Journal articles on the topic 'Cookery, Philippine'

The purpose of this study was to determine the level of cookery competency among 4’Ps mothers in Magtuod, Davao City. Descriptive correlational design was utilized in this study. The data were obtained from the 4’Ps mothers in Magtuod, Davao City, Philippines. The questionnaire used in this study is from the books of hygiene and sanitation and Cookery or Culinary Arts and Science. Mean was used to determine the level of cookery competency of 4’Ps Mothers of Magtuod, Maa, Davao City. Mann-Whitney U Test and The Welch's ANOVA was used to determine the significant difference on the level of cookery competency of 4’Ps Mothers of Magtuod, Maa, Davao City. The Findings of the study revealed that the level of cookery competency of 4’Ps Mothers of Magtuod, Maa, Davao City in terms of food safety, menu composition and food preparation is moderate This means that the respondent moderately agrees with the embodied statement in each variable. Furthermore, there is no significant difference between food safety, menu composition, and food preparation when analyzed according to the age, number of children in the family and educational attainment of the respondents. This implies that food safety, menu composition, and food preparation are very important factors that needs to consider in preparing and cooking food for the family, thus the respondents of the study moderately understand its importance the result of this study is useful in developing a training program that may enhance and develop the knowledge and skills of the 4’Ps beneficiaries. Moreover, the result of the study shows that food safety, menu composition, and food preparation does not differ from the age, number of children in the family and educational attainment this indicates that knowledge and skills in basic food cooking can be learned and understand by different age generation even how many members in the family and educational attainment of the person.

The paper aimed to correlate the teachers’ performance and learning outcomes on grade 10 students’ first periodic test and the teachers' Performance as assessed by headteachers and students in relationships with the knowledge of the subject matter and pedagogical approaches such as constructivism, collaborative, integrative, inquiry-based and reflective approaches. The respondents were the schools offering the same strands on Information and Communications Technology, Cookery and Wellness Massage located in North Cluster, Division of Cavite Province in the Philippines. As to the knowledge of the subject matter and pedagogical approaches, the teachers' Performance was outstanding as assessed by headteachers. Amongst the pedagogical approaches, the integrative approach obtained the highest meanwhile. The reflective approach got the lowest mean. The data were analyzed with the descriptive method and documentary analysis on teachers’ performance and learning outcomes on students’ first periodic tests. These were also the means of obtaining the data requirements of this research. The findings revealed that the teachers' Performance was highly satisfactory as assessed by students. Amongst the pedagogical approaches, constructivism approach acquired the highest mean while reflective approach got the lowest mean. Moreover, there is a significant difference on teachers' Performance as assessed by headteachers and by students, and there are a significant relationship and weak positive correlation on teachers' Performance on learning outcomes of students' first periodic test and on the assessments of students as to knowledge of the subject matter and pedagogical approaches except for reflective approach which has a very weak positive correlation.

Virgin coconut oil (VCO) is known to have functional properties. It is important to maintain its quality, such as its sensory properties, especially during storage. This study evaluated the effects of elevated temperature storage (i.e., 35 °C, 40 °C, and 45 °C) on the aroma of three differently processed (i.e., fermented, centrifuged, and expeller-pressed) VCO. Stored samples were evaluated by eight (8) trained panelists at various sampling days, based on a Q10 of 2 for hydrolytic rancidity. Freshly prepared fermented and centrifuged VCO samples had predominantly acid and nutty aromas, respectively. Expeller-pressed VCO was perceived to have latik (aroma associated with cooked sweet, coagulated coconut milk) notes. Changes in the distinguishing aroma characteristic of each VCO sample exhibited polynomial behavior during storage in all elevated temperatures. The results imply that, during the initial stages of storage, aroma perception increased, followed by a decline, which may be due to the volatilization of the aroma compounds. Further, the rancid aroma intensity of samples surprisingly decreased, except for expeller-pressed VCO stored at 35 °C. This observation may also be attributed to the volatilization of the free fatty acids generated during storage. This should be investigated further, as this has an implication on the storage requirements of VCO.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a very common disease in the Philippines. Some of its main causes are hypertension and diabetes. This study is aimed to develop an optimal food dietary model from ninety (90) combinations of linear programming models for adult Filipino patients with Stage 1 or Stage 2 Chronic Kidney Disease. This process will search for the lowest possible cost of their daily food plan while satisfying their daily nutritional requirements. The diet contains six nutritional requirements which are protein, sodium, potassium, phosphorous, calcium and calories. The thirteen cooked food commodities are the following: pork, milkfish, chicken, tilapia, egg, white rice, roasted green beans with garlic, sautéed cabbage, stir-fry bitter gourd, coconut meat, avocado, mango, and oat bran. Using the selected linear programming model which consist of chicken, tilapia, white rice, roasted green beans with garlic, stir-fry bitter gourd, coconut meat, and oat bran, the minimized daily dietary plan cost for adult male is ₱134.23, and adult female with ₱133.2

Millet is a collective term referring to several small-grained cereal crop plants belonging to the grass family which are used as human food and is considered an important staple in several countries in the arid and semi-arid tropics. With the increasing appreciation concerning the benefits of millet, there has been an inclination towards their consumption. Literature on the millet production, processing, and introduction of millet in the Philippines has been minimal, even though a few millet species are successfully grown in the Visayas region. This study was conducted to develop an instant cereal product from millet. This includes the milling of millet to powder, cooked, and packed for the desired amount. Five treatments representing five different concentration levels of millet (80%, 65%, 50%, 35%, and 20%) and five different concentration levels of powdered skimmed milk (20%, 35%, 50%, 65%, and 80%). A single factor experiment arranged in a complete randomized design (CRD) was used in the study. The study results showed that significant differences were noted in the sensory attributes in terms of colour, aroma, taste, flavour, mouthfeel, and the overall acceptability of the millet instant cereal product. The treatment with a concentration mixture of 20% millet and 80% powdered skimmed milk (4 g millet and 16 g powdered skimmed milk for a 30 g serving size) was considered the most acceptable. Proximate analysis of the millet instant cereal product showed that it contains 4.53±0.21 moisture, 2.60±0.03 ash, 0.34±0.08 crude fibre, 3.95±0.05 fat, and 8.61±0.11 crude protein. Based on the prevailing market price of millet ($4/kg) and skim milk powder ($3.5/kg), Treatment 5 had the least partial cost with $0.071 per serving size of 30 g. It can be noted that the lesser the amount of millet in the formulation, the better was the acceptability of each sensory attribute as evaluated, and the cheaper it was to produce the millet instant cereal.

The date pineapple (Ananas comosus var. comosus) was introduced to Hawaii is not known, but its presence was first recorded in 1813. When American missionaries first arrived in Hawaii in 1820, pineapple was found growing wild and in gardens and small plots. The pineapple canning industry began in Baltimore in the mid-1860s and used fruit imported from the Caribbean. The export-based Hawaii pineapple industry was developed by an entrepreneurial group of California migrants who arrived in Hawaii in 1898 and the well-connected James D. Dole who arrived in 1899. The first profitable lot of canned pineapples was produced by Dole’s Hawaiian Pineapple Company in 1903 and the industry grew rapidly from there. Difficulties encountered in production and processing as the industry grew included low yields resulting from severe iron chlorosis and the use of low plant populations, mealybug wilt that devastated whole fields, inadequate machinery that limited cannery capacity, and lack of or poorly developed markets for the industry’s canned fruit. The major production problems were solved by public- and industry-funded research and innovation in the field and in the cannery. An industry association and industry-funded cooperative marketing efforts, initially led by James Dole, helped to expand the market for canned pineapple. Industry innovations were many and included: selection of ‘Smooth Cayenne’ pineapple as the most productive cultivar with the best quality fruit for canning; identification of the cause of manganese-induced iron chlorosis and its control with biweekly iron sulphate sprays; the use of mulch paper and the mechanization of its application, which increased yields by more than 20 t·ha−1; and the invention of the Ginaca peeler–corer machine, which greatly sped cannery throughput. Nematodes were also a serious problem for the industry, which resulted in the discovery and development of nematicides in the 1930s. As a result, by 1930 Hawaii led the world in the production of canned pineapple and had the world’s largest canneries. Production and sale of canned pineapple fell sharply during the world depression that began in 1929. However, the formation of an industry cartel to control output and marketing of canned pineapple, aggressive industry-funded marketing programs, and rapid growth in the volume of canned juice after 1933 restored industry profitability. Although the industry supported the world’s largest pineapple breeding program from 1914 until 1986, no cultivars emerged that replaced ‘Smooth Cayenne’ for canning. The lack of success was attributed in part to the superiority of ‘Smooth Cayenne’ in the field and the cannery, but also to the difficulty in producing defect-free progeny from crosses between highly heterozygous parents that were self-incompatible. Production of canned pineapple peaked in 1957, but the stage was set for the decline of the Hawaii industry when Del Monte, one of Hawaii’s largest canners, established the Philippine Packing Corporation (PPC) in the Philippines in the 1930s. The expansion of the PPC after World War II, followed by the establishment of plantations and canneries by Castle and Cooke’s Dole division in the Philippines in 1964 and in Thailand in 1972, sped the decline. The decline occurred mainly because foreign-based canneries had labor costs approximately one-tenth those in Hawaii. As the Hawaii canneries closed, the industry gradually shifted to the production of fresh pineapples. During that transition, the pineapple breeding program of the Pineapple Research Institute of Hawaii produced the MD-2 pineapple cultivar, now the world’s pre-eminent fresh fruit cultivar. However, the first and major beneficiary of that cultivar was Costa Rica where Del Monte had established a fresh fruit plantation in the late 1970s. Dole Food Co. and Maui Gold Pineapple Co. continue to produce fresh pineapples in Hawaii, mostly for the local market. All of the canneries eventually closed, the last one on Maui in 2007.

That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and wait.”1 1John Milton, Sonnet 19 The COVID-19 Pandemic has brought out most of the best (and some of the worst) in us. Much has been said, shared, even sung about health care workers as frontline heroes. Whether we indeed form the frontline, or man the last line of defense, due credit is being given to all “front-liners” – essential-service workers, drivers and delivery personnel, security guards, the military and police who literally serve in the trenches of this invisible war. Indeed, it is heartening to read the inspiring messages, hear the encouraging words, listen to the uplifting (sometimes funny) music and songs, witness the moving memes and cartoons, watch the refreshing dances and tributes, and receive the healing blessings and prayers on various media and social media platforms. Indeed, we are motivated to continue to work, so that others may safely stay home. Some of us have even been called upon to die, so that others may live. But so much less is and has been said about those who make our battle possible, who selflessly and silently took it upon themselves to clothe us with personal protective equipment, feed us, transport us, and even shelter us as we engage the unseen enemy. It is these heroes I wish to thank today. I certainly cannot thank them all, but I sincerely hope that those I do mention will represent the many others I cannot. Early on, my brother Elmer Lapeña and his Team Twilight group of “golfing enthusiasts and friends” (“company owners, executives, managers, engineers, technicians, entrepreneurs, and expats in the electronics, semiconductor, metalworking, automotive, aerospace, and packaging manufacturing industries”) responded to the call for better protection for frontliners with door-to-door deliveries of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to over 40 hospitals in the National Capitol Region, Rizal, Cavite, Laguna and Batangas including the Philippine General Hospital (PGH).2 On a personal note, Elmer and my sister-in-law Annette were closely monitoring our situation, going out of their way to obtain difficult-to-find PPEs for my wife Josie and myself, and our respective Departments of Family and Community Medicine (DFCM) and Otorhinolaryngology (ORL) at the PGH. For her part, our very dear friend Gigi Bautista Rapadas organized Project #HelpCovid19Warriors(HCW), to “go where the virus goes” and “help where help is needed and requested,” harnessing donations from ‘family, friends, and friends of friends” to procure PPE (as well as disinfectants, even canned goods) that were distributed “from Metro Manila to the provinces: Tuguegarao, Bataan, Bulacan, La Union, Nueva Vizcaya, Cavite,” moving from hospitals and health centers to correctional institutes.3 It is because of them that our PGH Department of ORL obtained very expensive but essential respirator hoods for added protection from aerosolized virus when conducting airway procedures, in addition to head-to-foot PPEs for use of the PGH DFCM in attending to PGH staff at the UP Health Service. Meanwhile, without fanfare, our dear friends Popot and Agnes (also my DLSU ’79 classmate) Lorenzana provided cooked meals for 1,000 persons daily. Working with on-the-ground social workers and with the 2KK Tulong sa Kapwa Kapatid Foundation, their Feeding Program “A thousand meals for poor communities” reached Payatas, Talayan, Pinyahan, Smokey Mountain, Maisan, Bagong Silang, Old Balara, Tatalon, Sta. Teresita, Sampaloc, and Sta. Ana, among more than 50 other communities. They generously responded to my wife’s request to provide meals for her community patients of the Canossa Health Center in Tondo. They have also provided meals for hospital staff of Amang Rodriguez Memorial Medical Center, the Medical City Hospital, Veterans Memorial Medical Center, Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital, Dr. Jose Rodriquez Memorial Hospital, Quezon City General Hospital, the San Lazaro Hospital, Valenzuela City Emergency and Lung Center of the Philippines. They continue this service which to date has provided for more than 32,000 meals, with corporate partners and private individuals joining the effort.4 Other De La Salle University (DLSU) College ‘79 batchmates who wish to remain anonymous obtained board approval of their endorsement to channel all the social development funds of their Maritime Multipurpose Cooperative for the next 3 years to the Philippine General Hospital. Adding their personal funds (and those solicited by their daughter and nephew), they took on the daunting task of sourcing and proving Powered Air Purifying Respirators (PAPRs) for our use. Another DLSU batchmate has been providing PPEs to various hospitals including PGH through their family corporation, Nobleland Ventures, Inc. Even their high school batch ’75 of Saint Jude Catholic School has donated boxes and boxes of PPEs to the PGH and other hospitals. Other DLSU ’79 classmates Bel and Bong Consing, and Timmy, Joy (and Tita Linda) Bautista have personally donated PPEs and funds for our COVID-19 operations, while classmate Fritz de Lange even sent over sweet mangoes for us to enjoy with our fellow frontliners. Generous donations also poured in from La Salle Green Hills (LSGH) High School ’76 friends Cris Ibarra, Norman Uy, Class 4E, and batchmates Tito and Pepper who wish to remain anonymous, as well as Menchit Borbon and her St. Theresa’s College Quezon City (STCQC) - Section 1 classmates. We even received overseas support from my LSGH 4B classmate Bingo Pantaleon from Yangon; my mom Libby, brother Bernie and Lilli, and friend Soyanto from Singapore, and sister Sabine from Germany. And how can we forget the regular frozen food deliveries of Jollibee chicken drumsticks and home-made Bulgogi and Tapa from our dear friends Ed and Aning Go? Perhaps the most touching gifts of all came from my eldest and youngest daughters Melay and Jica, who lovingly prepared and delivered much-appreciated meals to us, and middle child Ro-an, who with our son-in-law Reycay serenaded us with beautiful music that was appreciated by no less than Vice President Leni Robredo and featured by the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra.5 Their musical fund-raising campaign started with another haunting piece featuring my sister Nina and brother-in-law Kiko.6 As if that was not enough, Ro-an bakes cookies to raise funds for our ongoing COVID-19 operations at PGH, while Melay and Jica keep asking us what we want to eat next. These three count among those who have least, yet “put in everything ” from what little they have.7 These are but a few examples of those known personally to me- my family and friends. And there are many more. In the same way, every other doctor and front liner will have their own stories to tell, of friends, family even mere acquaintances who have come out of the shadows to help, to care, to share in whatever way they can, in fighting this battle with us. Let this be their tribute as well. Those of us who serve in the Philippine General Hospital have been called People Giving Hope.8,9 I believe that we do give hope because others give us hope in turn. I like to think that the inscription in the PGH lobby “They Also Serve Who Care and Share” honors these others in a special way who go over and beyond the call of duty. With apologies to John Milton, our heroes go way over and beyond “they also serve who only stand and wait.”

