The Bamboo Dancers

The Bamboo Dancers is a historical novel by Filipino novelist NVM Gonzalez. Published in 1959 by Bookmark, this novel follows the travels of an Americanised Filipino man and his struggles to embrace his own roots in rural culture. Praised for its subtlety and careful handling of culture clashes, The Bamboo Dancers is one of a series titled Filipino Literary Classics. Prior to his death in 1999, Gonzalez received both the 1960 Philippine Cultural Heritage Award for Literature, and the 1961 Rizal Pro-Patria Award. He received National Artist status in 1997.

The narrative follows the journey of protagonist Ernie Rama. Ernie is a sculptor with a study grant in the United States. He is aloof and avoids becoming involved with anyone. He has only a passing understanding of his Filipino roots and does not have any clear identity. As part of his journey, Ernie receives the opportunity to travel. His travels and his work bring him into contact with other Filipinos who, like him, have left the rural culture behind and are fulfilling their ambitions in the West. Firstly, while still in the US, Ernie meets an old acquaintance – a girl working in the US on a writers’ fellowship. Notably, Gonzalez does not name these other characters or make direct comments about them – the reader must fill in the blanks.

Ernie and this young girl begin an affair. They spend a week living together in a borrowed New York apartment. Because of their sexual relationship, the young girl questions her morality, and the pair decide to marry. However, it is not long before she changes her mind. She instead becomes engaged to a young and emerging American writer, Herb Lane, who joins the USIS and has an interest in the Far East. They begin their travels to the Philippines, so they can be married. However, Herb dies on the way and the girl is referred to a hospital on obstetric grounds.



Meanwhile, Ernie learns his brother is in California. He works as a resident physician in a local hospital. After leaving his wife and child in Manila, he pursued a sexual relationship with a young nurse. The relationship, however, does not last long, and he sets off home to reunite with his family. When he goes home to Manila, he returns with many luxury goods, including a car and a television. After being apart for so long, he finds he no longer has a functional relationship with his wife, and he does not feel any real affection towards her. He is also not on good terms with a housemaid, who feels threatened by him sexually and goes out of her way to avoid him. Again, the reader observes all of this through Ernie’s perspective, but is left with the sense none of it affects him as it perhaps should.

While in New York, Ernie meets three other Filipinos – a young man and his two girlfriends with which he shows restrained public affection. There is a sense that all these characters are inherently disconnected and floating through life on the surface. Ernie travels to Japan where he learns of the tragedies around Hiroshima. Again, he seems unmoved by the bomb casualties and does not let anything affect him. Furthermore, Ernie learns Herb is not the gentleman he believes him to be. Herb, who dies in Taipeh, attacks his fiancé in a drunken brawl and subsequently runs over a Chinese girl. His actions, combined, cause an anti-American demonstration.

Ernie continues to show no genuine interest in his brother’s problems or his old fiancé’s plight. He shows no remorse and is seemingly unaffected by the breakdown of their own relationship. To make matters worse, at the end of the novel, Ernie suffers a near-death experience. He almost drowns. Surprisingly, no one seems to notice or be affected by it, and Ernie does not tell anyone. There is a sense that Ernie questions his identity, but this is a question left unresolved by the end of the story. Death in this context may be a metaphor for the death of one cultural identity and the embracing of another, with no real harmony between the two.



Throughout, Gonzalez uses bamboo dancing as a symbol. Bamboo dancing, or tinikling, is a traditional Filipino dance which involves the beating of bamboo sticks together. This symbolises the clashing of two ideologies – local Filipino culture and imported Western elements. It may also serve as a reminder of the dangers inherent in traveling and losing a sense of identity. In The Bamboo Dancers, Gonzalez deliberately uses a detached narrative perspective to reinforce Ernie’s personality problems and the overall apathy experienced by the characters in the book. Readers are left with the feeling that these characters could be anyone suffering a similar cultural disenchantment.