posting my favorite song about filipina moms:
and a film about filipina women - that i just read/found out about via a tweet. thank you twitter!
currently it's only screening in dubai... hopefully, they'll screen it here in the US as well... :)
my sister and i have been emailing each other a lot lately. email has been such a godsend - although i miss getting actual letters in the mail (on silly sanrio stationary with twin stars or my melody on them), it amazes me how close she feels even though she's half a world away.
she's (and her husband) getting ready for her move to canada and crossing off all "the things to do" on her growing list... it's sad to hear that she is leaving for the same reasons our mother left decades ago - lucrative employment opportunities, "better" living conditions, a "safer" place to raise future children, money to send home, etc... and now, somewhat closer to family...
it's not a move that she's eager to make, but one that she feels is the right thing to do for this time in her life. she's worried about our father who will stay behind in manila as well as our other sister and her family and the extended family. she doesn't mention her friends very much, i think saying goodbye to them will be just as heartbreaking as saying goodbye to blood relatives.
above is the video for "mama filipina" by apl.de.ap of the black eyed peas from his upcoming solo album "u can dream". i've been listening to it a lot lately. it's really been inspiring me to finish a book i've been trying to write about my mother and my childhood in chicago as part of an immigrant family.
i should really send a link to my sister. and come to think of it although my mom HATES "modern" music, i really think she'd appreciate the lyrics and nostalgia that apl.de.ap revisits in the song and the video.
i may not have been born there. but often, i miss the philippines as if i was. it seems like everytime i go "home", someone else is missing, having left for the states or canada or new zealand, or worse - passed away, etc... what will it be like, one day, when i don't know anyone there anymore and i am truly a tourist just visiting?
I finally got around to watching the Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations: Philippines episode that has been lying in my DVR for weeks. Unlike the other show I watched featuring Filipino cuisine (Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre Foods), this one featured many more mainstream dishes. Sure, they had several foods that I could hardly bear to look at (OMG there's Anthony Bourdain chewing on a goat's eye, bile.... brain!!). But I watched most of the show wishing I had a plate of whatever they were eating in front of me.
The focus of the show was really about discovering what Filipino cuisine really is -- which of course is as difficult to do as it is for Anthony Bourdain's guide, a Filipino American fan named Augusto, to discover his own identity. Because Filipino cuisine is such a mishmash of influences, (Malay, Chinese, Spanish, American, etc..), and has such variation among regions, it's unique -- but difficult to distill and describe.
In any case, I was happy to see some real Filipino favorites on the show, like pinakbet, lechon, kare-kare, fishballs, sisig, and adobong anything. And I was happy to see two of my favorite Filipino foodies featured on the show: Ivan Dy, who led Alfie and me around Manila's Chinatown on a Big Binondo Food Wok, and Mr. Market Manila, who cooked up the highlight of the show, that wonderful meal full featuring fresh local produce and succulent lechon, served outdoors somewhere in Cebu (the view from wherever they were was amazing!).
The third thing I was happy to see emphasized was the connection between food and family. Anthony was fed by his hosts morning, noon and night. He was welcomed into Augusto's family and treated to feast after feast. Sharing food is the Filipino way express generosity, hospitality and togetherness. And I know they really got this message across because while we were watching the Lechon Lunch part, Alfie had a Revelation . His eyes lit up, and he said to me in an Ah-Hah voice, "I think I get it now. Food is to Filipinos what Tea is to the English!"
Bonggamom blogs about food A Lot -- here, on Finding Bonggamom, Bonggamom Finds, and her various other blogs. She's got more thoughts on the No Reservations: Philippines episode here.
Before our return flight to San Francisco, my dad warned us that we needed to get to Ninoy Aquino International Airport at least 3 hours before our scheduled flight time, preferrably 4 hours before. Alfie and I pooh-poohed his suggestion; after all, 4 hours at the airport? With 3 kids? Just before a 14-hour flight?? Besides, at San Francisco International, they usually suggest arriving 2 hours before, what's wrong with that? We decided to humor him and plan to be at the airport 3 hours before.
Turns out he was right. Once at the airport, we had to line up six times, and we needed almost all of those 3 hours to get through all the lines:
1) Line to check in
2) Line to pay foreign travel tax
3) Line to pay airport tax fee
4) Line for immigration
5) Line for security check
6) Line for security check (a separate check done by Philippine Airlines)
When we finally arrived at the waiting area, it was already time to board the plane and we had to line up yet again (which actually makes it seven lines total that we had to endure before boarding the plane).
You'd think that with all these lines -- where they check and recheck your passport and tickets and visas and green cards and boarding cards, where they scan you and unpack your bags and feel you up -- that passengers can at least feel sure that airline and airport personnel are doing all they can to ensure passenger safety. Yet just a couple of weeks ago, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) declared the Philippines to be an unsafe port of origin because it has failed to comply with their international aviation safety standards.