Jackfruit is the largest tree-borne fruit in the world. It is a widely cultivated and well-consumed fruit in the Philippines and other parts of South-east Asia. The seed makes up 15-18% of the fruit weight. However, the seeds are underutilized due to the lack of information about its nutritional and food product potential. Hence, the purpose of this research was to utilize the jackfruit seed as a bread spread that is nutritious, affordable, and acceptable in terms of consistency, texture, aroma and taste. The standardized recipe for the jackfruit seed spread was obtained after three trial formulations. The jackfruit seeds were cleaned and boiled for 30 minutes, then mixed with jackfruit rags, raw sugar, olive oil, lemon juice, lemon rind, turmeric powder, and salt in a blender until a paste-like consistency and smooth texture was achieved. The blended ingredients were cooked in low heat for 15 minutes to remove excess moisture, increase shelf-life, and attain a spreadable consistency. The final product was placed in sterile airtight jars. The jackfruit seed spread has the following characteristics: canary yellow color, smooth texture, lemony aroma, and sweet acidulous taste. One serving (21g) provides 82 kcal and is a source of potassium (59mg), phosphorus (8mg), calcium (26mg), magnesium (4mg), thiamin (0.02mg), riboflavin (0.02mg), niacin (0.2mg), and vitamin C (2mg). The product was rated as like very much by 30 evaluators from both genders using a nine-point hedonic scale. The jackfruit seed spread is affordable with a selling price of ₱58.00 for a jar of 200g net weight. The shelf-life is 30 days in refrigerator temperature. It was recommended that further studies be done on producing jackfruit seed spread for a large scale business in regions were jackfruit is widely cultivated.

Times have changed and seasons have changed. I remember with nostalgia the cool December mornings of my childhood, the predictable rains, the smell of clean air in open city spaces, and the sight of stars in the evening sky. There were fewer cars on the road then, travel time was much faster, and there were more rice fields to be seen by the road as one left the city limits. How different things are now. How amazingly fast have changes happened in one lifetime. Where the trees and cogon fields once were, buildings now stand. The city is immersed in a soup of soot and chemicals. The sky is grey and, sometimes, light brown. So many vehicles clog the city’s thoroughfares. My eyes tear with the chemicals in the air. The heat is worrisome. I have to deal with a chronic cough that improves with asthma medications or disappears whenever I leave the city for a cleaner environment. My sense of smell has greatly declined with the increased time and frequency of my driving through the city roads. Worst, the wonderful December mornings that heralded the coming of Christmas are gone… they have been gone for a long time. Is this what I want to bequeath to my children? Is this what you want for the generations to come? Are we going to fail as the previous generations have? What is it going to take to save our environment and avert climate change? Acting in numbers often gets results faster than acting alone. On my own, I have been trying to make a difference but, now, I look to the specialty society that I belong to as a vehicle for greater change. As more and more people are realizing the urgency of actions to save the environment that sustains us, I am sure that there are members in the Philippine Society of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery (PSO-HNS) who are willing to commit themselves to actions and lifestyle changes for a safe planet. The PSO-HNS is ideally positioned to make a difference. Spread throughout the country, we, its members, see patients who suffer from environmentally influenced and lifestyle influenced illnesses. Thus, we know what effects worsening climate conditions can have on health. We are in a position, not just to prescribe appropriate medications, but also to reach out and give meaningful advice. To give convincing advice to patients, we must start with ourselves. Seventeen years ago, I began a journey that I ask my colleagues to now take. To decrease garbage and lessen wastage, I began to segregate my garbage into dry paper products, tin and aluminum products, glass and recyclable plastic products, dry non-recyclable items, organic material, and wet non-recyclable materials. I would bring my newspapers, dry paper products, glass and plastic items, old rubber tires, and old car batteries to a junk shop. Later on, I would not have to do this anymore since garbage men and other individuals would come to the house to pick up the items that they could sell for recycling. The wet garbage went into my garden soil and into a composting drum. Even now, I re-use envelopes, gift wrappers, ribbons, and papers with print on only one side. I use baskets, not plastic bags when I buy my fruits and vegetables at the organic market. I bring my own stainless steel and glass food containers when I buy cooked food in the same market. To decrease the amount of chemicals that seep back into the environment, I refrain from the use of chemical sprays and artificial scents at home. I do not use chemicals in my garden. I don’t burn garbage. I don’t use diesel as a fuel. I regularly maintain my vehicles to keep them running efficiently. I plan my trips to lessen my contribution to air pollution. I support and patronize organic food growers as well as producers of natural products. I have greatly decreased my family’s use of plastic food containers. Every chance I have, I encourage people to minimize their use of chemicals, plastic and styrofoam. Knowing that the earth’s resources are used inefficiently with meat-centered diets, I eat more vegetables than meat. After all, it does not make sense to use so much land and energy to plant crops for feeding cows when we could use the land to plant vegetables and fruit-bearing trees for direct human consumption! As we develop ourselves into role models, it shall become easier to talk about environmental concerns to those around us. The PSO-HNS must make a stand on threats to the environment and the need to actively address the problem of climate change. It must make this stand public. Then it must affiliate itself with other groups that are committed to saving the environment. The Society could launch information campaigns on the interconnections of environment, lifestyle and otorhinolaryngologic health. It could tap its own members as speakers or initiate joint projects with other like-minded organizations. In the early 90’s, I organized a symposium in my hospital with air pollution as the topic. The speakers were specialists and non-doctors who were knowledgeable about the subject matter. Even at that time, the increased appreciation for environmental discussions was obvious with so many people in the audience. The interest that information campaigns would generate now would definitely be greater! The Society could raise funds and sponsor activities that increase environmental awareness and create positive results for the environment. How about raising money with a fun run or fun walkathon in the La Mesa Dam Nature Reserve? Why not a Doctors on Bikes event to underscore the significance of fuel-less travel? Or a Doctors Go Organic Festival? Perhaps a Mahabang Buhay sa Gulay activity? We could also do a Tulong sa Ilong, Tulong sa Kapaligiran mission wherein giving medical help is coupled with lectures on lifestyle and environment. We could collate and publish the contents of our environment and lifestyle lectures and sell these or give away to patients. We could incorporate environment games in our Society sportsfest during conventions. We could come up with PSO-HNS Recipes (For Health of Self and Health of Environment), Nose-Friendly Natural Aromatherapy Oils, Ear-Friendly Biodegradable Cotton Tips, and Recyclable Masks and sell these in our clinics, at conventions and in organic markets. In the PSO-HNS office as well as PSO-HNS conventions, the commitment to the environment must be evident. The use of long-lasting low wattage lights, recycled paper, natural soaps and scents, prudent use of electricity, and environmental posters on the walls will strengthen the Society’s image as a champion for the planet. During conventions, pharmaceuticals may be required to use only recyclable, non-glossy fliers and posters. These same companies may be reminded to refrain from giving away non-recyclable souvenirs. The convention bag should be made of natural, not synthetic, material. Certificates of attendance should be given only to those who need them. Clothing made from natural materials should be encouraged. Meals may focus more on salads, grains, vegetables and fruits and less on meats. After starting with ourselves and reaching out to others, the PSO-HNS could go international! Strengthened by local experience, the Society could embark on international pro-environment activities in coordination with otorhinolaryngology organizations in other countries. The PSO-HNS, having interests in health, science, and otorhinolaryngology, has great potential to be an agent for change. I hope my passion for nature shall become its collective passion too. This society is blessed with intelligent, highly skilled, creative, and similarly abled individuals capable of using its influence and resources to make a significant contribution towards saving the environment. My cool December mornings may never come back, but the PSO-HNS can still help avert the slide towards planet disaster!

