my maternal uncles and aunties have owned small shoe factories for many years and I knew, all along, that I am bound by familial duty to uphold and protect the shoe industry by buying a pair or two or more when opportunities arise.

A small part of my stash

With over two hundred pairs of shoes sitting in my cabinets and many hidden spots in my house, I felt guilt and perhaps an avalanche of shame, when I saw a viral photo in Facebook. The haunting photo shows a pair of extremely weathered feet wearing sandals made of flattened soft drink plastic bottles held by bark strings. The image of the ashen feet triggers uncomfortable thoughts. How can I possibly be affected by my seemingly shallow concern of what pair of shoes to wear whenever I go out? While others become creative with plastic bottles out of necessity, I can't count the times when I have hidden boxes of new shoes inside the trunk of my car to avoid teasing from household member. Does living in Australia over two decades finally stole my idealism to live a socially responsible existence? In a dramatic moment of self-flagellation I cried:  'Oh shame, shame, shame is my middle name!'  Actually, it is Dionisio.

The image that haunts shoe hoarders

This Easter weekend seems to be an auspicious occasion to rectify my moral impropriety for keeping too many shoes, some of which I haven't even worn. I shall sort and put them in boxes and leave them in the care of churches that run Op Shops. And to the person wearing the plastic bottle sandals, you will always be in my mind whenever I feel the urge to gravitate to the shoe shops. If only you wore size 7 shoes and wouldn't mind wearing heels while working in the field or walking for miles to the safety of a refugee camp; I would send the shoe parcels to you in an instant.