Culture

What is the difference between a café and other food establishments? When does a café stop being a café and start becoming a restaurant, bistro, bar, club or a roadside food stall?

Cafes from all over the world now sell a variety of things from coffee and light snacks to alcohol and marijuana sticks. Strictly speaking though, the word itself is French in origin and means coffee. A traditional café would therefore serve different coffee variations and food that go along with it.

I think the Philippines is yet again about to redefine this foreign term. I did mention that our city has this weekend-only event called the Night Café. By all appearances, it defies past and present concepts of cafes.

The Night Café is made up of a long stretch of stalls and mono block furniture set right on the city’s central rode. Most stalls basically sell a repeat of what all the other stalls sell– grilled pork, refreshments and alcohol. This is one of the only few places I have ever been to where the scent of marinated grilled pork is so strong that you can almost smell cancer in the air. Customers eat ON the road while singers on a makeshift stage try desperately to call the attention of people away from binging to their atrocious diction and equally frightful costumes and dance steps.

I wonder why stall owners never go bankrupt when neighboring merchants sell the exact same edible options. I suppose the continued presence of stall owners are a testament to the success of the Night Café.

I used to ask why they called it Nigh Café when most stalls don’t serve coffee and the food is never light. Interestingly, I came across a former councilor who served the city a decade or two ago. He said the Night Café concept was born during his time.

The old city council originally imagined the Night Café as a stretch of European style cafes. I imagined they were thinking of having menus that have coffee names you can’t read and that seem to seep out of your nose when you attempt to pronounce them, pastries you can gobble up in one unsatisfying bite and waiters that ask you if you would like a spot of milk with your coffee or tea.

Okay so maybe I’m not entirely sure if they really had that in mind. Maybe they were just planning to serve instant coffee without pork and mono block chairs. In any case, my friend was surprised when he learned that their concept mutated into something wholly unfathomable and unclassifiable.

Well, I must honestly say that I loved the European concept better. Then again, I don’t think it would ever have made a decent buck. Most Filipinos in this city will never thoroughly appreciate European pastries and the English penchant for tea with milk. Those who do, either have authentic international tastes or are trying hard to seem sophisticated.

Filipinos love overflowing, artery-clogging, diabetes-inducing food and drinks and the soul-stirring boisterous company that comes with them. The Night Cafe is the epitome of what Filipinos love the most.

I was reminded the other day of a Filipino practice which I think is uniquely Filipino. Two technicians came from my internet service provider to repair some hardware. It was already lunchtime and I was preparing the dishes when my in-laws commented that I hadn’t yet invited the technicians to eat. In other cultures, my in-laws would have been seen as extremely generous people. In the Philippines they were just being, well—Filipinos.

In the Philippines it is customary to invite people, who pop out of nowhere while you are shoving something edible into your mouth, to share your meal or snack no matter how minuscule your piece of food is. In a lot of cases, the invitee is expected to say no. This makes it a little hard for people to tell whether a person inviting you to share a meal really means to invite you or not so you just have to use your common sense or your intuition.

I remember a college professor who once told us of an encounter she had with an American while she was on a trip abroad. She was on a tight budget and often had trouble making ends meet. She was about to eat a sandwich for lunch one day when she caught sight of an American friend whom she promptly invited to share her meal. To her disappointment and utter horror, her friend took her up on her offer. To paraphrase a popular saying, the moral of the story is, “Don’t be a Roman when you are not in Rome.”

In the three years that I have been living in Cagayan de Oro City, I have formulated one main conclusion— people here love to party and eat. Maybe most Filipinos do but I just never knew because I had such an introverted family that we might as well have been living in a mouse’s hole while the rest of our countrymen socialized, drank, binged and died of consumption.

I must honestly say though that the frequent parties that my husband’s family has been in the habit of taking me to have been gastronomically satisfying. I’ve more or less learned to relate with other humans simply because I get rewarded with the chance to bathe the walls of my arteries with all that bad roasted pork fat. I’m telling you, this is the most satisfying way to commit long term suicide.

Two Sundays ago, I had my organs swim happily in pork oil again till I had difficulty breathing. My husband’s aunt celebrated her birthday and the two roasted pork carcasses were beckoning to me with the shadows of their former selves and the glow of their new forms. I was having the time of my life until I noticed my husband and his aunt picking a little uneasily at one of the considerably deflated carcasses.

I asked my husband what his problem was. He looked at me with a slight hint of amusement and said, “We ran out of rice, the food is quickly disappearing and more people are pouring through those double doors like bulls on a stampede.”

Oops. That sounded too much like Jesus and Mary in the wedding at Canaan but I wasn’t about to ask my husband to stare at the food and miraculously multiply them. Well, he’s not Jesus, he isn’t even Harry Potter. Thankfully, the real magicians in the kitchen just kept whipping up rice like a factory and the food did hold out although there wasn’t even a hint of pork bones left after the storm abated.