Climate change induced sea-level rise (SLR) is on its increase globally. Regionally the lowlands of China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and islands of the Malaysian, Indonesian and Philippine archipelagos are among the world’s most threatened regions. Sea-level rise has major impacts on the ecosystems and society. It threatens coastal populations, economic activities, and fragile ecosystems as mangroves, coastal salt-marches and wetlands. This paper provides a summary of the current state of knowledge of sea level-rise and its effects on both human and natural ecosystems. The focus is on coastal urban areas and low lying deltas in South-East Asia and Vietnam, as one of the most threatened areas in the world. About 3 mm per year reflects the growing consensus on the average SLR worldwide. The trend speeds up during recent decades. The figures are subject to local, temporal and methodological variation. In Vietnam the average values of 3.3 mm per year during the 1993-2014 period are above the worldwide average. Although a basic conceptual understanding exists that the increasing global frequency of the strongest tropical cyclones is related with the increasing temperature and SLR, this relationship is insufficiently understood. Moreover the precise, complex environmental, economic, social, and health impacts are currently unclear. SLR, storms and changing precipitation patterns increase flood risks, in particular in urban areas. Part of the current scientific debate is on how urban agglomeration can be made more resilient to flood risks. Where originally mainly technical interventions dominated this discussion, it becomes increasingly clear that proactive special planning, flood defense, flood risk mitigation, flood preparation, and flood recovery are important, but costly instruments. Next to the main focus on SLR and its effects on resilience, the paper reviews main SLR associated impacts: Floods and inundation, salinization, shoreline change, and effects on mangroves and wetlands. The hazards of SLR related floods increase fastest in urban areas. This is related with both the increasing surface major cities are expected to occupy during the decades to come and the increasing coastal population. In particular Asia and its megacities in the southern part of the continent are increasingly at risk. The discussion points to complexity, inter-disciplinarity, and the related uncertainty, as core characteristics. An integrated combination of mitigation, adaptation and resilience measures is currently considered as the most indicated way to resist SLR today and in the near future.References Aerts J.C.J.H., Hassan A., Savenije H.H.G., Khan M.F., 2000. Using GIS tools and rapid assessment techniques for determining salt intrusion: Stream a river basin management instrument. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Part B: Hydrology, Oceans and Atmosphere, 25, 265-273. Doi: 10.1016/S1464-1909(00)00014-9. Alongi D.M., 2002. Present state and future of the world’s mangrove forests. Environmental Conservation, 29, 331-349. Doi: 10.1017/S0376892902000231 Alongi D.M., 2015. The impact of climate change on mangrove forests. Curr. Clim. Change Rep., 1, 30-39. Doi: 10.1007/s404641-015-0002-x. Anderson F., Al-Thani N., 2016. Effect of sea level rise and groundwater withdrawal on seawater intrusion in the Gulf Coast aquifer: Implications for agriculture. Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection, 4, 116-124. Doi: 10.4236/gep.2016.44015. Anguelovski I., Chu E., Carmin J., 2014. Variations in approaches to urban climate adaptation: Experiences and experimentation from the global South. Global Environmental Change, 27, 156-167. Doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.05.010. Arustienè J., Kriukaitè J., Satkunas J., Gregorauskas M., 2013. Climate change and groundwater - From modelling to some adaptation means in example of Klaipèda region, Lithuania. In: Climate change adaptation in practice. P. Schmidt-Thomé, J. Klein Eds. John Wiley and Sons Ltd., Chichester, UK., 157-169. Bamber J.L., Aspinall W.P., Cooke R.M., 2016. A commentary on “how to interpret expert judgement assessments of twenty-first century sea-level rise” by Hylke de Vries and Roderik S.W. Van de Wal. Climatic Change, 137, 321-328. Doi: 10.1007/s10584-016-1672-7. Barnes C., 2014. Coastal population vulnerability to sea level rise and tropical cyclone intensification under global warming. BSc-thesis. Department of Geography, University of Lethbridge, Alberta Canada. Be T.T., Sinh B.T., Miller F., 2007. Challenges to sustainable development in the Mekong Delta: Regional and national policy issues and research needs. The Sustainable Mekong Research Network, Bangkok, Thailand, 1-210. Bellard C., Leclerc C., Courchamp F., 2014. Impact of sea level rise on 10 insular biodiversity hotspots. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 23, 203-212. Doi: 10.1111/geb.12093. Berg H., Söderholm A.E., Sönderström A.S., Nguyen Thanh Tam, 2017. Recognizing wetland ecosystem services for sustainable rice farming in the Mekong delta, Vietnam. Sustainability Science, 12, 137-154. Doi: 10.1007/s11625-016-0409-x. Bilskie M.V., Hagen S.C., Medeiros S.C., Passeri D.L., 2014. Dynamics of sea level rise and coastal flooding on a changing landscape. Geophysical Research Letters, 41, 927-934. Doi: 10.1002/2013GL058759. Binh T.N.K.D., Vromant N., Hung N.T., Hens L., Boon E.K., 2005. Land cover changes between 1968 and 2003 in Cai Nuoc, Ca Mau penisula, Vietnam. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 7, 519-536. Doi: 10.1007/s10668-004-6001-z. Blankespoor B., Dasgupta S., Laplante B., 2014. Sea-level rise and coastal wetlands. Ambio, 43, 996- 005.Doi: 10.1007/s13280-014-0500-4. Brockway R., Bowers D., Hoguane A., Dove V., Vassele V., 2006. A note on salt intrusion in funnel shaped estuaries: Application to the Incomati estuary, Mozambique.Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 66, 1-5. Doi: 10.1016/j.ecss.2005.07.014. Cannaby H., Palmer M.D., Howard T., Bricheno L., Calvert D., Krijnen J., Wood R., Tinker J., Bunney C., Harle J., Saulter A., O’Neill C., Bellingham C., Lowe J., 2015. Projected sea level rise and changes in extreme storm surge and wave events during the 21st century in the region of Singapore. Ocean Sci. Discuss, 12, 2955-3001. Doi: 10.5194/osd-12-2955-2015. Carraro C., Favero A., Massetti E., 2012. Investment in public finance in a green, low carbon economy. Energy Economics, 34, S15-S18. Castan-Broto V., Bulkeley H., 2013. A survey ofurban climate change experiments in 100 cities. Global Environmental Change, 23, 92-102. Doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.07.005. Cazenave A., Le Cozannet G., 2014. Sea level rise and its coastal impacts. GeoHealth, 2, 15-34. Doi: 10.1002/2013EF000188. Chu M.L., Guzman J.A., Munoz-Carpena R., Kiker G.A., Linkov I., 2014. A simplified approach for simulating changes in beach habitat due to the combined effects of long-term sea level rise, storm erosion and nourishment. Environmental modelling and software, 52, 111-120. Doi.org/10.1016/j.envcsoft.2013.10.020. Church J.A. et al., 2013. Sea level change. In: Climate change 2013: The physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the fifth assessment report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Eds: Stocker T.F., Qin D., Plattner G.-K., Tignor M., Allen S.K., Boschung J., Nauels A., Xia Y., Bex V., Midgley P.M., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. Connell J., 2016. Last days of the Carteret Islands? Climate change, livelihoods and migration on coral atolls. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 57, 3-15. Doi: 10.1111/apv.12118. Dasgupta S., Laplante B., Meisner C., Wheeler, Yan J., 2009. The impact of sea level rise on developing countries: A comparative analysis. Climatic Change, 93, 379-388. Doi: 10.1007/s 10584-008-9499-5. Delbeke J., Vis P., 2015. EU climate policy explained, 136p. Routledge, Oxon, UK. DiGeorgio M., 2015. Bargaining with disaster: Flooding, climate change, and urban growth ambitions in QuyNhon, Vietnam. Public Affairs, 88, 577-597. Doi: 10.5509/2015883577. Do Minh Duc, Yasuhara K., Nguyen Manh Hieu, 2015. Enhancement of coastal protection under the context of climate change: A case study of Hai Hau coast, Vietnam. Proceedings of the 10th Asian Regional Conference of IAEG, 1-8. Do Minh Duc, Yasuhara K., Nguyen Manh Hieu, Lan Nguyen Chau, 2017. Climate change impacts on a large-scale erosion coast of Hai Hau district, Vietnam and the adaptation. Journal of Coastal Conservation, 21, 47-62. Donner S.D., Webber S., 2014. Obstacles to climate change adaptation decisions: A case study of sea level rise; and coastal protection measures in Kiribati. Sustainability Science, 9, 331-345. Doi: 10.1007/s11625-014-0242-z. Driessen P.P.J., Hegger D.L.T., Bakker M.H.N., Van Renswick H.F.M.W., Kundzewicz Z.W., 2016. Toward more resilient flood risk governance. Ecology and Society, 21, 53-61. Doi: 10.5751/ES-08921-210453. Duangyiwa C., Yu D., Wilby R., Aobpaet A., 2015. Coastal flood risks in the Bangkok Metropolitan region, Thailand: Combined impacts on land subsidence, sea level rise and storm surge. American Geophysical Union, Fall meeting 2015, abstract#NH33C-1927. Duarte C.M., Losada I.J., Hendriks I.E., Mazarrasa I., Marba N., 2013. The role of coastal plant communities for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Nature Climate Change, 3, 961-968. Doi: 10.1038/nclimate1970. Erban L.E., Gorelick S.M., Zebker H.A., 2014. Groundwater extraction, land subsidence, and sea-level rise in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. Environmental Research Letters, 9, 1-20. Doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/9/8/084010. FAO - Food and Agriculture Organisation, 2007.The world’s mangroves 1980-2005. FAO Forestry Paper, 153, Rome, Italy. Farbotko C., 2010. Wishful sinking: Disappearing islands, climate refugees and cosmopolitan experimentation. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 51, 47-60. Doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8373.2010.001413.x. Goltermann D., Ujeyl G., Pasche E., 2008. Making coastal cities flood resilient in the era of climate change. Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on flood defense: Managing flood risk, reliability and vulnerability, 148-1-148-11. Toronto, Canada. Gong W., Shen J., 2011. The response of salt intrusion to changes in river discharge and tidal mixing during the dry season in the Modaomen Estuary, China.Continental Shelf Research, 31, 769-788. Doi: 10.1016/j.csr.2011.01.011. Gosian L., 2014. Protect the world’s deltas. Nature, 516, 31-34. Graham S., Barnett J., Fincher R., Mortreux C., Hurlimann A., 2015. Towards fair outcomes in adaptation to sea-level rise. Climatic Change, 130, 411-424. Doi: 10.1007/s10584-014-1171-7. COASTRES-D-12-00175.1. Güneralp B., Güneralp I., Liu Y., 2015. Changing global patterns of urban expoàsure to flood and drought hazards. Global Environmental Change, 31, 217-225. Doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2015.01.002. Hallegatte S., Green C., Nicholls R.J., Corfee-Morlot J., 2013. Future flood losses in major coastal cities. Nature Climate Change, 3, 802-806. Doi: 10.1038/nclimate1979. Hamlington B.D., Strassburg M.W., Leben R.R., Han W., Nerem R.S., Kim K.-Y., 2014. Uncovering an anthropogenic sea-level rise signal in the Pacific Ocean. Nature Climate Change, 4, 782-785. Doi: 10.1038/nclimate2307. Hashimoto T.R., 2001. Environmental issues and recent infrastructure development in the Mekong Delta: Review, analysis and recommendations with particular reference to large-scale water control projects and the development of coastal areas. Working paper series (Working paper No. 4). Australian Mekong Resource Centre, University of Sydney, Australia, 1-70. Hibbert F.D., Rohling E.J., Dutton A., Williams F.H., Chutcharavan P.M., Zhao C., Tamisiea M.E., 2016. Coral indicators of past sea-level change: A global repository of U-series dated benchmarks. Quaternary Science Reviews, 145, 1-56. Doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2016.04.019. Hinkel J., Lincke D., Vafeidis A., Perrette M., Nicholls R.J., Tol R.S.J., Mazeion B., Fettweis X., Ionescu C., Levermann A., 2014. Coastal flood damage and adaptation costs under 21st century sea-level rise. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111, 3292-3297. Doi: 10.1073/pnas.1222469111. Hinkel J., Nicholls R.J., Tol R.S.J., Wang Z.B., Hamilton J.M., Boot G., Vafeidis A.T., McFadden L., Ganapolski A., Klei R.J.Y., 2013. A global analysis of erosion of sandy beaches and sea level rise: An application of DIVA. Global and Planetary Change, 111, 150-158. Doi: 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2013.09.002. Huong H.T.L., Pathirana A., 2013. Urbanization and climate change impacts on future urban flooding in Can Tho city, Vietnam. