Teaching My Husband Tagalog

I'm not going out of my way to teach him Tagalog but he picks up a lot from me. It's just funny to hear him pretend he's speaking it and if I didn't know better some of the "sentences" he says sound just like it.

Tale of the Red Balloon

This is a creepy tale, as part of Halloween week...

When I was 15 my parents finally decided to buy a home. My parents threw a housewarming party in tandem with our birthday party, since they coincided. It was the largest party my parents had ever thrown. The house was so full it was hard to move around. While I mingled and said 'hello' to the titas and titos I noticed an older man, whom I had never seen before. He was Caucasian and wearing an old, brown suit. He did not seem to be speaking to anyone, just standing alone amongst the people. He saw me and winked. I smiled back politely and resumed my greetings, assuming that he was one of the many doctor friends that my parents had invited.

After the party I asked my mom who he was. I described him but she didn't recognize the description, so she asked my dad but he didn't know either. We shrugged it off and decided to finish cleaning after the party. While my parents were in the living room, I tackled the family room, and began to collect the napkins and plates, when in the corner of my eye I saw a red shape floating up from the basement. It was a balloon. I paused what I was doing and watched it. When it got to my landing it turned the corner and went up the stairs to the kitchen, then turned it again and went up the hallway to my parents room! I followed and saw it slowly, lightly duck into my parents room, and make its way into their bathroom. Following, I watched as it paused in the semi-darkness of the bathroom and bob up and down, in front of the mirror. From the light a shadow was cast on its surface and in the mirror it looked as if a face was reflected back.

I fled the room and told mom, who laughed.

A few days later, while tidying the books in the family room that the previous owner had left, a photo stumbled out. I looked at it and saw the old man in the brown suit, smiling back up at me.

My Shining Moment

When I was a kid October was the month where my local t.v. station played a horror movie every night, all leading up to Halloween. The first time I saw "The Shining" I couldn't sleep for weeks. The scene that kept playing in my head was where Danny would roam around the empty hotel on his Big Wheel tricycle and the sound that his wheel made as it alternated between hard wood and carpet, the rrrr and shhh was scary enough but when he rounded that corner and came upon the twin girls, in their pretty blue outfits just made it the stuff of my nightmares.

Aswang vs Grandpa

This is a legend in my family. It's the story of how my grandfather outwitted the local 'aswang'...

At one point, my grandfather worked late shifts as a policeman, often returning home at 2 or 3 in the morning, walking along the lonely country paths. One night, after a long shift, he headed home accompanied only by the sounds of the crickets, the soft wind rustling in the high grass and the full moon. As he rounded the bend that led him home, he saw a silhouette standing before him. It was a figure of a woman but her hair was standing up, as if electrified. He drew closer and saw that it was a female vampire, her eyes were blood red and fangs hung below her lips.

She was about to descend upon him.

What saved him was his quick thinking. He realized that it was a nearby neighbor (neighbors often were a few miles apart), and so he hailed her. "Maria! Ano ng yari! (What happened?) Why are you out this late? Are you sick? Your eyes are red and you need to comb your hair! With those magic words, vanity took hold and she sheepishly smiled, apologized and headed home.

I love that story.

Witchy Woman

I love Halloween. Every year I begged my mom to buy me a costume. She insisted that I already had a great costume, as a witch. I wore that witch's costume every year of my life, until I was too old to go trick-or-treating. I didn't even go trick-or-treating because I lived in the Bronx, in an apartment, and my parents thought it was unsafe, so I just wore it to school. The fake hair smelled like sweaty armpits.

Man Meets Mermaid

Mom told us this story when we were kids...

In her village, long before she was born, a fisherman caught a mermaid in his net. The mermaid begged to be freed but the man thought that she would make him rich! And so, for a price, he placed her on display for the whole village to see. But each day a fishy smell would pervade the entire village until no one could stand it anymore and no one would go near the display. Finally, when the fisherman realized that she wouldn't bring in a profit he released her back into the ocean, and decided to go back making a living by fishing.

No one knows what happened to the fisherman because the day the mermaid was released his boat was found, floating offshore, but the fisherman was never seen again.

