Asian Journal- The Filipino-American Community Newspaper

HIS real name is Raphael Bartholomew but he is also called Rafe. His Filipino friends tease and call him Paeng Bartolome. He even has a jersey from a local basketball tournament in Boracay to prove that.

Here in New York, Rafe has become a celebrity in the Filipino community for a variety of reasons —but mostly because he is the author of Pacific Rims: Beermen Ballin’ in Flip-Flops and the Philippines’ Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball, a book on Philippine basketball. With his frequent visits to Café 81 in the East Village to satiate his craving for Filipino food, he became friends with some of the restaurant’s other regulars.

You may have read some of his articles, among the more famous ones is his 2007 The New York Times piece on the storied Ateneo-La Salle rivalry. He also broke the news about former New York Knicks player Nate Robinson having Filipino blood, which Rafe found out when he interviewed Robinson’s mom for a feature he wrote for Seattle Weekly.

In a nutshell, Rafe Bartholomew is a basketball fanatic armed with a Fulbright grant who flew thousands of miles away across the globe to study the fierce fanaticism of Filipinos with the sport.

His three-year immersion in Manila has made him more Filipino than some second- or third-generation Filipino-Americans, especially in the way he speaks the language, and that makes him all the more endearing. His efforts in speaking Filipino in conversations doesn’t look pa-cute, nor is it forced, because you can sense the sincerity in him wanting to learn more.

Rafe was 23 years old when he first arrived in Manila to pursue a year of studies there. He was able to convince the Fulbright board that the country’s fascination with basketball deserved to be scrutinized in a scholarly manner. He arrived in Manila knowing only one person, PBA commentator Sev Sarmenta, whom he approached via e-mail to be his adviser for this year-long project.

We sat down with Rafe, who now works as an assistant editor at Harper’s, at The Gershwin Hotel in midtown Manhattan for coffee to discuss his book and how this memorable trip to the Philippines changed his life.

Asked what the most important lessons he learned in the three years he lived in Manila, the self-proclaimed hoops savant smiled and gave a ready response.

"Marami, there’s so many. I was young when I went there. I feel like I really grew up there because I spent the formative years of my adulthood there. I was truly on my own. I really felt like I found myself there," Rafe said, comfortably switching between English and Filipino.

The Fulbright grant was just for a year but he got so enamored with the country and its culture that he decided to stay for two more years.