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 379-394. Doi: 10.5194/hess-17-379-2013. Hurlimann A., Barnett J., Fincher R., Osbaldiston N., Montreux C., Graham S., 2014. Urban planning and sustainable adaptation to sea-level rise. Landscape and Urban Planning, 126, 84-93. Doi: 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2013.12.013. IMHEN-Vietnam Institute of Meteorology, Hydrology and Environment, 2011. Climate change vulnerability and risk assessment study for Ca Mau and KienGiang provinces, Vietnam. Hanoi, Vietnam Institute of Meteorology, Hydrology and Environment (IMHEN), 250p. IMHEN-Vietnam Institute of Meteorology, Hydrology and Environment, Ca Mau PPC, 2011. Climate change impact and adaptation study in The Mekong Delta - Part A: Ca Mau Atlas. Hanoi, Vietnam: Institute of Meteorology, Hydrology and Environment (IMHEN), 48p. IPCC-Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014. Fifth assessment report. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. Jevrejeva S., Jackson L.P., Riva R.E.M., Grinsted A., Moore J.C., 2016. Coastal sea level rise with warming above 2°C. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113, 13342-13347. Doi: 10.1073/pnas.1605312113. Junk W.J., AN S., Finlayson C.M., Gopal B., Kvet J., Mitchell S.A., Mitsch W.J., Robarts R.D., 2013. Current state of knowledge regarding the world’s wetlands and their future under global climate change: A synthesis. Aquatic Science, 75, 151-167. Doi: 10.1007/s00027-012-0278-z. Jordan A., Rayner T., Schroeder H., Adger N., Anderson K., Bows A., Le Quéré C., Joshi M., Mander S., Vaughan N., Whitmarsh L., 2013. Going beyond two degrees? The risks and opportunities of alternative options. Climate Policy, 13, 751-769. Doi: 10.1080/14693062.2013.835705. Kelly P.M., Adger W.N., 2000. Theory and practice in assessing vulnerability to climate change and facilitating adaptation. Climatic Change, 47, 325-352. Doi: 10.1023/A:1005627828199. Kirwan M.L., Megonigal J.P., 2013. Tidal wetland stability in the face of human impacts and sea-level rice. Nature, 504, 53-60. Doi: 10.1038/nature12856. Koerth J., Vafeidis A.T., Hinkel J., Sterr H., 2013. What motivates coastal households to adapt pro actively to sea-level rise and increased flood risk? Regional Environmental Change, 13, 879-909. Doi: 10.1007/s10113-12-399-x. Kontgis K., Schneider A., Fox J;,Saksena S., Spencer J.H., Castrence M., 2014. Monitoring peri urbanization in the greater Ho Chi Minh City metropolitan area. Applied Geography, 53, 377-388. Doi: 10.1016/j.apgeogr.2014.06.029. Kopp R.E., Horton R.M., Little C.M., Mitrovica J.X., Oppenheimer M., Rasmussen D.J., Strauss B.H., Tebaldi C., 2014. Probabilistic 21st and 22nd century sea-level projections at a global network of tide-gauge sites. Earth’s Future, 2, 383-406. Doi: 10.1002/2014EF000239. Kuenzer C., Bluemel A., Gebhardt S., Quoc T., Dech S., 2011. Remote sensing of mangrove ecosystems: A review.Remote Sensing, 3, 878-928. Doi: 10.3390/rs3050878. Lacerda G.B.M., Silva C., Pimenteira C.A.P., Kopp Jr. R.V., Grumback R., Rosa L.P., de Freitas M.A.V., 2013. Guidelines for the strategic management of flood risks in industrial plant oil in the Brazilian coast: Adaptive measures to the impacts of sea level rise. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 19, 104-1062. Doi: 10.1007/s11027-013-09459-x. Lam Dao Nguyen, Pham Van Bach, Nguyen Thanh Minh, Pham Thi Mai Thy, Hoang Phi Hung, 2011. Change detection of land use and river bank in Mekong Delta, Vietnam using time series remotely sensed data. Journal of Resources and Ecology, 2, 370-374. Doi: 10.3969/j.issn.1674-764x.2011.04.011. Lang N.T., Ky B.X., Kobayashi H., Buu B.C., 2004. Development of salt tolerant varieties in the Mekong delta. JIRCAS Project, Can Tho University, Can Tho, Vietnam, 152. Le Cozannet G., Rohmer J., Cazenave A., Idier D., Van de Wal R., de Winter R., Pedreros R., Balouin Y., Vinchon C., Oliveros C., 2015. Evaluating uncertainties of future marine flooding occurrence as sea-level rises. Environmental Modelling and Software, 73, 44-56. Doi: 10.1016/j.envsoft.2015.07.021. Le Cozannet G., Manceau J.-C., Rohmer J., 2017. Bounding probabilistic sea-level projections with the framework of the possible theory. Environmental Letters Research, 12, 12-14. Doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa5528.Chikamoto Y., 2014. Recent Walker circulation strengthening and Pacific cooling amplified by Atlantic warming. Nature Climate Change, 4, 888-892. Doi: 10.1038/nclimate2330. Lovelock C.E., Cahoon D.R., Friess D.A., Gutenspergen G.R., Krauss K.W., Reef R., Rogers K., Saunders M.L., Sidik F., Swales A., Saintilan N., Le Xuan Tuyen, Tran Triet, 2015. The vulnerability of Indo-Pacific mangrove forests to sea-level rise. Nature, 526, 559-563. Doi: 10.1038/nature15538. MA Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005. Ecosystems and human well-being: Current state and trends. Island Press, Washington DC, 266p. Masterson J.P., Fienen M.N., Thieler E.R., Gesch D.B., Gutierrez B.T., Plant N.G., 2014. Effects of sea level rise on barrier island groundwater system dynamics - ecohydrological implications. Ecohydrology, 7, 1064-1071. Doi: 10.1002/eco.1442. McGanahan G., Balk D., Anderson B., 2007. The rising tide: Assessing the risks of climate changes and human settlements in low elevation coastal zones.Environment and urbanization, 19, 17-37. Doi: 10.1177/095624780707960. McIvor A., Möller I., Spencer T., Spalding M., 2012. Reduction of wind and swell waves by mangroves. The Nature Conservancy and Wetlands International, 1-27. Merryn T., Pidgeon N., Whitmarsh L., Ballenger R., 2016. Expert judgements of sea-level rise at the local scale. Journal of Risk Research, 19, 664-685. Doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2015.1043568. Monioudi I.N., Velegrakis A.F., Chatzipavlis A.E., Rigos A., Karambas T., Vousdoukas M.I., Hasiotis T., Koukourouvli N., Peduzzi P., Manoutsoglou E., Poulos S.E., Collins M.B., 2017. Assessment of island beach erosion due to sea level rise: The case of the Aegean archipelago (Eastern Mediterranean). Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 449-466. Doi: 10.5194/nhess-17-449-2017. MONRE - Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, 2016. Scenarios of climate change and sea level rise for Vietnam. Publishing House of Environmental Resources and Maps Vietnam, Hanoi, 188p. Montz B.E., Tobin G.A., Hagelman III R.R., 2017. Natural hazards. Explanation and integration. The Guilford Press, NY, 445p. Morgan L.K., Werner A.D., 2014. Water intrusion vulnerability for freshwater lenses near islands. Journal of Hydrology, 508, 322-327. Doi: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2013.11.002. Muis S., Güneralp B., Jongman B., Aerts J.C.H.J., Ward P.J., 2015. Science of the Total Environment, 538, 445-457. Doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.08.068. Murray N.J., Clemens R.S., Phinn S.R., Possingham H.P., Fuller R.A., 2014. Tracking the rapid loss of tidal wetlands in the Yellow Sea. Frontiers in Ecology and Environment, 12, 267-272. Doi: 10.1890/130260. Neumann B., Vafeidis A.T., Zimmermann J., Nicholls R.J., 2015a. Future coastal population growth and exposure to sea-level rise and coastal flooding. A global assessment. Plos One, 10, 1-22. Doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0118571. Nguyen A. Duoc, Savenije H. H., 2006. Salt intrusion in multi-channel estuaries: a case study in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions, European Geosciences Union, 10, 743-754. Doi: 10.5194/hess-10-743-2006. Nguyen An Thinh, Nguyen Ngoc Thanh, Luong Thi Tuyen, Luc Hens, 2017. Tourism and beach erosion: Valuing the damage of beach erosion for tourism in the Hoi An, World Heritage site. Journal of Environment, Development and Sustainability. Nguyen An Thinh, Luc Hens (Eds.), 2018. Human ecology of climate change associated disasters in Vietnam: Risks for nature and humans in lowland and upland areas. Springer Verlag, Berlin.Nguyen An Thinh, Vu Anh Dung, Vu Van Phai, Nguyen Ngoc Thanh, Pham Minh Tam, Nguyen Thi Thuy Hang, Le Trinh Hai, Nguyen Viet Thanh, Hoang Khac Lich, Vu Duc Thanh, Nguyen Song Tung, Luong Thi Tuyen, Trinh Phuong Ngoc, Luc Hens, 2017. Human ecological effects of tropical storms in the coastal area of Ky Anh (Ha Tinh, Vietnam). Environ Dev Sustain, 19, 745-767. Doi: 10.1007/s/10668-016-9761-3. Nguyen Van Hoang, 2017. Potential for desalinization of brackish groundwater aquifer under a background of rising sea level via salt-intrusion prevention river gates in the coastal area of the Red River delta, Vietnam. Environment, Development and Sustainability. Nguyen Tho, Vromant N., Nguyen Thanh Hung, Hens L., 2008. Soil salinity and sodicity in a shrimp farming coastal area of the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. Environmental Geology, 54, 1739-1746. Doi: 10.1007/s00254-007-0951-z. Nguyen Thang T.X., Woodroffe C.D., 2016. Assessing relative vulnerability to sea-level rise in the western part of the Mekong River delta. Sustainability Science, 11, 645-659. Doi: 10.1007/s11625-015-0336-2. Nicholls N.N., Hoozemans F.M.J., Marchand M., Analyzing flood risk and wetland losses due to the global sea-level rise: Regional and global analyses.Global Environmental Change, 9, S69-S87. Doi: 10.1016/s0959-3780(99)00019-9. Phan Minh Thu, 2006. Application of remote sensing and GIS tools for recognizing changes of mangrove forests in Ca Mau province. In Proceedings of the International Symposium on Geoinformatics for Spatial Infrastructure Development in Earth and Allied Sciences, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 9-11 November, 1-17. Reise K., 2017. Facing the third dimension in coastal flatlands.Global sea level rise and the need for coastal transformations. Gaia, 26, 89-93. Renaud F.G., Le Thi Thu Huong, Lindener C., Vo Thi Guong, Sebesvari Z., 2015. Resilience and shifts in agro-ecosystems facing increasing sea-level rise and salinity intrusion in Ben Tre province, Mekong Delta. Climatic Change, 133, 69-84. Doi: 10.1007/s10584-014-1113-4. Serra P., Pons X., Sauri D., 2008. Land cover and land use in a Mediterranean landscape. Applied Geography, 28, 189-209. Shearman P., Bryan J., Walsh J.P., 2013.Trends in deltaic change over three decades in the Asia-Pacific Region. Journal of Coastal Research, 29, 1169-1183. Doi: 10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-12-00120.1. SIWRR-Southern Institute of Water Resources Research, 2016. Annual Report. Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Ho Chi Minh City, 1-19. Slangen A.B.A., Katsman C.A., Van de Wal R.S.W., Vermeersen L.L.A., Riva R.E.M., 2012. Towards regional projections of twenty-first century sea-level change based on IPCC RES scenarios. Climate Dynamics, 38, 1191-1209. Doi: 10.1007/s00382-011-1057-6. Spencer T., Schuerch M., Nicholls R.J., Hinkel J., Lincke D., Vafeidis A.T., Reef R., McFadden L., Brown S., 2016. Global coastal wetland change under sea-level rise and related stresses: The DIVA wetland change model. Global and Planetary Change, 139, 15-30. Doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2015.12.018. Stammer D., Cazenave A., Ponte R.M., Tamisiea M.E., 2013. Causes of contemporary regional sea level changes. Annual Review of Marine Science, 5, 21-46. Doi: 10.1146/annurev-marine-121211-172406. Tett P., Mee L., 2015. Scenarios explored with Delphi. In: Coastal zones ecosystems services. Eds., Springer, Berlin, Germany, 127-144. Tran Hong Hanh, 2017. Land use dynamics, its drivers and consequences in the Ca Mau province, Mekong delta, Vietnam. PhD dissertation, 191p. VUBPRESS Brussels University Press, ISBN 9789057186226, Brussels, Belgium. Tran Thuc, Nguyen Van Thang, Huynh Thi Lan Huong, Mai Van Khiem, Nguyen Xuan Hien, Doan Ha Phong, 2016. Climate change and sea level rise scenarios for Vietnam. Ministry of Natural resources and Environment. Hanoi, Vietnam. Tran Hong Hanh, Tran Thuc, Kervyn M., 2015. Dynamics of land cover/land use changes in the Mekong Delta, 1973-2011: A remote sensing analysis of the Tran Van Thoi District, Ca Mau province, Vietnam. Remote Sensing, 7, 2899-2925. Doi: 10.1007/s00254-007-0951-z Van Lavieren H., Spalding M., Alongi D., Kainuma M., Clüsener-Godt M., Adeel Z., 2012. Securing the future of Mangroves. The United Nations University, Okinawa, Japan, 53, 1-56. Water Resources Directorate. Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, 2016. Available online: http://www.tongcucthuyloi.gov.vn/Tin-tuc-Su-kien/Tin-tuc-su-kien-tong-hop/catid/12/item/2670/xam-nhap-man-vung-dong-bang-song-cuu-long--2015---2016---han-han-o-mien-trung--tay-nguyen-va-giai-phap-khac-phuc. Last accessed on: 30/9/2016. Webster P.J., Holland G.J., Curry J.A., Chang H.-R., 2005. Changes in tropical cyclone number, duration, and intensity in a warming environment. Science, 309, 1844-1846. Doi: 10.1126/science.1116448. Were K.O., Dick O.B., Singh B.R., 2013. Remotely sensing the spatial and temporal land cover changes in Eastern Mau forest reserve and Lake Nakuru drainage Basin, Kenya. Applied Geography, 41, 75-86. Williams G.A., Helmuth B., Russel B.D., Dong W.-Y., Thiyagarajan V., Seuront L., 2016. Meeting the climate change challenge: Pressing issues in southern China an SE Asian coastal ecosystems. Regional Studies in Marine Science, 8, 373-381. Doi: 10.1016/j.rsma.2016.07.002. Woodroffe C.D., Rogers K., McKee K.L., Lovdelock C.E., Mendelssohn I.A., Saintilan N., 2016. Mangrove sedimentation and response to relative sea-level rise. Annual Review of Marine Science, 8, 243-266. Doi: 10.1146/annurev-marine-122414-034025.