Another version of this story says that the mermaid cried and cried but the town refused to free her, and so she told them that her father, the great king of the sea, would bring forth a typhoon and floods that would devastate the village. They didn't heed her and overnight the sea boiled up, flooding the roads and pulling houses, women, men, children, and livestock into its depths. Those who survived freed the mermaid, promising never to imprison her kind again.

Apple Picking

Having grown up in New York, the idea of Autumn commingles with the memories of apple picking. The trips upstate, driving on lonesome highways, surrounded by mountains in fiery splendor and the caravans of Filipinos, each bringing something good to eat, play in my mind whenever the first sign of chill begins.

When we got to the orchard we'd pile out of the car and examine what kind of "baon" (food brought for journeys or school or the office) everyone else brought. After a quick brunch, huddling on the grass, in thick sweaters or jackets, we'd grab baskets and begin picking.

I don't know why we took so many apples, I didn't even like apples as a kid. We would be plied with apples in our "baon" for school and I'd just end up giving it to friends.

What Are You?

"What are you?" is one of the most common questions I get asked by perfect strangers, after they try a few stabs at what I am.

What We Do In The Bedroom...

Whenever my husband and I watch the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championships), we usually try to find new nicknames for the fighters.

Now I see that my mother should worry about not having grandchildren.

No wonder she gives me advice...

Butterface

My mom called me and told me about a party she went to with dad and she described one of the D.I.'s (dance instructors) in this manner:

Mom: "Oh Ating, she had such a sexy-sexy body pero ang mukha parang kabayo" (her face looked like a horse).

Me: "Yeah mom, she had a "butterface".

Mom: "Ma-Mike said the same thing, but her face wasn't greasy!"

Me: "Mom! Butterface comes from 'Oh she's got a nice body, but her face is not.' Get it? But her face...? Butterface!"

Mom: "hmm..."

I didn't think she got it so I changed the topic.

Bookworm

I read. I subsist on a diet of books, gorging myself on them. If left with a good book I would not sleep until I finished it. I have a storage facility full of books. When we moved to our new home no one was surprised that my boxes of books topped my boxes of clothing 3 to 1. If asked what I want as a present I usually reply with "gift card to BN.com or Amazon.com". To me, books are best friends never to be thrown away but kept safe, to read over and over. I have read several books at once.

I'm not a bibliophile. I am a lover of content, rather than format. I'll take hardcover or paperback as long as I can get them.

I cried when I watched the Twilight Zone episode "Enough Time At Last" where Burgess Meredith's glasses broke and he couldn't read all the books that surrounded him, after the nuclear blast that killed everyone but him.

Yep, I love to read.

Cod Liver Oil

Being short of stature, mom worried that we kids would inherit her genes and be short as well. She came up with a regimen of sorts for us. We were forced to drink milk nightly (the ad campaigns then were of growing tall and strong if you drank milk, right before your eyes!), eat Flintstones Vitamins (my favorite was the car) and the secret formula was Scott's Emulsion of Pure Cod Liver Oil. There was a creepy picture of a guy on the bottle, carrying a fish that was his size, strapped to his back...

It was gross. Milky white, thick, and chalky. It had a fishy aftertaste and stayed on your palate for a while. If you burped, it smelled like fish. She would tell us how she and her siblings would run away whenever her mother would whip it out and the only people who couldn't run away were the younger kids and they grew up to be "berry tall"!

Hmm... I'm 5'3" and I took that stuff religiously.

Mom Dispenses Advice

I crack up every time my mom and I talk. She always finds a way to bring the talk around to having grandchildren and when I'm going to get pregnant... She always has a bit of advice on that category, as if I am just not doing things correctly. Sheesh.

I was thinking the other day that my breakfasts now are different from what I grew up with. I remember on Saturdays my mom would take the time to make fried rice with garlic and since it was Saturday (we wouldn't have to smell like fish at school) she'd fry up some bulad (tuyo) and we'd have it with Chinese sausages or tocino (cured pork that's a little sweet) and of course sawsawan (dipping sauce). The sawsawan would add a nice extra salty/soury (soy sauce and kalamansi or vinegar) touch to it all.

