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She was neither the eldest nor the youngest child but the fourth in the brood of five female siblings. Their mother, a quiet, stoic but strong-willed, determined woman, guarded her daughters with a hawklike fanaticism, training them with a frenzy of rules which was her secret formula for survival --- she lost several children soon after they were born and she thought the only way to placate the gods was to teach her daughters the rigid vestal code of conduct.

Aling Asing learned early in life the importance of silence and how meritorious it was just to sit quietly and listen to the troubled kin, friends and strangers chant a litany of complaints against life's forces which they could not comprehend. She understood her mother's fundamental lesson: suffering in silence was the true measure of an aristocratic spirit.





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