The incident is another reminder of a unique aspect of the Filipino culture. My husband’s aunt did estimate the number of her guests correctly. She probably forgot though that in the Philippines, when you invite a person to an event, you are also indirectly inviting that person’s spouse, children, friends and friends of friends. In other words, expect a whole platoon to show up for every individual you invite.

I suppose this unwritten Filipino party code of conduct has its roots in the concept of the fiesta. Anyone is welcome to partake of a house’s feast. This does make you feel all the more the unique Filipino brand of hospitality. Then again, for modern middle wage earners who have limited budgets and resources, it can get pretty inconvenient. Well, what can we do, it’s a cultural thing you know.

I used to never watch Filipino soaps, telenovelas and teleseryes which was why I often got into tiffs with some of my co-workers before. They probably misinterpreted my lack of interest in Filipino crying ladies as a sign of a lack of patriotism. Make no mistake I will bash heads with anyone who questions my love for my country. I simply did not like Philippine melodrama because I did not wish to deplete my nasal and eye fluids over the travails of fictional characters. This is especially since my own life and the sad state of our country are enough to be depressed over. I also did not watch soaps because they challenged my mental faculties too much by forcing me to justify either horrendously convoluted or overly simplistic unbelievable plots.

Since I got married though, I have had little choice but to get glimpses of some of these shows. I live in a place where English television has been relegated to oblivion and where I must suffer the perpetual absence of CSI and Smallville. I must admit though that there are some fairly good telenovelas just as there are really bad ones on the primetime fare.

A couple of days ago, I was reminded of one of the presently popular drama shows on TV. An online friend, Myles Narvaez, sent me a picture of Mount Mayon, an active volcano in the province of Albay that is renowned for its nearly perfect cone. The picture should have dug up fond memories of family trips to the place. Unfortunately though, more recent memories of a promotional soap trailer came to mind.

If I remember the trailer correctly, the story begins with the protagonist’s family on a happy trip to Albay when all of a sudden the volcano erupts, the ground cracks open and cruelly swallows one parent whole. Okay, so the volcano was practically smoldering and tourists were standing at its feet taking souvenir pictures. I did not even need to watch the pilot episode to know that the writers of the show probably did not even try to explain that inexplicably improbable part. They were probably thinking that if Pierce Brosnan could get away with Dante’s Peak’s plot then so could they.

Sigh, just when I was getting the hang of Philippine melodrama.

I always see signs on shops around town that say, “Sorry We’re Close.” Sigh. What is that? Sorry we’re close to what— close to me, close to you, close to death? If I had a permanent marker with me every time I went to town and there were no police in sight, I wouldn’t hesitate to put a “d” at the end of each of these grammatically offensive signs. Yes, my dear shop owners, the sign should read, “Sorry We’re Closed,” and “Keep the Door Closed.”

The above phrases are not the only examples of a different kind of English that a lot of Filipinos are very fond of using. I don’t claim to be an expert and neither do I wish to criticize. I do think though that it is about time that we stop abusing some poor helpless, defenseless words.

1.) I can’t report for work today. I’m suffering from overfatigue.

Yup, we have heard a lot of people say that their momentary lapse in energy, common sense and moral judgment is the result of overfatigue. One of my favorite writers, Conrad De Quiros once wrote about this word in his newspaper column. According to De Quiros, “overfatigue” is a Filipinism (something coined by Filipinos). Well, I’m sorry to say that the word will not soon find its way into the dictionary because there is no such word. In fact, try typing it on a word document and it will definitely color red.

The worst kind of tiredness that you can ever feel is called fatigue and anything that is “over” that would probably be death. Next time you’re too lazy to report for work, tell your boss you suffered from fatigue only. More than that and he might have to prepare a funeral wreath.

2.) Come see our collection of jewelries.

One big mall in our city has a sign that says, “Jewelries For Sale.” Since the sign is made of foam, I promise to one day steal the last three letters. You cannot make “jewelry” plural by adding “ies” to it. The plural form of the word is the same as the singular.

3.) Let me offer you some advices about your furnitures and equipments.

Three words are incorrectly used in the sentence. You cannot give a lot of advice on lots of furniture and equipment by putting an “s” at the end of each word. You can use the phrase “pieces of” before each of the three words to make the words plural.

4.) Do you have a cellphone?

Okay, so even Americans use this word but the proper term for the device is “mobile phone.” My engineer husband says the term “cell” actually refers to the cell site.

5.) Let’s eat barbecue.

In the Philippines “barbecue” means meat on a stick. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think Americans use the term to mean a gathering at some open space where they cook meat on a grill.

