Questions Only a Filipino Could Answer...

...or could they?

Why do Filipinos go to ethnic restaurants just to order the same tapa or fried chicken and sweet-sauced spaghetti they get everywhere else?

(Note that I grabbed this image of tapa from the Max's Fried Chicken restaurants website.)

Why is it that Filipinos know all the latest songs, lyrics, and the dance moves, but radio play lists haven't changed since the Marcos era, including Kenny Rogers' Through the Years and Mary MacGregor's Torn Between Two Lovers?

Am I the only one disturbed by the Placenta line of beauty products?

These are just some of the things I wonder about.

Holiday Memories...and Iowa?

A few Christmas and New Year's memories via text messages on my cell phone. Yes, memories from the cell phone. Filipinos don't send cards, they send texts. It's all you can do to send a regular text message on Christmas and New Year's Eve and Day because the lines are so jammed with people texting everyone in their contacts list!

Dis christmas, f ther's something better than sharing with others the best of what u have, it is sharing with others the best of who u are. MALIIGAYANG PASKO po!
-Paradigm Salon

Wishing u d best that next year has to offer, merry xmas from my heart. Hugs
-Rye

Merry Christmas & Happy new year! Have a good ur holiday...with ur family also! *^^*
-Gloria

May d true reason of xmas continue 2 bles u n serve as ur guide in d yr 2 come. Have blessd xmas n a prosperous 2008!
-Booboy

Merry Christmas. You have been part of my life and made a difference on how I view life. Thank you...:) *hugs*
-Yucel

In this joyous season of merrymaking & endless parties, remember this: "Thou shalt not weigh more than thy refrigerator." Merry Christmas! (",)(^_^)
-John

May you have the joyous Christmas, and wishing you the very best times ahead. Cheeers!
-Nathan

Merry Christmas. May this day bring you joy and wonderful surprises. ^_^
-Dee

Don't you wish you were Santa...because he knows where all the naughty boys live. ^_^ HO HO HO! Merry Christmas;-)
-F.T.

Merry Christmas ^_^
-Jonathan

hi! merry xmas jay and ed (cincinnati time). ^_^ i sent a msg last xmas but i dnt knw f it reachd u guys...jst 2 b sure dat i didnt fget my friends..its stil xmas in sme parts of d world. ^_^
-Yucel

Happy New Year! I wish you hapiness, health and wealth dis coming 2008! God bless you and ur family! Thank you and take care! ^_^
-Jeremy

happy bday to edson!
-Roy and Nathan

Sin Ni Kwai Lok. Happy New Year. May this year be full of bounty and good health 4 u and ur family. Wishing all d luck and pr0sperity this yr.
-Luwi

Happy bday to edson! May u have a joyous new year guys. ^_^
-Yucel

As we end 2007, its a gud tym 2 luk bak n reflct on d yr dat was; b thankful 4 all d blessns n learn fr our faults 2 b strong in facn d challenges of 2008.
-Booboy

Happy New Year! I wish you happiness, health and wealth dis coming 2008! God bless you and ur family! Thank you and take care! ^_^
-Jeremy

I wanted to send you something beautiful, attractive, funny and sexy but the postman told me to take the stamps off my ass and get the fuck out the postbox! Have an explosive evening and best wishes for 2008! Mwah!
-Noel

As you can well imagine, spell check had quite a time with those! Ah, such is the nature of text messaging!

I remembered those today because we just received our first Christmas cards! Today. Today, January 4th.

The postmarks show them being sent on December 7th from Denver, CO, December 10th from Cincinnati, OH, and December 15th from Oakland, CA. That's just the states! One was marked December 20th from Lucena, a city just a six-hour drive away!

Oh well, just so they made it before Epiphany!

Let's see, what other fond memories?

Oh yes! I tried ostrich on Christmas Day. The taste is good, very similar to steak, but too chewy for my likes.

Edson's brother, Ed, took this great picture of us:

Overall, 2008 seems to be going along quite well. Only 361 more days before we can make any sort of final judgment call!

The only disturbing news has come from the US...the state of Iowa to be exact.

At a fund raising dinner in Iowa hosted by actor Chuck Norris, current front-runner (and I understand, winner of the Iowa caucus) Mike Huckabee was reported as follows:

As he often does, the former governor drew big laughs from the crowd when he told them to tell their neighbors who might caucus for one of his rivals that they do not want to miss the Orange Bowl, which is being played the same night as the caucuses.
“Shovel your snow into their driveway,” Huckabee joked. “Let the air out of their tires, disconnect their battery cable.”

