The Sampaguita

Title

The Sampaguita

Creator

Castrence, Maria Pastrana

Language

English

Year

1935

Subject

Sampaguita--Juvenile literature.

Jasmine--Juvenile literature.

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

A short description of a Jasmine flower commonly known in the Philippines as Sampaguita.

Fulltext

12 THE YOUNG CITIZEN Foreign Customs A Banquet m Japan IF YOU take a boat in Manila After the tea the same girls bring and go to Japan, in eight days in hot napkins. These pieces of you will be there. Japan is a cloth serve to clean the visitors' beautiful country, and the Japanese faces. Then follows the third people are very industrious. Many course, the pea salad. The girls of their customs and habits are dif- prepare the main dish, the skiaki, ierent from ours. Let us go to a on a little gas stove in the middle Japanese banquet and watch their of the table. The dish consists of a quaint way of taking their meals. big piece of fat, green onions, beans, Food is served on a low table sugar, soya-bean sauce, and :finally where the members of the family and the visitors squat and cross their legs. This part of their cus· tom reminds one of our own old· i.neces of meat. These bits of meat <1re mixed with raw eggs in saucers. J nstead of spoons and forks, Che Japanese, like the Chinese, use fashioned way of eating. Some of chopsticks throughout the entire our poor families to this day reg· meal. ularly take their meals at dutangs. Conversation ·beginS rn be inter· Uulang 1s the Tagalog name tor csting. · 1 he educated Japanese loves the low dinner table. ln Japan the dmmg room, as any other room in the house, is perfectly clean and orderly because the wooden shoes the people wear LO talk aoout music, art, history, anct literature. 1 ney arc very pohce • ma patient. At cne.,. enct or cne amner a geish(I arnves. A geisha is a Japanese are removed before entering the !>mgmg ana ctancmg girl. ;::,ne i.s house. The room has very sim· ar.compameo Lly anocner woman pie decorations. 1t is almost bare with a sna mi·st!n or !uce. 1 h< ot color except tor the brighc·petal· woman with the lute sits aown Feb1·uary 1935 The Sampaguita By Dr. Maria Pastrana·Castrence THE sam. paguita is the national flower of the Philippines. 1 am sure you know how it looks like. It is white and small and very fragrant. At night when the flowers bloom, they give a cool sweet odor. New flowers blossom .ill the year. They come out most abundantly, however, in the dry months oI April and May. The buds of this flower are U'iually made into rosaries aild necklaces. This is done by pass· ing abaca fibers through the buds. llang·ilang flowers and roses are tied at the end of the necklaces. Young women are fond of wearing these garlands around their necks . The sampaguita plant is a slend· er, vine·like shrub. It is about two meters tall. It grows best when it i'i allowed to lean and climb on frnces. The leaves are oval. They are somewhat pointed at the ends. They are arranged in pairs which <i.:-e opposite to each other on the Jed tlowers on pots at the Jow cro1:1s-1eggea ana oegms to ptay on stem. It is said that the sampaguita is shde open and shut. tlesides an· Or rather skips, in her white cocton ;1 native of India. The ·Hindus windows. Uoors and wrnaows her msuumenc. 1 he geisha ctances, other small table at the corner, the socks m tront of the people in the call this flower balphul. It is named only piece of furniture in the room room. All the men clap their s;1mpaga in Pampango, manol in is the dining tables. Things have hands co beat measure with her V isayan, and sampaguita or kam· ,_:upot in Tagalog. In naming this dancing. ·Then, one of them invites fk,wer kampupot, the Tagalogs are no importance in a Japanese room: the people are everything. the geisha to dance a one.step with misled. The real hampupot is The typical banquet in that neighbor country of ours takes place him. another flo~er belonging to the After a round of dancing, the same family as the sampaguita. Some people think that the name in a simple but impressive manner. geisha and her companion with the Two girls in bright silk kimonos lute sit with the guests and drink enter the room. Their dresses ar~ ~ake, the favorite wine of Japan. beautifully decorated with figures. The sake is served steaming hot. They carry trays on which little The party ends in a quiet way, and cups of green tea and pieces of green the guests, happy and entertained, candy are placed. depart for home. immpaguita was taken from sampaga. Sampaga is defined by a Tag.1log dictionary as a kind of flower similar ro jasmine. Another book says that it is another name for flower. The old folks in the Tagalog re· (Please turn to page 21) F'eb1·ua1·y 1935 SAMPAGUITA ... (Continued from page 12) g;ons believe that the name sampaguita was taken from sumpa-kita, ·which means love's vow. It is said that in a small barrio a young man ,1 nd a beautiful maiden loved each other. Both were poor. One day the young man died. "'.'he beautiful maiden became very ~.1d. She had no money to buy roses or other expensive flowers for hi:r loved one. As she walked along the fields, she saw tiny, white flowers growing near bamboo fences. She gathered a cluster of these tt~)wers and scattered them a!I over the tomb of the young man. Those flowers were sampaguitas. But in those days the people had no name tor them. So they called these pretty blossoms sampaguitas in mrmory of the great love between the man and the woman. Do you know the best way to plant sampaguitas? In this country the seeds of sampaguitas do not mature and can not be used for planting. Instead of seeds, stems are used to grow new plants. First cf all. cut a healthy green stem v. hose buds are ready to sprout. Use a sharp knife in the cutting so that the tiny