Nowadays I refrain from buying and cooking bulad because I can't find it and because of my husband (but a girl can dream...) and although we don't eat pancakes for breakfast (too sweet) we have had it for a dessert and I love bacon.

Oh, when Tang was available, my brother and I would make batches of it.

Before and After

The place I was raised in the Philippines was a walk away from the ocean and it was where my cousins and I would swim and build sandcastles with moats, look for shells and hermit crabs. My cousins were good at diving deep for beautiful shells and by the time I was two I was mercilessly thrown into the deep part of the ocean so that I could learn to swim.

I lived there until I was 4 and at that point there were only relatives that lived in that area. We knew one another and our beach was a place of tall palm trees, the occasional fisherman and fiestas held for some saint which included bonfires and lechon.

A few years later we came for a visit and I went for a swim with my mom. The beach was noticeably more littered with less trees and much more people and their homes. While swimming I stuck my head out of the water and saw something floating pass me. My mom yelled, "don't open your mouth!" and that's when I realized that a few inches from my face was floating a poo...

And two seconds before that I had accidentally swallowed some water...

It was salty.

Manananggal

Growing up my mom would tell us stories about aswangs and manananggals. Manananggals are these women monsters who could separate their bodies and go flying around, at night, looking for pregnant women from whom they could eat their babies through proboscis-like tongues.

The story went that one particular monster flew to an unsuspecting mother-to-be's roof, made a hole through the hut's top and slowly dropped her tongue (growing longer and thinner) until it reached the woman's bellybutton. The woman, however, woke up and saw the elongated tongue, grabbed it and quickly tied a knot to prevent the creature from escaping. The creature was stuck there and could not return to its other half before the sun came up and died.

I was always curious about the other half of her body. Did she leave it just anywhere? What if she needed to pee? What if an animal found it? I was told that if you sprinkle salt on the other half then the creature would die, but who leaves it laying around for another person to find?

In Memory of Milos Stratowski

My first car was named Puddle Jumper, she was a white with gold trimmings, Toyota Corolla, small and sleek with dark interior. Lovely, never a bother, wasn't a gas guzzler. Her only weakness were hills and thunderstorms. We gave her away, or rather, gave her back, to my parents. I missed her and her smooth, light handling and one-armed driving. I found out much later that her name was Hana Kame...

We took up a dark green car, who called himself Miles Stratus. I would go for rides with Miles, often singing songs, humming tunes and chit-chatting. I found out that his name was really Milos (pronounced Milosh) Stratowski and that in coming to America he had changed his name. We all do that, no? Ask our non-whatever-it-is-you-are friends to call us by our real names, not our nicknames...? He was sturdier, bigger, ate and drank more. Still it was fun while it lasted.

Here's to you Milos, may the road rise up to meet you.

Carabao vs. Caribou

When I was a kid and my parents would tell me stories about carabaos and fields of rice. I used to confuse them with caribous and think that they used reindeer to till their fields and plant rice. Don't get me started on Princess Cariboo...

Driving Trips

When we were kids, my parents planned summer vacations for us that always involved long drives. It was hours of seemingly endless forests, strip malls and fields full of cows and tobacco. My brother and I passed the time reading, playing travel games, cards or 'spot the license plates'.

My parents either chatted in the front or my mom would doze off while dad drove. We would stop to eat, my favorite stop being Roy Roger's Chicken, but we had McDonald's or Burger King (no mayo mom!) or the occasional Wendy's. We would use the drive-thru and eat in the car, or eat at picnic areas. I learned how to gas up on these trips and my brother would help squeegee the car.

When we finally got to our destination (Niagara Falls, Virginia Beach, Hershey Penn., Disney World, seaside resorts somewhere on the coast of N.J., Washington D.C...) my parents would lug out our rice cooker (can't leave home without it) a small bag of rice and a few days worth of chicken adobo (because it kept well). Then my brother and I would grab our swimsuits and go swimming. One time my brother brought along a fishing pole and we fished on the Chesapeake Bay and caught a few crabs and a flounder... they really like chicken... my parents ate them, but we refused.