This study aimed to determine the perceptions of the Grade 11-TVL Cookery students in blended distance learning through personalized and competency-based learning approaches, and the challenges of this modality. More so, it determined whether these perceptions had significant relationships to the development of hard and soft skills, and cognitive skills in Cookery. The descriptive – correlational method of research was utilized using survey questionnaire, rubrics, and summative test. The statistical tools used were mean, standard deviation, frequency, and percentage. Pearson r was used to determine the significant relationships among the given variables. Results disclosed that there were moderate to strong positive and significant relationship between the variables except to the correlation between personalized learning and cognitive skills. Parallel to this, there were also moderate strong positive and significant relationship between the availability and use of educational technology and the skills of the students. However, the perception on the challenges in terms of instructional materials is significantly related to communication as a measure of soft skills, while the social support is significantly related to the level of hard and soft skills, but not to cognitive skills. Keywords: personalized, competency-based, cookery, hard and soft skills, Philippines

Banana (Musa sp.) leaf is widely used as a food contact material (FCM) in the Philippine foodservice industry. In spite of its usage in serving and wrapping various raw and cooked foods, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) general guidelines on FCMs exempted its application to banana leaf (BL) and other natural materials that have not undergone chemical modification. This study documented the knowledge and practices in the utilization of BL in foodservice establishments within the top five local government units (LGUs) in Metropolitan Manila, Philippines. Key informant interviews using a semi-structured questionnaire and participant observation were employed in data collection. Data were analyzed using the constant comparison method. Results showed that despite technological and scientific advancement, the BL has remained a functional FCM in the foodservice industry due to its perceived ethnic, sensory, and environmental impacts. The BL specifications – including leaf maturity, dimensions, integrity, cleanliness, and varietal source – are related to its functionalities as FCM. Generally, preparation methods employed by foodservice establishments include wiping, washing, and heating. These methods of preparation were found to be significantly associated with types of food products. The efficacy of these preparation methods needs to be evaluated due to possible leaf contamination and deterioration due to improper handling and storage prior to usage. Furthermore, the foodservice industry identified BL supply, price, and quality issues that should be properly addressed. As an FCM, BL influences final food product quality and safety. Thus, the utilization of BL by other actors within the foodservice supply chain should be further studied to provide baseline information for the establishment of Philippine standards for BL as an FCM.

Abstract A new distribution map is provided for Bipolaris cookei (Sacc.) Shoemaker. Dothideomycetes: Pleosporales: Pleosporaceae. Hosts: sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) and Johnson grass (S. halepense). Information is given on the geographical distribution in Europe (Serbia), Asia (Bangladesh, China, Gansu, Liaoning, India, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Iran, Israel, Japan, Korea Republic, Malaysia, Peninsular Malaysia, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Yemen), Africa (Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, Togo, Uganda and Zimbabwe), North America (USA, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Texas and Virginia), Central America and Caribbean (Cuba), South America (Argentina, Bolivia, Guyana and Venezuela) and Oceania (Australia, Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Wallis and Futuna).

Abstract A new distribution map is provided for Phyllosticta musarum (Cooke) van der Aa. Dothideomycetes: Botryosphaeriales: Phyllostictaceae. Hosts: banana (Musa spp.). Information is given on the geographical distribution in Asia (India, Tamil Nadu, Malaysia, Peninsular Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand).

