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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...?

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...

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.

Filipino Nicknames