Line Dancing

What is up with Filipinos and line dancing? It started off easy with the Electric Slide and progressed to the Macarena and eventually the Todo, Todo...

Every year the Filipino community, that I grew up with, would hold an annual Christmas party and for months they would use "practicing" as an excuse to throw a party, and there they would "practice" their repertoire of line dances. Over and over they would practice, pause to eat, practice, pause to sing and practice again, until children were found laying all over, half asleep and their parents were busy laughing it up, practicing.

But no matter how many practices, if you look at the photos from past years, there is always someone getting it wrong! Always "si uncle Jun" or "si uncle Mark" or one year, it was my dad.

P.S. If you do a search for "Filipino Line Dancing" you'll find some pretty hilarious videos on youtube, with karaoke included.

Broom = Walis

I drew the two kinds of "walis" found in my house. The bigger of the two is the walis tambo, which is softer and made from some kind of grass. The other one that I've sketched beside it is the walis ting-ting which is made of coconut leaf rib. Walis ting-ting makes a scratchy sound as you "dust" because it's rough and not very malleable and can get at the more stubborn spots (and children, as evident from the thwacks I've gotten). My parents own a vacuum but prefer to use the walis instead...

Fork and Spoon

Before we were married, I brought my husband home to spend Thanksgiving with me and my family. That was the first time he was at a Filipino home and was surprised when we sat at the table and there wasn't a knife as part of his silverware. I tried to explain to him that part of Filipino culture had you eat with your hands and that most dishes were bite-sized and didn't require a knife to cut meat. He still demanded a knife...

Nose Pinch

My mom used to make me pinch the bridge of my nose daily so that it would be more "straight" (tangos)... I don't think it helped too much. My husband thinks it's the funniest thing he's ever heard! Luckily he thinks my nose is cute.

Mani

First let me say that the word "peanuts" in Tagalog seems to have two spellings" mani and mane with a caret over the "e" (it doesn't help that "caret" phonetically has about 5 variations).

Second, "hiya" means shame, therefore "walang hiya" means no shame. "Hiya" I believe, is what fuels Filipinos, I guess it can be equated to the Greeks (mythologically speaking) view of "honor". Pronounced hee-ya, it can be used for peer pressure as well as a morality check.

Growing up I heard a lot of "pahiyain mo kami" from my parents, roughly translated "you want to shame us" or "you bring shame to us". It was a way for them to keep me in line, to let me know that my actions not only make me look bad but also brings embarrassment to my family. With that comes the shyness (also another meaning to hiya) of talking about personal problems. It's difficult to discuss personal problems to a stranger especially when you're brought up that it's a shameful thing to do (better to keep it in) and second that family is first, so any issues should be brought up with the family or not at all.

I know that when you have to explain it, the joke isn't so funny, but I also know that some of my viewers are not intimate with Filipino culture, so just a background...

Halo Squared

When Halo 3 came out I said to myself, 'self you need to blog about that in some way'. It was so simple because I love halo-halo and my blog name is even a play-on-words for it (mix-mix) so it came about naturally.

mmm... halo-halo.

By the way, I haven't had halo-halo in a very long time. When I was home in New York visiting my family, we'd go to this restaurant in Queens that had great bbq skewers (it's called Ihawan) and afterwards I'd always order halo-halo. I'd order it even when it was winter and my teeth would chatter as we walked back to the car, in the snow.

Oh almost forgot, halo-halo, for those not in the know, is sort of like an ice(e) with shaved ice, milk, sweet beans, custard (leche flan) tropical fruits, nata de coco and topped with ube ice cream. I will blog about the goodness known as ube someday.

Nata De Coco

You have to love nata de coco. For those who don't know, it is a jelly-like substance made from coconut gelatin, formed into cubes. It's transparent and chewy and comes in different colors, but I still prefer good ol' clear. There is a burst of sweetness once you bite in it and most Filipinos are familiar with it in fruit salads or halo-halo or taho.

My brother and I never needed any preamble to pop one open and pass it back and forth, eating away while we sat on the couch.