Isn't that a little bit frat-boyish and immature? Of course, those qualities got Dubya elected, so I suppose that is what matters to Republicans now. And to think Huckabee's a Baptist minister! Jokingly or not, someone in his position should not be condoning that sort of behavior!

The day before, he appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and was surprised that people were picketing him in support of the writer's strike. He said he didn't know the writers hadn't reached an agreement with that show.

Didn't know?

Even Filipinos I've spoken with about current events know of the writer's strike in the US! Filipinos know what the state of the strike is, but someone running for president of the United States doesn't?!

Uh, sir? You're not qualified!!

Well, he might be qualified to be attorney general (see: Alberto Gonzalez).

"Didn't know", "Don't know", and "Don't remember" are almost campaign slogans for the Republicans at this point!

Also at the Norris fundraiser:

In a small departure from most of Huckabee’s campaign events, his wife, Janet, took the stage to address the crowd and introduce the band.

“I can’t wait to be your first lady because I think it is going to be too cool, and we are going to have too much fun,” Janet Huckabee said.

Too cool???!!!

Tell me that was a misplaced Britney Spears quote, and/or that the whole thing is just a bad dream!

Can you imagine a first lady speaking like that?!

"Um, like, yeah...being first lady is so totally cool! And the White House is, like, really awesome! And I get to meet some really cool people. They're from these, like, poor countries...where they, like, don't even have a Wal-Mart. And they have these really weird names...they're so hard to pr-...uh...say! It's all just so much fun, though."

A presidential candidate who doesn't know his domestic current events and an airhead wanna-be first lady.

America needs our prayers.

Christmas Time is Here Again

Christmas Time is Here Again

Yes, it is indeed time for Bing Crosby to sing White Christmas, the only time of the year anybody anywhere listens to Burl Ives, and of course, an endless plethora of putrid poetry put to music. Why must so much good holiday music go unheard while malls and radio stations inflict well-meaning Christians with unfortunate vocal abilities and Mariah Carey on us? And will somebody please go slap the producers who thought of making euro-inspired dancey, dare I say, almost polka-ish mixes of some of the worst Christmas music ever recorded?

All of metro Manila has been listening to this since late September. (Yeah, they start early here!)

At SM department store, Christmas trees spew "snow" out the treetop that trickles down, eventually being collected in the large bowl in which the tree sits, only to be sucked up and out the top again.

In the Philippines it is felt that Christmas here is somehow distinctly second-rate when compared with America and Europe. White Christmas, Jingle Bells, Winter Wonderland, Frosty the Snowman, even Santa Claus and his sleigh, are all rather unlikely imports to a nation where, this December 12th, it is 87 degrees Fahrenheit! Filipinos think they're missing out on something. Yeah, missing out on the likelihood of needing to wear multiple layers of undergarments, sweaters, parkas, scarves, and gloves to stay warm! It's nice every now and again, but I'm enjoying it just the way it is, thanks!

In fact, just yesterday it was around 85 degrees Fahrenheit and I was having coffee with my friend Noel at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in the Convergys building. Actually, I wasn't having coffee. I was having a "mixed blend" iced chocolate, which has no coffee in it whatsoever. But it doesn't seem right to say I was having "mixed blend iced chocolate", especially at a coffee shop. It doesn't roll off the tongue very easily. In fact, a lot of people say they "had coffee" even when they didn't drink anything at all! Just being in a coffee shop while their friends and others around them have coffee seems to be reason enough to say they "had coffee".

And no, this time we were not talking about food. Aside from looking at the menu at a restaurant, I don't recall ever talking about food with Noel. We were talking about something apparently far less interesting, since I can't remember what it was when we noticed someone walk past the window outside wearing a wool skull cap, gloves, and a parka. He was followed by a man perspiring in slacks and short-sleeve button-down shirt who was fanning himself with an envelope. Now, if you're cold enough to wear a parka, gloves, and wool hat when it is 85, you're prepared for global warming! If you're like the man behind him, you are clearly not, like the rest of us.

Anyway, all this is just to lead you up to some pictures I thought you may, or may not be interested in seeing of metro Manila during the holidays.

Along Ayala Avenue:


At Greenbelt:

Commuters, traffic and lights:

The tree at Mall of Asia, decorated completely with poinsettias, gold glass balls, and teddy bears. Underneath notice the Cartoon Network Snow-ville area, where fake snow is blown onto poor unsuspecting children while their snap-happy parents take their pictures.

And on the other side of our tree we have St. Nick in his shiny satin suit and poly-fiber beard. Nobody charging parents $10 or $15 to have their child's picture taken. Just kids sitting on Santa's lap while mom or dad uses up some more space on the memory card.