Abstract A new distribution map is provided for Phyllachora viventis (Cooke) Sacc. Hosts: Dalbergia spp. Information is given on the geographical distribution in AFRICA, Tanzania, Zambia, ASIA, Burma, India, Bihar, Karnataka, Maharastra, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Nepal, Philippines.

The COVID 19 pandemic causes a sudden change in human and organizational activities, especially the academic institutions. Yet, it offers an opportunity to re-engineer and restructure the roadmap of education to effectively and efficiently continue to perform the constitutional mandate of delivering quality and accessible education. Thus, a qualitative study of teaching cookery courses in a state-owned basic education institution was conducted to explore and describe the perspectives of teachers in modular learning. There were five (5) participants in the study selected using the data saturation sampling method. The main instrument of the study is the researcher using the interview method. The data were analyzed using the Colaizzi method of analyzing qualitative data. The findings revealed four (4) significant themes, including “Teachers’ challenges in preparing modules, “Challenges of teachers’ in the retrieval of the modules, “challenges of teachers in monitoring and communicating with students, and “teachers’ preparation of the modules. It causes many barriers and hindrances in the teaching and learning process, particularly in modular learning where teachers face difficulty in preparing, distributing, and retrieving modules and even communicating and monitoring with students. Thus, it causes physical, mental, and emotional fatigue to the teachers. It is recommended in the study that the government and academic institutions should hire more non-teaching personnel to prepare the modules and at the same must hire education experts for the development of the modules. Lastly, train and retrain teachers and faculty in human relations to improve handling and dealing with student issues and challenges.

Papaya (Carica papaya) is one of the most popular fruit grown in tropical and sub-tropical regions particularly in the Philippines. It is highly available in the local markets and can also be grown in home backyards. Ripe papaya is fleshy, juicy, and usually consumed raw while the unripe or the green fruit can be cooked or processed. In the Philippines, pickling is the most popular method in utilizing green fruit to produce pickled papaya or locally known as “atchara”. Pickled green papaya is a favorite side dish for viands like fried fish, pork, chicken, and the like. As a result, this study is conducted to produce a highly acceptable pickled green papaya as a side dish or as a souvenir or token for visiting tourists in district. Two treatments of brine solution, treatment I (uncooked pickling solution) and treatment II (cooked pickling solution) were performed in producing pickled green papaya. Pickled samples from the two treatments were subjected to sensory evaluation and results showed that taste and aroma for both treatments have no significant differences (P≤0.05). However, with regards to color and texture, treatment II obtained a higher scores (8.17 and 8.27, respectively) than treatment I (7.47 and 7.47, respectively). Proximate analysis of treatment II showed a pH of 3.7, 0.30 g/100g total fat, 0.50 g/100g protein, 0.40 g/100g total ash content. KEYWORDS: Pickled papaya, pickling solution, pH

Abstract A new distribution map is provided for Pseudocercospora purpurea (Cooke) Deighton. Fungi: Ascomycota: Capnodiales. Hosts: avocado (Persea americana). Information is given on the geographical distribution in Asia (India, Sikkim, Japan, Philippines), Africa (Cameroon, Congo Democratic Republic, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Kenya, South Africa), North America (Mexico, USA, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi), Central America and Caribbean (Bermuda, Dominica, El Salvador, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, United States Virgin Islands), South America (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Sao Paulo, Chile, Guyana, Peru, Venezuela), Oceania (Palau [Belau]).

Abstract A new distribution map is provided for Sphaerophragmium acaciae (Cooke) Magnus. Hosts: Albizia lebbek. Information is given on the geographical distribution in AFRICA, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Nigeria, Reunion, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Uganda, French, West Africa, ASIA, Bangladesh, China, Guangxi, Fujian, Guangdong, Hong Kong, India, Assam, Karnataka, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Japan, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, AUSTRALASIA & OCEANIA, Australia, New Caledonia, NORTH AMERICA, Mexico, USA, CENTRAL AMERICA & WEST INDIES, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, SOUTH AMERICA, Brazil, Rio de Janeiro.

Descriptive sensory analysis was implemented to characterize 24- and 36-h smoked samples of pork delicacies (kinuday) native to the Ibaloy indigenous people in the Cordillera, Philippines. Twenty-four (24) English lexicons and their corresponding local terms were generated by eight trained panelists to describe kinuday samples. Characteristics of samples smoked for 24- and 36-h smoking duration in terms of color, texture, visual dryness, aroma, saltiness, and smoky flavor were compared. Smoking duration modifies the organoleptic characteristics of kinuday – particularly its uncooked outer skin and lean color, the cooked inner lean color, saltiness, and smoky flavor. When color is analyzed objectively, the color of skin, fat, and lean considering smoking duration as a factor is very distinct, distinct, and with a slight difference, respectively.

Cercospora leaf spot disease caused by Cercospora citrullina Cooke is one of the most important diseases of bitter gourd. Effective fungicide against the causal pathogen has not been reported. This study was conducted at the Plant Pathology Laboratory of the Crop Protection Cluster, College of Agriculture, University of the Philippines Los Baños, College, Laguna to (a) determine the sensitivity of C. citrullina Cooke to different fungicides, and (b) determine the most effective fungicide against C. citrullina. Four fungicides, namely, benomyl (0.63 g a.i. L-1), chlorothalonil (1.41 g a.i. L-1), copper oxychloride (0.63 g a.i. L-1) and mancozeb (3 g a.i. L-1) were tested against the pathogen. Under laboratory condition, all conidia of C. citrullina did not germinate when treated with the test fungicides. Under screen house condition, the fungicides also effectively suppressed the development of the disease owing to low number and non-increasing of lesions in the leaves of bitter gourd. All test fungicides were very effective against leaf spot disease causing pathogen of bitter gourd.

This study aims to assess the significant improvement of the academic performance of Grade 12 learners in Cookery subject. This study utilized a one shot case study. The teacher-researchers introduced the interventions that are implemented inside the classroom; a. Care Tech Project; b. One Hand Project; c. Play Magic Box Project; d. Friendly Helping Project; e. Lend a Gift Project; f. Celebrity of the Weeks Project. A total of 25 Grade 12 TVL learners of Tabgon High School, Goa, Camarines Sur, Philippines who were enrolled in the class of teacher-researchers for the school year 2018-2019. The statistical tools used were Frequency and Percentage Distribution, Weighted Mean, and Mean for Dependent Samples to determine the significant improvement between 2nd semester midterm and final grade mean rating academic performance of the students. The baseline data of this study obtained from midterm grades of the learners. As reflected in the results the midterm mean rating of the male learners is 84.80% which increased to 88% which has significant difference of 3.20 or High and for female learners’ midterm rating is 88.85% which increased to 92.10% which 3.25 or High is the significant difference. That immense increased in their mean rating was made after the implementation of interventions. Based on the level of acceptability of the interventions implemented, all of the various interventions garnered Highly Acceptable with grand weighted mean rating of 4.83. It implies that Project KRIS interventions provided a big impact to the learners. Thus, that Project KRIS helped the learners that improved and enhanced their performances with its various interventions.

Food waste has emerged as one of the focus areas in sustainability research. At the Ateneo de Manila University, previous studies have found that food waste is composed mainly of rice. This study, therefore, analyzed cafeteria rice systems in the university through a material flow analysis (MFA) to identify key factors for formulating effective rice waste reduction techniques and then applied the results toward developing system dynamics (SD) models as tools for decision-making. The MFA found that the total mass of produced known rice waste was 49.48 kg/d. The largest sources of rice wastes were the upstream processes of the cafeteria rice system involving the cooking and serving of rice. The SD model developed for one cafeteria found that the service stage was the largest source of rice waste. The main factor influencing service waste generation was the surplus of cooked rice. A scenario was simulated in which the amount of rice used in additional batches cooked was minimized, yielding a substantial decrease in the mass of service waste and lost revenue. Not only does this research provide baseline information that enables the university to enhance sustainable consumption and food waste minimization efforts, but it also contributes to the data pool for rice wastage in the Philippine and Southeast Asian contexts. Furthermore, results indicate a need to re-strategize rice waste campaigns that focus on consumption when much can be done in the preparation and service stages. Collaborating with cafeteria management to improve efficiency in the kitchen is key in addressing the overall rice waste problem. Downstream, consumer-focused interventions targeting changes in attitudes and behaviors must be complemented by upstream changes in operations and management approaches to support both a structural and cultural transformation for sustainability.

Background. Rice is the staple food in the Philippines, and the major carbohydrate source that greatly affect the weight, blood glucose and triglyceride levels of the population. Objective. The objective of the researchers was to determine the effects of white, brown and red rice varieties on weight, blood glucose and triglyceride levels in rats. Methods. Sprague Dawley rats were fed with diets of cooked rice of different rice variety; white, brown and red. Weight was measured using a digital laboratory weighing scale. Blood glucose and triglyceride levels were measured by glucometer (OneTouch®) and Humalyzer Primus®, respectively. Results. Rats fed with white rice had the greatest increase in weight and blood glucose levels, and red rice had the least increase. For the postprandial blood glucose test, all three rice groups reached their peak blood glucose level at 30 minutes, with white rice having the greatest value, followed by brown rice, and lastly, red rice. Rats fed with red rice had the greatest decrease in triglyceride level. Conclusion. In this study, consumption of white rice contributes to weight gain, blood glucose level increase and minimal triglyceride level change compared to brown and red rice.

Objective: To investigate the effects of heating on phytonutrients of cooked Vigna unigulculata. Methods: The consequences of heating on V. unigulculata were investigated by phytochemical analysis (qualitatively and quantitatively), alongside analysis of proximate contents. Five phytochemicals were quantified and nutrient contents determined. Results: Results revealed that phytochemicals in raw sample were significantly (p<0.05) higher than cooked sample. Alkaloids, saponins and flavonoids in raw black-eyed bean (RBEB) were significantly (p<0.05) higher than cooked black-eyed bean (CBEB). Meanwhile, apart from crude fat content, others (carbohydrate content, ash content, protein and fiber content) of CBEB V. unigulculata were significantly (p < 0.05) higher than RBEB V. unigulculata. Conclusions: Cooking by heating influenced a reduction of phytochemicals but an increase in proximate content in V. unigulculata. Peer Review History: Received 11 May 2021; Revised 18 June; Accepted 29 June, Available online 15 July 2021 Academic Editor: Dr. Asia Selman Abdullah, Al-Razi university, Department of Pharmacy, Yemen, asia_abdullah65@yahoo.com UJPR follows the most transparent and toughest ‘Advanced OPEN peer review’ system. The identity of the authors and, reviewers will be known to each other. This transparent process will help to eradicate any possible malicious/purposeful interference by any person (publishing staff, reviewer, editor, author, etc) during peer review. As a result of this unique system, all reviewers will get their due recognition and respect, once their names are published in the papers. We expect that, by publishing peer review reports with published papers, will be helpful to many authors for drafting their article according to the specifications. Auhors will remove any error of their article and they will improve their article(s) according to the previous reports displayed with published article(s). The main purpose of it is ‘to improve the quality of a candidate manuscript’. Our reviewers check the ‘strength and weakness of a manuscript honestly’. There will increase in the perfection, and transparency. Received file: Reviewer's Comments: Average Peer review marks at initial stage: 5.0/10 Average Peer review marks at publication stage: 7.5/10 Reviewer(s) detail: Dr. Dennis Amaechi, MrsFoluBabade Mini Estate , Flat 5 by Old Soldiers Quarter, Sabongari/Bwari, Abuja- Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria. amaechitoexcel@yahoo.com Dr. Nagalingam Varnakulenthiren, Siddha Medicine, Unit of Siddha Medicine, Trincomalee Campus, EUSL, Sri Lanka, drvarnan@gmail.com Julie Ann S. Ng, Blk 18 Lot 6 Grandville 3 Subdivision Mansilingan, Bacolod City, Philippines. julieann_ng@yahoo.com Similar Articles: A REVIEW: EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE TO ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY AND HCN LEVEL IN CASSAVA (MANIHOT ESCULENTA CRANTZ) LEAVES HEATING EFFECT ON PHYTOCHEMICAL AND PROXIMATE CONTENTS OF COOKED AQUEOUS EXTRACT OF PHASEOLUS VULGARIS (KIDNEY BEANS)

Abstract A new distribution map is provided for Puccinia purpurea Cooke. Hosts: Sorghum spp. Information is given on the geographical distribution in Africa, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burundi, Canary Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Madeira, Malawi, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, Reunion, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zaire, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Asia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, China, Hong Kong, India, Madras, Bombay, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Mysore, Indonesia, Java, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Kampuchea, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam, USSR, Russian Far East, Yemen Arab Republic, Australasia & Oceania, Australia, New South Wales, Queensland, Northern Territory, Fiji, Hawaii, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Europe, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, North America, Bermuda, Mexico, USA, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, West Virginia, New Mexico, Central America & West Indies, Barbados, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, St Christopher-nevis, St Vincent & Grenadines, Salvador, Trinidad & Tobago, South America, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Pernambuco, Sao Pualo, Piaui, Chile, Colombia, Guyana, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela.

Abstract A new distribution map is provided for Pestalotiopsis palmarum (Cooke) Steyaert. Sordariomycetes: Amphisphaeriales: Pestalotiopsidaceae. Hosts: Palmae, especially coconut (Cocos nucifera) and oilpalm (Elaeis guineensis). Information is given on the geographical distribution in Europe (Cyprus, Italy, Sicily and Ukraine), Asia (Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, British Indian Ocean Territory, China, Guangdong, Hainan, Hong Kong, India, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Indonesia, Japan, Korea Republic, Laos, Malaysia, Sabah, Sarawak, Maldives, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam), Africa (Benin, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda and Zambia), North America (Mexico, USA, California, Florida and South Carolina), Central America and Caribbean (Barbados, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago and United States Virgin Islands), South America (Argentina, Brazil, Bahia, Ceara, Paraiba, Pernambuco, Sergipe, Colombia, Guyana, Suriname and Venezuela) and Oceania (American Samoa, Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Wallis and Futuna).

