繪吾城而未信然：二十世紀西方馬尼拉書寫中的慾望、資本以及殘缺擬仿

In Our Image But Not Quite: Desire, Capital, and Flawed Simulation in Twentieth Century Western Writing on Manila

本文討論自1910年代初的瑪莉・費（Mary H. Fee）至1990年代末的毛祥青（Timothy Mo）等，將近一世紀的作家。這些作家將馬尼拉想像成美國城市的擬仿（simulation），儘管這樣的想像有許多不足之處。馬尼拉在試圖複製西方都市文明精髓的過程中，卻反倒成了對紐約或洛杉磯等城市粗劣、庸俗的仿製品。這一觀念一直迎合著東方主義的議程。這種議程源自菲律賓在國際權力結構中的從屬地位，及其作為美國文化商品重要進口國的角色。在1970和1980年間，被親美的（Americophile）馬可仕獨裁政權（Marcos dictatorship）所迷惑的西方東方主義作家們，試圖強調馬尼拉人民以內化（並因此被認定為歡迎）西方擬仿符碼的方式，來合理化他們對於馬尼拉「百事可樂殖民化」（Pepsicolonisation）現象的觀察。到了1990年代，馬尼拉近百年來的陰性魅力，在西方回憶錄作家和外國記者的筆下，已成為迎合西方陽性欲力（libido）的淫穢樂境。

This paper examines almost a century of writers, from Mary H. Fee in the early 1910s to Timothy Mo in the late 1990s, who imagine Manila as a simulation of an American city, albeit one with imperfections. The notion that Manila, in trying to replicate the best of Western urbanity, has instead been a crude, kitsch spoof of New York or Los Angeles, has always suited Orientalist agendas borne from the Philippines’junior status in international power structures and its role as a heavy importer of US cultural commodities. Transfixed by the Americophile Marcos dictatorship, Western Orientalist writers of the 1970s and 1980s seek to legitimize their observations about Manila’s“Pepsicolonisation”by emphasizing the ways in which Manileños have internalized—and are therefore supposedly welcoming towards—the codes of Western simulation. By the 1990s, an almost century-old model of feminine allure has been re-configured by Western memoirists and foreign correspondents who portray Manila as a salacious paradise catering to the Western male libido.