Who hates nata de coco? Nata me, nata you...

Filipino Spaghetti

The first time I learned that not everyone has hot dogs in their spaghetti was at school. My mom had packed me a tupperware container of her homemade spaghetti and I was wolfing it down when someone noticed that mine had strange red disks in it. When I told the rest of my table what it was they were a little weirded out but I just shrugged my shoulders and continued eating.

I still prefer the flavor of sweet (ketchup) meat sauce and the salty bites of hot dogs on my spaghetti to that of the classic, savory dish with tangy tomato sauce and meatballs. But I like them both.

Who can go wrong with spaghetti?

Jeepney

The last time I rode a jeepney I was 8 and I remember being whipped in the face by the hair of the woman sitting next to me. A little down further down an old man sat, clutching a basket with a chicken clucking inside and the mountains were passing by at exhilarating speeds outside. I absolutely loved it. We were all wedged in, shoulder to shoulder and knee to knee, making conversation with the person across the way or just trying to avoid staring at someone. That was the first time I saw a woman flash a boob and feed her baby, without any thought to her fellow passengers. What also amazed me was how the driver managed to remember all the stops, collect the correct payment and hand back the right change, mostly while driving.

Fat Chat

On a recent visit, my mom decided to tell my husband that I had gained some weight while we were sitting at a table with two other strangers, at a hibachi steakhouse!!

"Ate"

The first time my husband came over to my house he noticed that my brother kept calling me 'Ate'. After a lot of giggling from my brother and me, he insisted that he be called 'Ate' too. It is now a joke between the three of us.

Tsinelas

When I lived in the Philippines my mother would take me to the beach so that I could play in the sand and swim around for a little bit. For some reason tsinelas (flip-flops) and water don't go well together, and inevitably, I'd get one sucked up in a current and could only watch as it bobbed away from me. Needless to say, my mom was very upset.

Last night my husband asked why I even wore them while swimming and I couldn't really remember why. But I think it's because the beach and the water were so full of broken shells and rocks that you'd cut your feet on them if you didn't.

I always wondered what happened to my lost tsinelas...

Solutions

Isn't rice the answer to most of life's questions...?

Messy Eater

Never-ending Fiesta

One thing I loved living near other Filipinos were the parties. It seemed that someone always had a 'fiesta' every weekend and we'd just go from one house to another. The best part was that line that went from the food table to the dance floor to the karaoke machine and back to the food table once again.

Baby Brother

This is for my baby brother...
My brother and I are six years apart but he is only two days apart when it comes to birthdays. His birthday was last Saturday while mine is today. When he was born I had been an only child for almost 6 years and I was upset that I didn't get a birthday party.

When my mom came home from the hospital she told me that we would have a little celebration at a restaurant. It was not like my other parties, being somewhat quiet and subdued, and from then on I've had to share my birthday parties with my little brother.

But we're close now and I find it amusing to think back on how much I disliked him when he first made an appearance.

I never really fed him the fly...

Steps For Making Lumpia

One of my favorite Filipino dishes is lumpia, but it can be a little tedious to make. My mom made it a little differently from the "Shanghai" style, preferring to cook the filling and making "chubby" lumpia instead. I always volunteered to be the one who set up the assembly line and roll it as well, not because I was the good child, but because I got to nibble on the filling while I made it. Funny enough, I would just take out the filling and give my brother the fried wrapper skins. It worked out well that way.

Taglish

My parents spoke 'Taglish' at home. This combination of Tagalog and English was so common that in my younger years of grade school I would speak it automatically, interchanging Tagalog words with English words.

Ketchup and Rice

One ever-present condiment at the kitchen table was ketchup, and of course, it was Del Monte brand because my ninang worked there. Anything with a nice, steaming, kaldero of rice and ketchup ('ketsup' as my mom says) is delicious!

White Shirt

My husband is really pale and this is often a source of amusement for me.

I Got The Hint

My mom's always hinting about when I'm going to have a baby, or rather, when she's finally having an 'apo'. Sometimes it's just funny and sometimes, well... I got the hint!

Filipino Nicknames

What's Up With 'Ano'?