April 8, 2013

As promised, today's post will consist of random thoughts and observations we noted during our 5 days in the Philippines.  Let me preface the below with my limited preconceptions of the place.  As long as I've known Betty, a lot of people, mostly Asians, look at her and assume she is Filipino.  As a proud Chinese, it has always rankled her a bit, and my understanding of the Chinese is that many feel that the Filipinos are inferior to them and that they are the people that come to their country to to the dirty work.  To be fair, the Chinese think all races are inferior to them.  Have always assumed the fact that Betty has darker skin and larger boobs than your typical Chinese is what causes this confusion, but the fact that a lot of the locals came up to her and started in with the Tagalog assuming she was local is making me think she may not actually be Chinese. 

My impression of the Filipinos was that they are a happy people, very courteous and laid back.  I appreciated the fact that English is all  over the place with signage easy to read and everyone we met spoke it well.  The official language is Tagalog but English is also considered a national language.  By the way...every time I say or think about the Tagalog language, it makes me hungry for my favorite Girl Scout cookie...the Tagalong.

Something I loved and found comforting was that the entire vibe was similar to Mexico.  Makes sense as there is a long history of Spanish influence/colonization in both countries, but seeing just how close the two societies appear was interesting.  For instance, exactly like Mexico, when the street vendors wanted you to look at their products, they would ask for a Filipino minute and offer a Filipino price.

The very first thing we noticed about the people was their complete fascination with basketball.  The TV had 3 stations devoted to it and they showed games day and night from the NBA, NCAA, European and local leagues.  A very high percentage of the fellas, and quite a few of the ladies, wore basketball jersey's, seemingly equally split between the NBA and local teams, with Kobe's jersey outnumbering any other player 5 to 1.

Another thing we all loved was not having to wear bathing caps in the pool.  From research, we know that Taiwan is the only country in the world with the mandatory bathing cap in the pool requirement, so it was not unexpected, but was such a relief to not have to wear those horrendous things.

We have grown used to a lot of stray dogs in Taiwan, but we noticed an equal amount of stray cats roaming around everywhere.  They were quite cute and seemed mellow enough, but we dared not touch.

 

The Filipinos love the pork products.  At our favorite restaurant, we saw at least a half dozen cochinillio being served.  Basically, an entire baby pig roasted and served to your table.



And saw more than one of these giant pigs being slow roasted all day along side the beach.

Also beach side were numerous massage tables...300 pesos (US$10) for an hour massage...Betty got at least one per day and think she doubled up a couple of the days as she would disappear and come back all relaxed.  As we would walk by the massage places in the evening, the masseuses would loudly be hawking their services, and then would say to the fellas in a quieter voice, "upstairs massage".  A Google search of "upstairs massage" came back with some interesting results.

We also had frequent sightings of what has to be described as "lady boys".  I don't think they registered as such with Carolyn, but Paul noticed them.  We are not a homophobic lot, and have seen guys in drag before, but it was really hard to tell that these were not girls.  Note to anyone traveling to the Philippines, make sure you check under the hood before purchasing an upstairs massage.   

A couple of vacation nicknames were given...Paul definitely decompressed mentally from his school work and was practically a vegetable.  Brain dead and lazy.  Not complaining as that is exactly what a beach vacation should be, but one afternoon, as we're walking home from something, he refuses to carry the beach bag or groceries, but offers to carry the towels around his neck.  So his name became Towel Rack as in...
Me: "Where's Towel Rack?"
Carolyn: "He's in the hotel room watching Filipino Minute To Win It."

A food they had all over the place that we all love, but cannot find in TW, is chorizo.  Growing up in Argentina, chorizo is it's own food group to Betty, so she was loving having it offered in so many places.  Don't think she liked it, but we started calling her Choriza (rthymes with Teresa).

Our hotel included buffet breakfast, and both Paul and I latched onto a typical Filipino dish offered called pancit bihon , which are rice noodles mixed with veggies or meat.  Of course, the noodles originate from China (duh), but as with the Italians, they have taken it and made something magical.  We also ordered up some lumpias , which are basically spring rolls but smaller and wrapped tighter (another Chinese import done better).  Love those and the ones we had were good, but not as good as our friend Yvette's mother-in-laws recipe (hope there are some on the menu when we visit this summer by the way...).  And while it was kinda gross, being able to walk along the beach and have a dude crack open a coconut, stick a straw in and drink away was so very Castaway.

One day, as we are floating in the crystal blue ocean and throwing algae balls at each other, we stumbled upon a metaphor to describe our family dynamic.  First, the Korean peninsula was all over the news.  Second, it is no secret that we align along the typical Mama's Boy/Daddy's Girl stereotypes.  So as we're floating, we drift into a bit deeper water and Carolyn can't touch the bottom and she starts swimming in my direction yelling "Daddy Daddy".  Betty is between us and offers to help her, but she splashes right past her to me, obviously preferring a risk of drowning than having mom help her.  It then turned into an algae fight between Betty/Paul against Carolyn/Me that we equated to China/N.Korea v S. Korea/USA.  The similarities to the conflict on the Korean peninsula were scary.  Paul as N. Korea lobbing algae bombs at Carolyn/S. Korea with me (the USA obviously) protecting her, while Betty (as China of course) sorta telling little Paul Jong-un to knock it off but doing nothing to stop him while secretly providing more algae.  Paul/N.Korea even took it to the next level by lobbing a couple of salvos at Betty/China just to piss them off too.  Such a great way to learn about geopolitics.