cells at the end of the ~tern will not be crushed and closed. \\'acer from the ground passes through these tiny cells into the p1ant. Plants, like animals, need v ater as well as food in order to hve. Before plJ.nting the stem, remove rhe old leaves from it. Let the roung leaves and the buds remain. Plant the stem in a box. Place it in the shade until new leaves b('gin to come out and new roots ti~·e developed. Give it enough \':ltCr. After you have removed the } oung plant from the box, transpiant it in a moderately rich soil. Be sure to watch it every day, especiJ!ly during the dry season. Flowers will appear in a month or two. l:' you want to have many, many fl-,wers, remove now and then old 'c<1ves and old stems from the plant. (Please turn to page 2 2) THE YOUNG CITIZEN Firearm Indemnity Contractors Custom House WE ISSUE BONDS OF Judicial Fidelity Miscellaneous Internal Revenue EVERY DESCRIPTION FIRE AND MARINE INSURANCE We are duly empowered by the Governrflent of the Philipp_ine Islands to write bonds, and by authority of the Governor General, our bonds are accepted by the courts, and all offices and bureaus f'lf the Philippine Government. We also issue Contractors' bonds for any of the Army and Navy posts of the United States in the Islands, as well as bonds for banks and commercial firms. f AR EASTERN SURETY & INSURANCE CO., (INCORPORATED) EDUARDO DEL ROSARIO TAN KIANG President and General Manager TELEPHONES' 2-30-74 2-29-16 615 TEODORA ALONSO P. 0. BOX 692 MANILA, P. I. The YOUNG CITIZEN The Magazine for the Young People of the Philippines Edited and published in and for the Philippines Not a Duplication of American and Foreign Magazines for the Youth COMMUNITY PUBLISHERS, INC. 405 P. Faura, Manila Sirs: lnclosed please find three pesos (P3.00) for one year's subscription to THE YOUNG CITIZEN. Name Town Pi·ovince . 21 21 COMMUNITY EDUCATOR IN TWO VOLUMES The English edition of all th~ Community Assembly lectures, corrected and edited under the supervision of the Bureau of Education. In connection with this publication, the Director of Education said: "This office is interested in having the lectures printed in order that they will reach as larg;e a group of adults as possible. We believe also that they can be used to a decided advantage a:; reference material in secondary sehools and in upper elementary grades as well. They also serve as i·eference material for teachers ')f efomentary science and other subjects in the primary grades. The lectur~s have been prepared by authors who n··e masters of their fields and we believe that the printed lectures will fill a real need... It is not custo~ary for this office to approve in advance 11ublication which is proposed. In this case, however, the material having Ueen prepared under the direction •)f the Bureau of Education, pre-approval of the publication will be gi.ven." No school and personal library in the Philippines can afford to b~ without copies of this work. It ts in a way an encyclopedia of useful information on agriculture, industry. health and sanitation. civics, government, business, economics, a-nd allied subjects. Nothing like this has yet been produced in this country. Every lecture or article appearing in this work is product of a recognized authority on the subject. We are offering now a price nf PZ.00 per volume of this work, or P4.00 for the complete set of two volumes, post~ge extra. Community :Publishers (INCORPORATED). 405 P. Faura. Ermita, Manila Tel. 5-76-86 THE YOUNG CITIZEN Liberal Commissions Money for the necessities ol life TO RETIRED SCHOOL TEACHERS' You can earn--easily, pleasantly--extra money representing THE YOUNG CITIZEN in your town. Selling experience is unnecessary. Give your prospects a few minutes t.o look through a copy of THE YOUNG CITIZEN and the publication sells itself It is useful. It is different. The wise parent should give his boy or girl a magazine appropriate for young minds. THE YOUNG CITIZEN is not just another magazine. It supplements school teaching. It i.s the first and only magazine published exclusively for young people in the Philippines. For particulars about this o/fe1·, write 01· call on ·us (If our office. Tl-IE YOUNG CITIZEN 405 P. Faura, Manila February 1985 SAMPAGUITA (Continued from page 21) Being our national flower, the s·:.mpaguita must be cultivated V1·!dely in our gardens and in our public parks. It represents the beautiful in our country. Our poets often speak of our young maidens as the sampaguitas in this garden of the East. ARE YOU COLLECTING .... (Continued from page I 6) Aside from the profits, stamp collecting is ·enjoyable. Is it not a pleasure to know that the colored squares of paper that you keep come from strange and distant countries? You will even be interested to increase your knowledge of geography. ,You would want to be acquainted with the countries and their people who used or still use the stamps in your collection. Do you know how to begin the hobby of st<imp-collecting? You may start with the postage scamps of our country. You need a stamp album in which to keep them. A good stamp album can be bought from any large store selling school supplies, toys, and stationery. The same store may have foreign stamps for sale. You can get foreign stamps free by writing to boys and girls in other countries. When your ·friends from far away send you copi:es from their collection. they expect you to send yours coo. One thing to remember when you start this hobby is never to paste down your stamps. Stamp mounts can be bought from any stamp dealer: These gummed strips of paper are used to hinge down the stamps to the album like the lid of a desk. Thus. when you want to remove the stamps and transfer them to another album, you cat easily do so without destroyini them.

Date Issued

I(1) February, 1935

Media