By the way, some linguistic experts claim that there is now a growing acceptance for Filipinisms or words used in the Philippine context and that they should not automatically be regarded as incorrect. The English language is not solely owned by any one country and any country or nation using it may perhaps reasonably contribute to it.

The problem though is determining when something is an acceptable Filipinism and when it is simply wrong. Perhaps “overfatigue” and the use of “barbecue” in the Philippine context may soon become internationally acceptable but I doubt if “jewelries” and “furnitures” will ever be seen as correct.

A friend’s request has brought to my attention that it has been awhile since I had written anything about the world of entertainment. I was probably too preoccupied with my righteous indignation over the ZTE deal and the reopened Garci scandal to even notice that there was anything entertaining at all.

It is therefore a little saddening that my first entertainment article in ages is about the death of the King of the High C’s, the great tenor, Luciano Pavarotti. He finally succumbed to pancreatic cancer last week and was buried last Saturday in Modeno, Italy after thousands of mourners, entertainers and international leaders came by to bid him farewell.

What the heck, I won’t even pretend to be civilized enough to like opera but I remember my reaction distinctly when I learned about Pavarotti’s death. I couldn’t believe it. At the back of my mind I had always envisioned that he would be alive forever, or at least long enough to entertain the world’s first alien tourists or something. His name has been linked to this era and it seems unimaginable that he is no longer in it.

His unmatched talent, genial nature and willingness to explore the unthinkable (a marriage between pop and classical opera) brought his art to the common people. In our third world country where the closest we could get to opera was Regine Velasquez’s histrionics, Pavarotti’s art was an opportunity to see the world in a different light.

Pavarotti is survived by his children, second wife and (sniff) his four year old daughter.

I hope you are now singing alongside God’s angels.

Mythical accounts of anything or anyone popular have always been in existence to give more dramatic or more heroic versions of what would normally be seen as commonplace. These myths, half truths and embellished truths have begun to spread throughout the modern world like wildfire through the aid of the world wide web.

One interesting story circulating around the web which has doubtful origins revolves around the barong, the Philippine national formal dress for males. Online sources have varying accounts of the origin of the barong and certain authorities dispute the veracity of the popular version of the barong story. Like all popular disputed stories however, this one has the ability to gain a fanatic following. I must admit, I would have preferred the story to be true.

According to the popular barong story, the barong was once used as a sign that the wearer belonged to a lower social group. Filipinos were once required by Spanish colonizers to wear the early version of the barong. It was a nearly transparent garment so that the Spaniards could easily spot hidden weapons. It had no pockets so that no Filipino could pilfer Spanish valuables. It was also meant to be worn without being tucked as a sign of inferiority.

In time, middle class Filipinos who became successful in the fields of business and the academe emerged. Instead of looking for ways to discard the barong, they began to wear it with pride. This time, instead of settling for barongs made of inferior materials, the Filipinos began to make the garments out of exquisite cloths and hand wove delicate patterns on them.

This story could have been a source of great pride if it were completely proven to be true. The counter arguments however against the story include the fact that there is no record of the Spanish law that required the wearing of the barong. It is also possible that the barong may have been worn by our ancestors simply because the weather was too warm to wear anything else.

Whatever the truth of the matter is, I’d like to keep this story in my heart and tell it to my kids before they go to sleep at night.

I was born in Baguio City before the Flower Festival came into existence so while the rest of the country got into periodic bouts of overeating, I practically spent 10 years of my life not knowing that there was such a thing as a fiesta. When my family left for Cebu, the Sinulog fiesta became the very first fiesta I had ever experienced. I must say that as a kid, I liked the idea of not having classes and stuffing my face full of deliciously crispy roasted pork skin. These days though, I dread the coming of the city fiesta.

Filipino fiestas are still essentially celebrated for the same original reason for which they were instituted. The concept of the fiesta was brought to the Philippines by the Spaniards and each celebration was intended to commemorate the feast day of a patron saint. I wouldn’t know though if the saints themselves rejoice upon the idea of uncontrolled revelry, non-gender specific pageants and drunken fits held in their honor in modern fiestas.

Don’t get me wrong. I love fiestas. I just hate the fact that walking is the fastest mode of transportation that can get you anywhere, that your life and possessions are perpetually at risk from suspicious characters and that street company at night consists of inebriated zombies. This is probably why I almost always stay at home during fiestas unless I have the urge to punish my legs and risk my life. My current fiesta allergy is also the reason why I have my former student, MaryFGR a.k.a. artbabe to thank for the photos that will be my only source of memories for this year’s city fiesta.

My sister is a doctorate student abroad. Her studies have already brought her around the world for free as an academic scholar and her performance so far has been nothing short of stellar. When new foreign acquaintances learn of her academic achievements and that she is a Filipina, they express such tremendous astonishment to the point of almost being inadvertently insulting.

