transposable element

reach out, help, share, connect with the less blessed. our theme for this issue of pinoyexpats.

as the countdown begins til we fly back to germany, i take stock of our experiences here in the philippines and the things i will miss most and be deprived of for likely another year.

no more hawthorn flakes and other nibbles from aji ichiban, no more sevilla’s pastillas de leche and sweet tamarind from lobo, batangas. no more merienda buffets, no more fresh calamansi-juice-on-ice, no more selecta chuckie for jan.

goodbye pangat na tilapia sa sampaloc, suman sa lihiya, ginataang langka, and jolibee chickenjoy. hello… maggi quick-fix.

back to bagging your own wares at the cashier, and with your own shopping bags, too. back to 30 minute tv time for jan (though he inherited cousin j’s stack of barney, blue’s clues and elmo vcds, and i intend to get him a few more of dora’s), and no more swiping at timezone.

no more swimming at the clubhouse, no more vegging out with GH and lifestyle asia. no more suv, it’s back to tiny old opel. back to doing your own laundry, cleaning up your own mess, and the worst: cooking your own food. arrgh!

no more priviledged balikbayan. welcome back to…reality.

Technorati Tags: philippines, expat, expatriate, balikbayan

i have been browsing two of the major philippine dailies the last few days, and i can’t help notice how “sosyal” the philippines is projected by these papers. from ads to content, it portrays a nation different to how the rest of the world probably sees the philippines. i can’t help notice an unbelievable number of pages devoted to photos of social luminaries, covering the nation’s rich and supposedly-famous, as if it is of national import to know who married whom and where so-and-so celebrated her debut, or who were present at so-and-so’s dinner party. that’s something that would never be well received on german papers. even german royalty are regarded as commoners, and wouldn’t make it to the papers unless they made something of merit. yes, there are feature stories on people, but that’s the point, there has to be a story. you can’t be on paper just because you happen to be at the right social gathering, rubbing elbows with other mestizos or chinese magnates. i mean, who cares, really?

skip the photo galleries and spare the ads a glance. a glance is all a proletariat like me can spare anyway: international schools, exclusive beach communities in batangas, cellphone global roaming services, airfares to europe and nearby asian cities, and apparel shops whose prices rival those in the most exclusive shops in europe. i thought pinoys were poor?!? looking at the by-lines of the columns, it’s also remarkable that expats living in the philippines are commissioned to write for the lifestyle and travel sections. as i leaf thru the pages, it feels like the third-world country featured on the headlines and first pages of the papers is totally different to that referred to in the succeeding sections on entertainment, culture and lifestyle. to be honest, these are getting me confused as to what the real philippines is, what and who the real filipino is like. it’s getting more and more difficult to reconcile the philippines i knew and remember, the philippines i know from a distance, the philippines portrayed by national media, and the philippines i see as i look outside the window of the car-slash-jeepney-slash-tricycle (the scenes change depending on which mode of transportation i choose to take).

as a pinoy expatriate, i feel it’s important to understand such things even to a short extent, if i am to be regarded as a representative of my country abroad. my heritage and ethnicity will always come up, frequently in casual conversations with people from my adoptive country, and it is vital that i project an accurate approximation of the real philippines when i talk about my native land. but really, seeing all these different faces of the philippines, i’m not sure anymore… should i tell them about the shops in crossings and the new wing of the greenbelt? or of the children diving into the black– no, really — murky waters off manila bay, fishing for scraps of plastic they can sell for a few pesos a kilo? or should i tell them of the increasing number of luxury cars–ferrari, jaguar, bmw, name it we have it!– plying the roads of manila? or the lush verdant forests of mount makiling and rice panicles heavy with their promise of bounty? or shall i lure them with images of palm trees, warm turquoise waters and powder-sugar white sands? might as well… perhaps that will keep them from asking about the mockery of a government we have, the embarrasing tableau they call erap investigations, and numerous other criticisms i would never know how to counter.

so you tell me. YOU tell me something about the philippines, because i honestly don’t know anymore.