Many films of the Australian New Wave (or Australian film renaissance) of the 1970s and 1980s can be defined as gothic, especially following Jonathan Rayner’s suggestion that “Instead of a genre, Australian Gothic represents a mode, a stance and an atmosphere, after the fashion of American Film Noir, with the appellation suggesting the inclusion of horrific and fantastic materials comparable to those of Gothic literature” (25). The American comparison is revealing. The 400 or so film productions of the Australian New Wave emerged, not in a vacuum, but in an increasingly connected and inter-mixed international space (Godden). Putatively discrete national cinemas weave in and out of each other on many levels. One such level concerns the reception critics give to films. This article will drill down to the level of the reception of two examples of Australian gothic film-making by two well-known American critics. Rayner’s comparison of Australian gothic with American film noir is useful; however, it begs the question of how American critics such as Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris influentially shaped the reception of Australian gothic in America and in other locations (such as Australia itself) where their reviews found an audience either at the time or afterwards. The significance of the present article rests on the fact that, as William McClain observes, following in Rick Altman’s footsteps, “critics form one of the key material institutions that support generic formations” (54). This article nurtures the suggestion that knowing how Australian gothic cinema was shaped, in its infancy, in the increasingly important American market (a market of both commerce and ideas) might usefully inform revisionist studies of Australian cinema as a national mode. A more nuanced, globally informed representation of the origins and development of Australian gothic cinema emerges at this juncture, particularly given that American film reviewing in the 1970s and 1980s more closely resembled what might today be called film criticism or even film theory. The length of individual reviews back then, the more specialized vocabulary used, and above all the tendency for critics to assume more knowledge of film history than could safely be assumed in 2014—all this shows up the contrast with today. As Christos Tsiolkas notes, “in our age… film reviewing has been reduced to a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down” (56)! The 1970s and 1980s is largely pre-Internet, and critical voices such as Kael and Sarris dominated in print. The American reviews of Australian gothic films demonstrate how a different consciousness suffuses Kael’s and Sarris’s engagements with “Antipodean” (broadly Australian and New Zealand) cinema. Rayner’s locally specific definition of Australian gothic is distorted in their interpretations of examples of the genre. It will be argued that this is symptomatic of a particular blindspot, related to the politics and art of place, in the American reception of Wake in Fright (initially called Outback in America), directed by the Canadian Ted Kotcheff (1971) and The Year of Living Dangerously, directed by Peter Weir (1982). Space and argument considerations force this article to focus on the reviews of these films, engaging less in analysis of the films themselves. Suffice to say that they all fit broadly within Rayner’s definition of Australian gothic cinema. As Rayner states, three thematic concerns which permeate all the films related to the Gothic sensibility provide links across the distinctions of era, environment and character. They are: a questioning of established authority; a disillusionment with the social reality that that authority maintains; and the protagonist’s search for a valid and tenable identity once the true nature of the human environment has been revealed. (25) “The true nature of the human environment….” Here is the element upon which the American reviews of the Australian gothic founder. Explicitly in many films of this mode, and implicitly in nearly all of them, is the “human environment” of the Australian landscape, which operates less as a backdrop and more as a participating element, even a character, in the drama, saturating the mise-en-scène. In “Out of Place: Reading (Post) Colonial Landscapes as Gothic Space in Jane Campion’s Films,” Eva Rueschmann quotes Ross Gibson’s thesis from South of the West: Postcolonialism and the Narrative Construction of Australia that By featuring the land so emphatically… [Australian] films stake out something more significant than decorative pictorialism. Knowingly or unknowingly, they are all engaging with the dominant mythology of white Australia. They are all partaking of the landscape tradition which, for two hundred years, has been used by white Australians to promote a sense of the significance of European society in the “Antipodes”. (Rueschmann) The “emphatic” nature of the land in films like Wake in Fright, Mad Max 2 and Picnic at Hanging Rock actively contributes to the “atmosphere” of Australian gothic cinema (Rayner 25). This atmosphere floats across Australian film and literature. Many of the films mentioned in this article are adaptations from books, and Rayner himself stresses the similarity between Australian gothic and gothic literature (25). Significantly, the atmosphere of Australian gothic also floats across the fuzzy boundary between the gothic and road movies or road literature. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior is obviously a road movie as well as a gothic text; so is Wake in Fright in its way; even Picnic at Hanging Rock contains elements of the road movie in all that travelling to and from the rock. Roads, then, are significant for Australian gothic cinema, for the road traverses the Australian (gothic) landscape and, in the opportunity it provides for moving through it at speed, tantalizes with the (unfulfillable) promise of an escape from its gothic horror. Australian roads are familiar, part of White European culture referencing the geometric precision of Roman roads. The Australian outback, by contrast, is unfamiliar, uncanny. Veined with roads, the outback invites the taming by “the landscape tradition” that it simultaneously rejects (Rueschmann). In the opening 360° pan of Wake in Fright the land frightens with its immensity and intensity, even as the camera displays the land’s “conquering” agent: not a road, but the road’s surrogate—a railway line. Thus, the land introduces the uncanny into Australian gothic cinema. In Freudian terms, the uncanny is that unsettling combination of the familiar and the unfamiliar. R. Gray calls it “the class of frightening things that leads us back to what is known and familiar” (Gray). The “frightening” land is the very condition of the “comforting” road; no roads without a space for roads, and places for them to go. In her introduction to The Penguin Book of the Road, Delia Falconer similarly sutures the land to the uncanny, linking both of these with the first peoples of the Australian land: "Of course there is another 'poetry of the earth' whispering from the edges of our roads that gives so many of our road stories an extra charge, and that is the history of Aboriginal presence in this land. Thousands of years of paths and tribal boundaries also account for the uncanny sense of being haunted that dogs our travellers on their journeys (xvii). White Australia, as the local saying goes, has a black past, played out across the land. The film The Proposition instances this, with its gothic portrayal of the uncanny encroachments of the Australian “wilderness” into the domain of “civilization”. Furthermore, “our” overweening literal and metaphoric investment in the traditional quarter-acre block, not to mention in our roads, shows that “we” haven’t reconciled either with the land of Australia or with its original inhabitants: the Aboriginal peoples. Little wonder that Kael and Sarris couldn’t do so, as White Americans writing some forty years ago, and at such a huge geographic remove from Australia. As will be seen, the failure of these American film critics to comprehend the Australian landscape comes out—as both a “critical reaction” and a “reactive compensation”—in two, interwoven strands of their interpretations of Australian New Wave gothic cinema. A repulsion from, and an attraction to, the unrecognized uncanny is evidenced. The first strand is constituted in the markedly anthropological aspect to the film reviews: anthropological elements of the text itself are either disproportionately magnified or longed for. Here, “anthropological” includes the sociological and the historical. Secondly, Kael and Sarris use the films they review from Australian gothic cinema as sites upon which to trial answers to the old and persistent question of how the very categories of art and politics relate. Initially sucked out of the reviews (strand one), politics and art thus rush back in (strand two). In other words, the American failure to engage deeply with the land triggers an initial reading of films like Wake in Fright less as films per se and more as primary texts or one-to-one documentations of Australia. Australia presents for anthropological, even scientific atomization, rather than as a place in active, creative and complex relationship with its rendering in mise-en-scène. Simultaneously though, the absence of the land nags—eats away at the edges of critical thinking—and re-emerges (like a Freudian return of the repressed) in an attempt by the American critics to exploit their film subjects as an opportunity for working out how politics and art (here cinema) relate. The “un-seen” land creates a mis-reading amongst the American critics (strand one), only to force a compensatory, if somewhat blindsided, re-reading (strand two). For after all, in this critical “over-looking” of the land, and thus of the (ongoing) Aboriginal existence in and with the land, it is politics and art that is most at stake. How peoples (indigenous, settler or hybrid peoples) are connected to and through the land has perhaps always been Australia’s principal political and artistic question. How do the American reviews speak to this question? Sarris did not review Wake in Fright. Kael reviewed it, primarily, as a text at the intersection of fiction and documentary, ultimately privileging the latter. Throughout, her critical coordinates are American and, to a degree, literary. Noting the “stale whiff of Conrad” she also cites Outback’s “additional interest” in its similarity with “recent American movies [about] American racism and capitalist exploitation and the Vietnam war” (415). But her most pointed intervention comes in the assertion that there is “enough narrative to hold the social material together,” as if this were all narrative were good for: scaffolding for sociology (416). Art and culture are left out. Even as Kael mentions the “treatment of the Aborigines,” she misses the Aboriginal cultural moment of the opening shot of the land; this terrain, she writes, is “without a trace of culture” (416). Then, after critiquing what she sees as the unconvincing lesson of the schoolteacher’s moral demise, comes this: “But a more serious problem is that (despite the banal photography) the semi-documentary aspects of the film are so much more vivid and authentic and original than the factitious Conradian hero that we want to see more of that material—we want to learn more” (416-417). Further on, in this final paragraph, Kael notes that, while “there have been other Australian films, so it’s not all new” the director and scriptwriter “have seen the life in a more objective way, almost as if they were cultural anthropologists…. Maybe Kotcheff didn’t dare to expand this vision at the expense of the plot line, but he got onto something bigger than the plot” (417). Kael’s “error”, as it were, is to over-look how the land itself stretches the space of the film, beyond plot, to occupy the same space as her so-called “something bigger”, which itself is filled out by the uncanniness of the land as the intersections of both indigenous and settler (road-based) cultures and their representations in art (417). The “banal photography” might be better read as the film’s inhabitation of these artistic/cultural intersections (416). Kael’s Wake in Fright piece illustrates the first strand of the American reviews of Australian gothic cinema. Missing the land’s uncanniness effectively distributes throughout the review an elision of culture and art, and a reactive engagement with the broadly anthropological elements of Kotcheff’s film. Reviews of The Year of Living Dangerously by Kael and Sarris also illustrate the first strand of the American-Australian reviewing nexus, with the addition, also by each critic, of the second strand: the attempt to reconnect and revitalize the categories of politics and art. As with Wake in Fright, Kael introduces an anthropological gambit into Weir’s film, privileging its documentary elements over its qualities as fiction (strand one). “To a degree,” she writes, “Weir is the victim of his own skill at creating the illusion of authentic Third World misery, rioting, and chaos” (454). By comparison with “earlier, studio-set films” (like Casablanca [452]), where such “backgrounds (with their picturesque natives) were perfectly acceptable as backdrops…. Here… it’s a little obscene” (454). Kael continues: “Documentaries, TV coverage, print journalism, and modern history itself have changed audiences’ responses, and when fake dilemmas about ‘involvement’ are cooked up for the hero they’re an embarrassment” (454-455). Film is pushed to cater to anthropology besides art. Mirroring Kael’s strand-one response, Sarris puts a lot of pressure on Weir’s film to “perform” anthropologically—as well as, even instead of, artistically. The “movie”, he complains “could have been enjoyed thoroughly as a rousingly old-fashioned Hollywood big-star entertainment were it not for the disturbing vistas of somnolent poverty on view in the Philippines, the location in which Indonesian poverty in 1965 was simulated” (59). Indeed, the intrusive reality of poverty elicits from Sarris something very similar to Kael’s charge of the “obscenity of the backdrop” (454): We cannot go back to Manderley in our movie romances. That much is certain. We must go forward into the real world, but in the process, we should be careful not to dwarf our heroes and heroines with the cosmic futility of it all. They must be capable of acting on the stage of history, and by acting, make a difference in our moral perception of life on this planet. (59) Sarris places an extreme, even outrageous, strand-one demand on Weir’s film to re-purpose its fiction (what Kael calls “romantic melodrama” [454]) to elicit the categories of history and anthropology—that last phrase, “life on this planet”, sounds like David Attenborough speaking! More so, anthropological atomization is matched swiftly to a strand-two demand, for this passage also anticipates the rapprochement of politics and art, whereby art rises to the level of politics, requiring movie “heroes and heroines” to make a “moral difference” on a historical if not on a “cosmic” level (59). It is precisely in this, however, that Weir’s film falls down for Sarris. “The peculiar hollowness that the more perceptive reviewers have noted in The Year of Living Dangerously arises from the discrepancy between the thrilling charisma of the stars and the antiheroic irrelevance of the characters they play to the world around them” (59). Sarris’s spatialized phrase here (“peculiar hollowness”) recalls Kael’s observation that Wake in Fright contains “something bigger than the plot” (417). In each case, the description is doubling, dis-locating—uncanny. Echoing the title of Eva Rueschmann’s article, both films, like the Australian landscape itself, are “out of place” in their interpretation by these American critics. What, really, does Sarris’s “peculiar hollowness” originate in (59)? In what “discrepancy” (59)? There is a small but, in the context of this article, telling error in Sarris’s review of Weir’s film. Kael, correctly, notes that “the Indonesian settings had to be faked (in the Philippines and Australia)” (inserted emphasis) (452). Sarris mentions only the Philippines. From little things big things grow. Similar to how Kael overlooks the uncanny in Wake in Fright’s mise-en-scène, Sarris “sees” a “peculiar hollowness” where the land would otherwise be. Otherwise, that is, in the perspective of a cinema (Kotcheff’s, Weir’s) that comprehends “the true nature of the [Australian, gothic] human environment” (Rayner 25). Of course, it is not primarily a matter of how much footage Weir shot in Australia. It is the nature of the cinematography that matters most. For his part, Sarris damns it as “pretentiously picturesque” (59). Kael, meanwhile, gets closer perhaps to the ethics of the uncanny cinematography of The Year of Living Dangerously in her description of “intimations, fragments, hints and portents… on a very wide screen” (451). Even so, it will be remembered, she does call the “backgrounds… obscene” (454). Kael and Sarris see less than they “see”. Again like Sarris, Kael goes looking in Weir’s film for a strand-two rapprochement of politics and art, as evidenced by the line “The movie displays left-wing attitudes, but it shows no particular interest in politics” (453). It does though, only Kael is blind to it because she is blind to the land and, equally, to the political circumstances of the people of the land. Kael likely never realized the “discrepancy” in her critique of The Year of Living Dangerously’s Billy Kwan as “the same sort of in-on-the-mysteries-of-the-cosmos character that the aborigine actor Gulpilil played in Weir’s 1977 The Last Wave” (455). All this, she concludes, “might be boiled down to the mysticism of L.A.: ‘Go with the flow’” (455)! Grouping characters and places together like this, under the banner of L.A. mysticism, brutally erases the variations across different, uncanny, gothic, post-colonial landscapes. It is precisely here that politics and art do meet, in Weir’s film (and Kotcheff’s): in the artistic representation of the land as an index of the political relations of indigenous, settler and hybrid communities. (And not down the rabbit hole of the “specifics” of politics that Kael claims to want [453]). The American critics considered in this article are not in “bad faith” or a-political. Sarris produced a perceptive, left-leaning study entitled Politics and Cinema, and many of Kael’s reviews, along with essays like “Saddle Sore: El Dorado, The War Wagon, The Way West,” contain sophisticated, liberalist analyses of the political circumstances of Native Americans. The crucial point is that, as “critics form[ing] one of the key material institutions that support generic formations,” Sarris and Kael impacted majorly on the development of Australian gothic cinema, in the American context—impacted especially, one could say, on the (mis-)understanding of the land-based, uncanny politics of this mode in its Australian setting (McClain 54). Kael’s and Sarris’s reviews of My Brilliant Career, along with Judith Maslin’s review, contain traits similar to those considered in depth in the reviews studied above. Future research might usefully study this significant impact more closely, weaving in an awareness of the developing dynamics of global film productions and co-productions since the 1970s, and thereby focusing on Australian gothic as international cinema. Was, for example, the political impact of later films like The Proposition influenced, even marginally, by the (mis-)readings of Sarris and Kael? In conclusion here, it suffices to note that, even as the American reviewers reduced Australian cinema art to “blank” documentary or “neutral” anthropology, nevertheless they evidenced, in their strand-two responses, the power of the land (as presented in the cinematography and mise-en-scène) to call out—across an increasingly globalized domain of cinematic reception—for the fundamental importance of the connection between politics and art. Forging this connection, in which all lands and the peoples of all lands are implicated, should be, perhaps, the primary and ongoing concern of national and global cinemas of the uncanny, gothic mode, or perhaps even any mode. References Casablanca. Dir. Michael Curtiz. Warner Bros, 1942. Falconer, Delia. “Introduction.” The Penguin Book of the Road. Ed. Delia Falconer. Melbourne: Viking-Penguin Books, 2008. xi-xxvi. Gibson, Ross. South of the West: Postcolonialism and the Narrative Construction of Australia. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1992. Godden, Matt. “An Essay on Australian New Wave Cinema.” 9 Jan. 2013. 18 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.golgotha.com.au/2013/01/09/an-essay-on-australian-new-wave-cinema/›. Gray, R. “Freud, ‘The Uncanny.’” 15 Nov. 2013. 18 Aug. 2014 ‹http://courses.washington.edu/freudlit/Uncanny.Notes.html›. Kael, Pauline. “Australians.” Review of My Brilliant Career. 15 Sep. 1980. Taking It All In. London: Marion Boyars, 1986. 54-62. Kael, Pauline. “Literary Echoes—Muffled.” Review of Outback [Wake in Fright]. 4 March 1972. Deeper into Movies. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press-Little, Brown and Company, 1973. 413-419. Kael, Pauline. “Saddle Sore: El Dorado, The War Wagon, The Way West.” Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. London: Arrow Books, 1987. 38-46. Kael, Pauline. “Torrid Zone.” Review of The Year of Living Dangerously. 21 Feb. 1983. Taking It All In. London: Marion Boyars, 1986. 451-456. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. Dir. George Miller. Warner Bros, 1981. Maslin, Janet. “Film: Australian ‘Brilliant Career’ by Gillian Armstrong.” Review of My Brilliant Career. New York Times (6 Oct. 1979.): np. McClain, William. “Western, Go Home! Sergio Leone and the ‘Death of the Western’ in American Film Criticism.” Journal of Film and Video 62.1-2 (Spring/Summer 2010): 52-66. My Brilliant Career. Dir. Gillian Armstrong. Peace Arch, 1979. Picnic at Hanging Rock. Dir. Peter Weir. Picnic Productions, 1975. Rayner, Jonathan. Contemporary Australian Cinema: An Introduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. Rueschmann, Eva. “Out of Place: Reading (Post) Colonial Landscapes as Gothic Space in Jane Campion’s Films.” Post Script (22 Dec. 2005). 18 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Out+of+place%3A+reading+%28post%29+colonial+landscapes+as+Gothic+space+in...-a0172169169›. Sarris, Andrew. “Films in Focus.” Review of My Brilliant Career. Village Voice (4 Feb. 1980): np. Sarris, Andrew. “Films in Focus: Journalistic Ethics in Java.” Review of The Year of Living Dangerously. Village Voice 28 (1 Feb. 1983): 59. Sarris, Andrew. “Liberation, Australian Style.” Review of My Brilliant Career. Village Voice (15 Oct. 1979): np. Sarris, Andrew. Politics and Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978. The Last Wave. Dir. Peter Weir. Ayer Productions, 1977. The Proposition. Dir. John Hillcoat. First Look Pictures, 2005. The Year of Living Dangerously. Dir. Peter Weir. MGM, 1982. Tsiolkas, Christos. “Citizen Kael.” Review of Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark by Brian Kellow. The Monthly (Feb. 2012): 54-56. Wake in Fright. Dir. Ted Kotcheff. United Artists, 1971.