There is hardly any doubt that my sister’s foreign friends think in much the same way as a lot of other foreign personalities, stars and tourists who are asked the embarrassingly undying question, “What do you think of Filipinas?” As most of us never tire of hearing, a lot of people seem to think Filipinas are lovely, caring, loving and nothing else. It is as if there is a great void that excludes intelligence, wisdom, strength and talent. It is as if the adjectives that people use to describe the Filipina collective identity fit only the stereotypical roles of the Filipina as a caregiver, domestic helper and mail order bride.

What a lot of people do not know is that the Philippines is not a factory for ideal women who care for older men in their retirement. This country, like any other country in the world is also the home of women of achievement and distinction.

In the American music and film industry alone, a handful of talented women with Filipina blood have rubbed elbows with foreign stars. Perhaps some do not know that, regardless of whether they recognize their biological heritage or not, Tia Carrera, Nicole Scherzinger, Vanessa Minillo and Vanessa Hudgens all draw part of their talent from their Filipino bloodlines.

But the smattering of Filipina-Americans in Hollywood is just the tip of the iceberg. More than just entertainers, singers and dancers, there are also Filipinas who are award winning international performers like Lea Salonga and Cecil Licad. Salonga has performed major roles in Miss Saigon and Les Miserables in Broadway and has been awarded a Tony and an Olivier, besting other senior performers. Licad is a premier international pianist who has performed intricate Rachmaninoff pieces in Carnegie Hall. She has played with the London Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony among others and has become the youngest female to be given the Leventritt Gold Medal.

Outside of the performing arts, our country also boasts of being the place of origin of Filipina visual artists Pacita Abad and Virginia Cruz Santos. Abad has conquered the world with 3,500 trapunto paintings of sewn fabric in 70 countries and has had a total of 40 exhibits mounted in the different continents and cities of the world including Paris, New York and Washington D.C. Santos on the other hand is a mistress in contemporary art. Some may not have known it but Santos was the creative hand behind Dory of Finding Nemo, Cow Girl of Toy Story 2, and Helen Parr and Dash of the Incredibles.

More than just artists, Filipinas are also artist entrepreneurs and you only need to look up the names of Monique Lhuillier and Josie Natori to appreciate that. Lhuillier specializes in bridal gowns but has designed other formal pieces for the elite women of Hollywood and is now a member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Natori is the founder and CEO of the Natori Company, a top luxury brand of women’s clothes and lingerie sold in Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom.

Art and business are not the only areas of excellence for Filipinas and we have Josette Biyo to prove that. Competing against 4,000 teachers around the globe, Biyo won the 2002 Intel Science and Engineering fair in Louisville, Kentucky and became the first Asian to win the Intel Excellence in Teaching Award. Today, there is a Filipina name etched among the stars as minor planet 13241 is now named Planet Biyo.

If the question is about the contribution of the Filipina to the world, then we can proudly say that we have Corazon Aquino, the renowned champion of freedom, human rights and democracy. Aquino was Asia’s first female president and has been distinguished as Time’s Woman of the Year for 1986 and one of Time’s Asian heroes for 2006.

The list can go on indefinitely but the point should have already been clearly made. The Filipina is not something you can define in a dictionary or a travel guide. The Filipina is someone who has a right to define her own identity without the assistance of people who think they know and understand. The Filipina is someone who has as much a right to be a citizen of the world as anyone else.

*For more of the many faces of the Filipina you can go to the Filipina Writing Project. This writing project is sponsored by Barangay.ph, Kababayan.ph, MyUSMailbox.com and RegaloService.com.

My husband used to say that I have a slightly Americanized way of thinking and doing things. This is of course, not my personal choice. I was simply raised this way.

So when I had my first shot at motherhood, I immediately let my baby sleep in a crib beside my bed on our first night out of the hospital. My friends and family were promptly scandalized. My decision was virtually unprecedented among my circle of acquaintances.

On the first night and the next four days after that my baby literally drove all the spirits out of my body with loud seemingly ceaseless crying spells. My husband and I eventually lost all hope, energy and every ounce of sanity in our nerve wracked bodies that we simply decided to hug her close in our bed and let her persist in tormenting the neighbors. Surprisingly she stopped crying. She is now a toddler and still sleeps in our bed and has always had uninterrupted sleep at night. I have since thrown my Americanized sleep training along with my baby’s crib out of our Filipino house.

This is probably why I was puzzled and alarmed by the news that according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, numerous infants and babies die in adult beds. This implies that co-sleeping is not a safe practice and which is probably why we television addicts have become familiar with scenes of American babies sleeping in separate rooms.

This kind of makes me wonder about the differences in sleeping equipment and patterns between Filipinos and Americans. I don’t have the statistics for my country but all the Filipino parents I have ever known have always slept with their babies and none of those babies ever died. What’s the difference between co-sleeping here and there? Why do some American babies die?