Technorati Tags: philippines, lifestyle, travel, expatriate, expat

it’s been a busy week, half of which was spent in singapore, shuttling from one place to another. part of me wanted to go, go, go and see more, but i wasn’t alone, so we were on the road for just as much as jan can take. gone were the days of travelling alone, when i would lose myself wandering aimlessly in a new city. pity, because singapore has so much to offer for tourists…

i’d write more, for there are a lot of impressions and thoughts about the trip i’d like to put into writing before they dissipate. i know it would be something interesting to go back to and read again in a few months or a couple of years. but my mom just got out of the hospital, recuperating from bronchopneumonia and jan’s (sort-of) yaya’s uncle passed away.

too many streams of unfinished thoughts whirling in my head… too chaotic to string into anything coherent. i need to think.

it’s our second day here near los banos and we’re slowly easing to the rhythm of life here. i was shocked to have paid just about €0.50 –fifty cents!– for jan’s excellently done haircut, and about 10 euro for a dozen pairs of undershirts and matching pants (yep, he’s running around in his underwear, and he’s still sweating!). i couldn’t help being smug with the buying power of the currency i had tucked in my purse, but then we took jan for a jeepney ride, and holy cow, what was a five-peso-ride two years ago, was up by 80% to P9 now. i was also shocked to see that commodities such as diapers are even more expensive that in germany. which is a kind of a riddle: how do ordinary people like jan’s barber, sustain themselves, charging a measly amount for their services, but having to pay so much for basic needs such as transportation and food (ok, diapers may not be “basic need”, but detergents and groceries in general, are equally expesive, anyway)?

jan is enjoying well, being his babbling self even if nobody understands him. he refuses to speak english unless he’s desperate and stubbornly maintains that the other people should learn german instead. he got up eagerly this morning, curious and brimming of energy for what awaits for the day. a breakfast with ovaltine, a trip to the wet market, a spaghetti meal from jollibee, a snack of boiled bananas and primer lessons from tito nino at the tennis club. pity that nino, who started learning tennis three-and-a-half himself, isn’t on term break yet; he’d have turned jan into a tennis prodigy if he had the time.

all in all, it was a pleasant day, spent simply with being together, doing things together. which is what i came here for anyway.

i’ve still to figure out how to connect this laptop to the rest of the world, but until then, my cyber-presence will probably be very limited. and rightly so.

update: meanwhile the peso is strengthening, the exchange rate now pegged at just around P60 to a euro. i can’t make up my mind if i should be pleased or annoyed. haha!

Technorati Tags: philippines

twelve thousand kilometers, 18 hours, 6 time zones and a shift of 30 degrees. but finally we are here, sweltering in the heat (which, at 28°C is actually cool for this time of the month), snacking on the tastiest mangoes in the world, and jan drinking fresh coconut juice straight out of the nut.

tired, sleepy, and crumpled, but finally, home again.

our folks here in germany are concerned with our upcoming trip to asia, straight to bird flu haven. the irony is that the bird flu virus, H5N1, has been found in a domestic cat… in rügen, a german island off the east coast where we spent last year’s summer holiday. yikes!

if the bird flu virus indeed was the cause the cat’s death, that means that the virus is already capable of crossing species. what are the chances that such a pet transmits the disease to humans?

scary.

i swear, it was purely by chance that the last round of blogkadahan and this issue of pinoyexpats both tackle new beginnings.

writing for 3 blogs in english makes it a refreshing change to write again for blogkadahan. it’s been a while, and i enjoyed writing in tag-lish again. head over there and see my entry, about post-partum me.

if pinoyexpats’ last issue was big, with caterina fake on spotlight, i don’t know what to call this one, what with two remarkable pinoys as pinoyexpat of the month and at the spotlight (if you were a fan of pinoy bands in the 90s, the author’s name should ring a bell), as well as two equally remarkable articles written by non-pinoys about pinoy expatriates. and while you’re there, please take time also to read our appeal for help for the victims of the recent mudslide in Leyte.

a great full-packed issue! congatulations and thanks to all contributors and the rest of the team. i’d send flowers, but that’s OA naman.

if you’d like to contribute to any of the future issues, just drop us an email at pinoyexpats@gmail.com.