If thinking about home necessitates thinking about “place, space, scale, identity and power,” as Alison Blunt and Robyn Dowling (2) suggest, then thinking about home themes in popular music makes no less a conceptual demand. Song lyrics and titles most often invoke dominant readings such as intimacy, privacy, nurture, refuge, connectedness and shared belonging, all issues found within Blunt and Dowling’s analysis. The spatial imaginary to which these authors refer takes vivid shape through repertoires of songs dealing with houses and other specific sites, vast and distant homelands, communities or, less tangibly, geographical or cultural settings where particular relationships can be found, supporting Blunt and Dowling’s major claim that home is complex, multi-scalar and multi-layered. Shelley Mallett’s claim that the term home “functions as a repository for complex, inter-related and at times contradictory socio-cultural ideas about people’s relationships with one another…and with places, spaces and things” (84) is borne out heavily by popular music where, for almost every sentiment that the term home evokes, it seems an opposite sentiment is evoked elsewhere: familiarity versus alienation, acceptance versus rejection, love versus loneliness. Making use of conceptual groundwork by Blunt and Dowling and by Mallett and others, the following discussion canvasses a range of meanings that home has had for a variety of songwriters, singers and audiences over the years. Intended as merely partial and exploratory rather than exhaustive, it provides some insights into contrasts, ironies and relationships between home and gender, diaspora and loss. While it cannot cover all the themes, it gives prominence to the major recurring themes and a variety of important contexts that give rise to these home themes. Most prominent among those songs dealing with home has been a nostalgia and yearning, while issues of how women may have viewed the home within which they have often been restricted to a narrowly defined private sphere are almost entirely absent. This serves as a reminder that, while some themes can be conducive to the medium of popular music, others may be significantly less so. Songs may speak directly of experience but not necessarily of all experiences and certainly not of all experiences equally. B. Lee Cooper claims “most popular culture ventures rely upon formula-oriented settings and phrasings to attract interest, to spur mental or emotional involvement” (93). Notions of home have generally proved both formulaic and emotionally-charged. Commonly understood patterns of meaning and other hegemonic references generally operate more successfully than alternative reference points. Those notions with the strongest cultural currency can be conveyed succinctly and denote widely agreed upon meanings. Lyrics can seldom afford to be deeply analytical but generally must be concise and immediately evocative. Despite that, this discussion will point to diverse meanings carried by songs about home. Blunt and Dowling point out that “a house is not necessarily nor automatically a home” (3). The differences are strongly apparent in music, with only a few songs relating to houses compared with homes. When Malvina Reynolds wrote in 1962 of “little boxes, on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky-tacky,” she was certainly referring to houses, not homes, thus making it easier to bypass the relationships which might have vested the inhabitants with more warmth and individuality than their houses, in this song about conformity and homogeneity. The more complex though elusive concept of home, however, is more likely to feature in love songs and to emanate from diasporal songs. Certainly these two genres are not mutually exclusive. Irish songs are particularly noteworthy for adding to the array of music written by, or representational of, those who have been forced away from home by war, poverty, strife or other circumstances. They manifest identities of displacement rather than of placement, as studied by Bronwen Walter, looking back at rather than from within their spatial imaginary. Phil Eva claims that during the 19th Century Irish émigrés sang songs of exile in Manchester’s streets. Since many in England’s industrial towns had been uprooted from their homes, the songs found rapport with street audiences and entered popular culture. For example, the song Killarney, of hazy origins but thought to date back to as early as 1850, tells of Killarney’s lakes and fells, Emerald isles and winding bays; Mountain paths and woodland dells… ...her [nature’s] home is surely there. As well as anthropomorphising nature and giving it a home, the song suggests a specifically geographic sense of home. Galway Bay, written by A. Fahy, does likewise, as do many other Irish songs of exile which link geography with family, kin and sometimes culture to evoke a sense of home. The final verse of Cliffs of Doneen gives a sense of both people and place making up home: Fare thee well to Doneen, fare thee well for a while And to all the kind people I’m leaving behind To the streams and the meadows where late I have been And the high rocky slopes round the cliffs of Doneen. Earlier Irish songs intertwine home with political issues. For example, Tho’ the Last Glimpse of Erin vows to Erin that “In exile thy bosum shall still be my home.” Such exile resulted from a preference of fleeing Ireland rather than bowing to English oppression, which then included a prohibition on Irish having moustaches or certain hairstyles. Thomas Moore is said to have set the words of the song to the air Coulin which itself referred to an Irish woman’s preference for her “Coulin” (a long-haired Irish youth) to the English (Nelson-Burns). Diasporal songs have continued, as has their political edge, as evidenced by global recognition of songs such as Bayan Ko (My Country), written by José Corazon de Jesus in 1929, out of love and concern for the Philippines and sung among Filipinos worldwide. Robin Cohen outlines a set of criteria for diaspora that includes a shared belief in the possibility of return to home, evident in songs such as the 1943 Welsh song A Welcome in the Hillside, in which a Welsh word translating roughly as a yearning to return home, hiraeth, is used: We’ll kiss away each hour of hiraeth When you come home again to Wales. However, the immensely popular I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen, not of Irish origin but written by Thomas Westendorf of Illinois in 1875, suggests that such emotions can have a resonance beyond the diaspora. Anti-colonial sentiments about home can also be expressed by long-time inhabitants, as Harry Belafonte demonstrated in Island in the Sun: This is my island in the sun Where my people have toiled since time begun. Though I may sail on many a sea, Her shores will always be home to me. War brought a deluge of sentimental songs lamenting separation from home and loved ones, just as likely to be parents and siblings as sweethearts. Radios allowed wider audiences and greater popularity for these songs. If separation had brought a longing previously, the added horrors of war presented a stronger contrast between that which the young soldiers were missing and that which they were experiencing. Both the First and Second World Wars gave rise to songs long since sung which originated in such separations, but these also had a strong sense of home as defined by the nationalism that has for over a century given the contours of expectations of soldiers. Focusing on home, these songs seldom speak of the details of war. Rather they are specific about what the singers have left behind and what they hope to return to. Songs of home did not have to be written specifically for the war effort nor for overseas troops. Irving Berlin’s 1942 White Christmas, written for a film, became extremely popular with US troops during WWII, instilling a sense of home that related to familiarities and festivities. Expressing a sense of home could be specific and relate to regions or towns, as did I’m Goin’ Back Again to Yarrawonga, or it could refer to any home, anywhere where there were sons away fighting. Indeed the American Civil War song When Johnny Comes Marching Home, written by Patrick Sarsfield Gilmour, was sung by both Northerners and Southerners, so adaptable was it, with home remarkably unspecified and undescribed. The 1914 British song Keep the Home Fires Burning by Ivor Novello and Lena Ford was among those that evoked a connection between home and the military effort and helped establish a responsibility on those at home to remain optimistic: Keep the Homes fires burning While your hearts are yearning, Though your lads are far away They dream of home, There’s a silver lining Through the dark clouds shining, Turn the dark clouds inside out, Till the boys come Home. No space exists in this song for critique of the reasons for war, nor of a role for women other than that of homemaker and moral guardian. It was women’s duty to ensure men enlisted and home was rendered a private site for emotional enlistment for a presumed public good, though ironically also a point of personal hope where the light of love burned for the enlistees’ safe return. Later songs about home and war challenged these traditional notions. Two serve as examples. One is Pink Floyd’s brief musical piece of the 1970s, Bring the Boys Back Home, whose words of protest against the American war on Viet Nam present home, again, as a site of safety but within a less conservative context. Home becomes implicated in a challenge to the prevailing foreign policy and the interests that influence it, undermining the normal public sphere/private sphere distinction. The other more complex song is Judy Small’s Mothers, Daughters, Wives, from 1982, set against a backdrop of home. Small eloquently describes the dynamics of the domestic space and how women understood their roles in relation to the First and Second World Wars and the Viet Nam War. Reinforcing that “The materialities and imaginaries of home are closely connected” (Blunt and Dowling 188), Small sings of how the gold frames held the photographs that mothers kissed each night And the doorframe held the shocked and silent strangers from the fight. Small provides a rare musical insight into the disjuncture between the men who left the domestic space and those who return to it, and we sense that women may have borne much of the brunt of those awful changes. The idea of domestic bliss is also challenged, though from the returned soldier’s point of view, in Redgum’s 1983 song I Was Only Nineteen, written by group member John Schuman. It touches on the tragedy of young men thrust into war situations and the horrific after-affects for them, which cannot be shrugged off on return to home. The nurturing of home has limits but the privacy associated with the domestic sphere has often concealed the violence and mental anguish that happens away from public view. But by this time most of the songs referring to home were dominated once more by sentimental love, often borne of travel as mobility rose. Journeys help “establish the thresholds and boundaries of home” and can give rise to “an idealized, ideological and ethnocentric view of home” (Mallett 78). Where previously songsters had sung of leaving home in exile or for escape from poverty, lyrics from the 1960s onwards often suggested that work had removed people from loved ones. It could be work on a day-by-day basis, as in A Hard Day’s Night from the 1964 film of the same name, where the Beatles illuminate differences between the public sphere of work and the private sphere to which they return: When I’m home, everything seems to be alright, When I’m home feeling you holding me tight, tight, yeah and reiterated by Paul McCartney in Every Night: And every night that day is through But tonight I just want to stay in And be with you. Lyrics such as these and McCartney’s call to be taken “...home to the Mull of Kintyre,” singled him out for his home-and-hearth messages (Dempsey). But work might involve longer absences and thus more deepfelt loneliness. Simon and Garfunkel’s exemplary Homeward Bound starkly portrays a site of “away-ness”: I’m sittin’ in the railway station, got a ticket for my destination… Mundaneness, monotony and predictability contrast with the home to which the singer’s thoughts are constantly escaping. The routine is familiar but the faces are those of strangers. Home here is, again, not simply a domicile but the warmth of those we know and love. Written at a railway station, Homeward Bound echoes sentiments almost identical to those of (Leaving on a) Jet Plane, written by John Denver at an airport in 1967. Denver also co-wrote (Take Me Home) Country Roads, where, in another example of anthropomorphism as a tool of establishing a strong link, he asks to be taken home to the place I belong West Virginia, mountain momma, Take me home, Country Roads. The theme has recurred in numerous songs since, spawning examples such as Darin and Alquist’s When I Get Home, Chris Daughtry’s Home, Michael Bublé’s Home and Will Smith’s Ain’t No Place Like Home, where, in an opening reminiscent of Homeward Bound, the singer is Sitting in a hotel room A thousand miles away from nowhere Sloped over a chair as I stare… Furniture from home, on the other hand, can be used to evoke contentment and bliss, as demonstrated by George Weiss and Bob Thiele’s song The Home Fire, in which both kin and the objects of home become charged with meaning: All of the folks that I love are there I got a date with my favourite chair Of course, in regard to earlier songs especially, while the traveller associates home with love, security and tenderness, back at home the waiting one may have had feelings more of frustration and oppression. One is desperate to get back home, but for all we know the other may be desperate to get out of home or to develop a life more meaningful than that which was then offered to women. If the lot of homemakers was invisible to national economies (Waring), it seemed equally invisible to mainstream songwriters. This reflects the tradition that “Despite home being generally considered a feminine, nurturing space created by women themselves, they often lack both authority and a space of their own within this realm” (Mallett 75). Few songs have offered the perspective of the one at home awaiting the return of the traveller. One exception is the Seekers’ 1965 A World of Our Own but, written by Tom Springfield, the words trilled by Judith Durham may have been more of a projection of the traveller’s hopes and expectations than a true reflection of the full experiences of housebound women of the day. Certainly, the song reinforces connections between home and intimacy and privacy: Close the door, light the lights. We’re stayin’ home tonight, Far away from the bustle and the bright city lights. Let them all fade away, just leave us alone And we’ll live in a world of our own. This also strongly supports Gaston Bachelard’s claim that one’s house in the sense of a home is one’s “first universe, a real cosmos” (qtd. in Blunt and Dowling 12). But privacy can also be a loneliness when home is not inhabited by loved ones, as in the lyrics of Don Gibson’s 1958 Oh, Lonesome Me, where Everybody’s going out and having fun I’m a fool for staying home and having none. Similar sentiments emerge in Debbie Boone’s You Light up My Life: So many nights I’d sit by my window Waiting for someone to sing me his song. Home in these situations can be just as alienating as the “away” depicted as so unfriendly by Homeward Bound’s strangers’ faces and the “million people” who still leave Michael Bublé feeling alone. Yet there are other songs that depict “away” as a prison made of freedom, insinuating that the lack of a home and consequently of the stable love and commitment presumably found there is a sad situation indeed. This is suggested by the lilting tune, if not by the lyrics themselves, in songs such as Wandrin’ Star from the musical Paint Your Wagon and Ron Miller’s I’ve Never Been to Me, which has both a male and female version with different words, reinforcing gendered experiences. The somewhat conservative lyrics in the female version made it a perfect send-up song in the 1994 film Priscilla: Queen of the Desert. In some songs the absentee is not a traveller but has been in jail. In Tie a Yellow Ribbon round the Ole Oak Tree, an ex-inmate states “I’m comin’ home. I’ve done my time.” Home here is contingent upon the availability and forgivingness of his old girl friend. Another song juxtaposing home with prison is Tom Jones’ The Green, Green Grass of Home in which the singer dreams he is returning to his home, to his parents, girlfriend and, once again, an old oak tree. However, he awakes to find he was dreaming and is about to be executed. His body will be taken home and placed under the oak tree, suggesting some resigned sense of satisfaction that he will, after all, be going home, albeit in different circumstances. Death and home are thus sometimes linked, with home a euphemism for the former, as suggested in many spirituals, with heaven or an afterlife being considered “going home”. The reverse is the case in the haunting Bring Him Home of the musical Les Misérables. With Marius going off to the barricades and the danger involved, Jean Valjean prays for the young man’s safe return and that he might live. Home is connected here with life, safety and ongoing love. In a number of songs about home and absence there is a sense of home being a place where morality is gently enforced, presumably by women who keep men on the straight and narrow, in line with one of the women’s roles of colonial Australia, researched by Anne Summers. These songs imply that when men wander from home, their morals also go astray. Wild Rover bemoans Oh, I’ve been a wild rover for many a year, and I’ve spent all my money on whiskey and beer… There is the resolve in the chorus, however, that home will have a reforming influence. Gene Pitney’s Twenty-Four Hours from Tulsa poses the dangers of distance from a wife’s influence, while displaying opposition to the sentimental yearning of so many other songs: Dearest darlin’, I have to write to say that I won’t be home anymore ‘cause something happened to me while I was drivin’ home And I’m not the same anymore Class as well as gender can be a debated issue in meanings attached to home, as evident in several songs that take a more jaundiced view of home, seeing it as a place from which to escape. The Animals’ powerful We Gotta Get Outta This Place clearly suggests a life of drudgery in a home town or region. Protectively, the lyrics insist “Girl, there’s a better life for me and you” but it has to be elsewhere. This runs against the grain of other British songs addressing poverty or a working class existence as something that comes with its own blessings, all to do with an area identified as home. These traits may be loyalty, familiarity or a refusal to judge and involve identities of placement rather than of displacement in, for instance, Gerry and the Pacemakers’ Ferry Cross the Mersey: People around every corner, they seem to smile and say “We don’t care what your name is, boy. We’ll never send you away.” This bears out Blunt and Dowling’s claim that “people’s senses of themselves are related to and produced through lived and metaphorical experiences of home” (252). It also resonates with some of the region-based identity and solidarity issues explored a short time later by Paul Willis in his study of working class youth in Britain, which help to inform how a sense of home can operate to constrict consciousness, ideas and aspirations. Identity features strongly in other songs about home. Several years after Neil Young recorded his 1970 song Southern Man about racism in the south of the USA, the group Lynyrd Skynyrd, responded with Sweet Home Alabama. While the meaning of its lyrics are still debated, there is no debate about the way in which the song has been embraced, as I recently discovered first-hand in Tennessee. A banjo-and-fiddle band performing the song during a gig virtually brought down the house as the predominantly southern audience clapped, whopped and stamped its feet. The real meanings of home were found not in the lyrics but in the audience’s response. Wally Johnson and Bob Brown’s 1975 Home Among the Gum Trees is a more straightforward ode to home, with lyrics that prescribe a set of non-commodified values. It is about simplicity and the right to embrace a lifestyle that includes companionship, leisure and an enjoyment of and appreciation of nature, all threatened seriously in the three decades since the song’s writing. The second verse in which large shopping complexes – and implicitly the consumerism they encourage – are eschewed (“I’d trade it all tomorrow for a little bush retreat where the kookaburras call”), is a challenge to notions of progress and reflects social movements of the day, The Green Bans Movement, for instance, took a broader and more socially conscientious attitude towards home and community, putting forward alternative sets of values and insisting people should have a say in the social and aesthetic construction of their neighbourhoods as well as the impacts of their labour (Mundey). Ironically, the song has gone on to become the theme song for a TV show about home gardens. With a strong yet more vague notion of home, Peter Allen’s I Still Call Australia Home, was more prone to commodification and has been adopted as a promotional song for Qantas. Nominating only the desire to travel and the love of freedom as Australian values, both politically and socially innocuous within the song’s context, this catchy and uplifting song, when not being used as an advertisement, paradoxically works for a “diaspora” of Australians who are not in exile but have mostly travelled for reasons of pleasure or professional or financial gain. Another paradox arises from the song Home on the Range, dating back to the 19th century at a time when the frontier was still a strong concept in the USA and people were simultaneously leaving homes and reminiscing about home (Mechem). Although it was written in Kansas, the lyrics – again vague and adaptable – were changed by other travellers so that versions such as Colorado Home and My Arizona Home soon abounded. In 1947 Kansas made Home on the Range its state song, despite there being very few buffalo left there, thus highlighting a disjuncture between the modern Kansas and “a home where the buffalo roam” as described in the song. These themes, paradoxes and oppositional understandings of home only scratch the surface of the wide range of claims that are made on home throughout popular music. It has been shown that home is a flexible concept, referring to homelands, regions, communities and private houses. While predominantly used to evoke positive feelings, mostly with traditional views of the relationships that lie within homes, songs also raise challenges to notions of domesticity, the rights of those inhabiting the private sphere and the demarcation between the private and public spheres. Songs about home reflect contexts and challenges of their respective eras and remind us that vigorous discussion takes place about and within homes. The challenges are changing. Where many women once felt restrictively tied to the home – and no doubt many continue to do so – many women and men are now struggling to rediscover spatial boundaries, with production and consumption increasingly impinging upon relationships that have so frequently given the term home its meaning. With evidence that we are working longer hours and that home life, in whatever form, is frequently suffering (Beder, Hochschild), the discussion should continue. In the words of Sam Cooke, Bring it on home to me! References Bacheland, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1994. Beder, Sharon. Selling the Work Ethic: From Puritan Pulpit to Corporate PR. London: Zed Books, 2000. Blunt, Alison, and Robyn Dowling. Home. London: Routledge, 2006. Cohen, Robin. Global Diasporas: An Introduction. London: UCL Press, 1997. Cooper, B. Lee. “Good Timin’: Searching for Meaning in Clock Songs.” Popular Music and Society 30.1 (Feb. 2007): 93-106. Dempsey, J.M. “McCartney at 60: A Body of Work Celebrating Home and Hearth.” Popular Music and Society 27.1 (Feb. 2004): 27-40. Eva, Phil. “Home Sweet Home? The Culture of ‘Exile’ in Mid-Victorian Popular Song.” Popular Music 16.2 (May 1997): 131-150. Hochschild, Arlie. The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work. New York: Metropolitan/Holt, 1997. Mallett, Sonia. “Understanding Home: A Critical Review of the Literature.” The Sociological Review 52.1 (2004): 62-89. Mechem, Kirke, “The Story of ‘Home on the Range’.” Reprint from the Kansas Historical Quarterly (Nov. 1949). Topeka, Kansas: Kansas State Historical Society. 28 May 2007 http://www.emporia.edu/cgps/tales/nov2003.html>. Mundey, Jack. Green Bans and Beyond. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1981. Nelson-Burns, Lesley. Folk Music of England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and America. 29 May 2007 http://www.contemplator.com/ireland/thoerin.html>. Summers, Anne. Damned Whores and God’s Police: The Colonization of Women in Australia. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975. Walter, Bronwen. Outsiders Inside: Whiteness, Place and Irish Women. London: Routledge, 2001. Waring, Marilyn. Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women Are Worth. Wellington, NZ: Allen & Unwin, 1988. Willis, Paul. Learning to Labor: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs. New York: Columbia UP, 1977. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Varney, Wendy. "Homeward Bound or Housebound?: Themes of Home in Popular Music." M/C Journal 10.4 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/16-varney.php>. APA Style Varney, W. (Aug. 2007) "Homeward Bound or Housebound?: Themes of Home in Popular Music," M/C Journal, 10(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/16-varney.php>.