So we are now a "category 2 country", along with 21 other countries like Bangladesh, Ghana and Guyana. This means that Philippine carriers operating in the US (namely PAL) cannot expand their operations, and may continue their current flight operations only under heightened scrutiny. So every time a PAL plane lands in LAX or SFO, it needs a special inspection by the FAA. With these extra inspections, I imagine PAL is going to have to revert to its former nickname -- Plane Always Late. Even worse is the negative effect on tourism that is sure to follow, since this downgrade casts the Philippines in a bad light.
Yup, unfortunately, even after all those security checks at the airport, they say it's an unsafe port. The culprit is not airport security measures; apparently it's the operations, maintenance, licensing standards. It's not even PAL's fault -- the safety rating program assesses "a country's ability, not the individual air carrier, to adhere to international standards and recommended practices for aircraft operations and maintenance." At least the Philippine government is now scrambling to pass laws, bills, whatever, to recify the situation. Cmon guys, get your act together!
Bonggamom also blogs at the Silicon Valley Moms Blog and Finding Bonggamom.
I love watching food shows, travel shows, and travel food shows. My husband, on the other hand, couldn't care less; when I watch these kind of shows, he gets up and goes to play online poke. However, two nights ago we watched Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern on the Travel Channel together. Why the sudden togetherness? Because the episode was about exotic foods from the Philippines.
For those who haven't watched the show before, Andrew Zimmern is a chef and foodaholic who travels the globe in search of bizarre foods. I tell you, this guy will eat anything. He might not like it, but he'll try anything and give a critique afterwards ("gamey", "gritty", "bland" and "gooey" were some of the terms he used to describe the foods he ate in the Philippine episode). Some of the foods he sampled in the Philippines, from (in my opinion) the most common, tamest foods to the rarest and most disgusting:
Banana-que (saba bananas fried in syrup, eaten on a barbecue stick)
Cheese and ube (purple yam) flavored ice-cream on a hamburger bun
Dinuguan (pork blood stew)
Barbecued chicken intestines
Frog, stuffed with ground pork and deep-fried
Soup #5 (bull testicle soup)
Balut (steamed, fertilized duck embryo)
Uok (large coconut worms)
Live mangrove worms dipped in vinegar
It was a very colorful, interesting show indeed. I only had two complaints:
First, Zimmern's pronunciation of local terms was atrocious. No, I'm not expecting his accent to be perfect, but c'mon, saying "ballot" for "balut"? Or pronouncing the "X" in Roxas City? Surely someone on his staff knows that the "X" is silent, and that the accent in balut is on the last syllable (i.e., ba-LOOOT).
Second, the show seemed to imply that Filipinos eat weird and bizarre things all the time. Yes, the Philippines cooks up some pretty weird stuff (as evidenced by the list above). In fact, foods from the Philippines make up 6 out of Andrew Zimmern's top 10 list of the worst (least palatable) bizarre foods he has eaten. But that doesn't mean that everyone likes them or eats them every day. I myself only eat the first three foods on the list above. I hate dinuguan, I'm willing to try the frog and the intestines, but I just do not have the courage or the stomach to try any of the rest (more power to you, Andrew). The fact is that Filipino cuisine is delicious, not just by "bizarre" standards, but by any standard, featuring dishes that even the pickiest foreigner would love: chicken adobo, pansit, fried kangkong leaves, and anything from Goldilocks.
Maybe I'll give Soup #5 a try someday.
during one of those rough rainy days, the paloma and i were playing with her little people and her little people house. she found a little person to portray almost everybody (like the asian mommy screaming, "please stop hitting your brother with the plastic baseball bat!" to the little asian girl) in the family except - "where's lola?", she said. and with a weary, heavy and bitter heart, i said, "honey, i really don't know where your lola is."
i can remember the first time my lola arrived from the philippines. an excited gaggle of aunties and uncles was dispatched to greet and retrieve her from o'hare airport and a tornado of sweaty limbs and luggage and boxes returned to our doorstep a few hours later.
she was sitting on our disco day-glo orange sectional sofa surrounded by opened balikbayan boxes, luggage and a beautiful accordion displayed in its carrying case. the floor was scattered with packages of dried mangoes, tamarind candy, polvoron and a special colorful malong purchased just for me. she had a mischievous smile, a quirky, disarming sense of humor and a boisterous, infectious laugh.
i'll never forget those first few days, when lola was very generous, exhibiting her love with both words and hugs, sloppily ladling out oodles of her spare time and the bounty of her multifaceted self. she was our historian/storyteller, our cook, our seamstress, our moderator, our family stone, etc... and then?
then, lola got down to brass tacks (/tax). lola became "The Dona" in our family.
maybe a week into her arrival, she took over every household duty. the sun rose and set with my lola. when lola woke up, we woke up. when lola wanted you to go to bed, you went to bed. and you didn't get dressed up or go anywhere without lola's official seal of approval.
lola planned and prepared all of our meals. in the morning, she would make a HUGE pot of sinigang na bangus (or chicken adobo or beef caldereta) and a matching pot of rice. and that would ensure that she wouldn't have to cook the rest of the day. we'd have sinigang for breakfast, lunch and dinner. i was shocked that lola didn't know how to make a halo halo or a bread pudding out of leftover sinigang na bangus.
i used to especially hate when she would fry fish in the morning. don't get me wrong, i LOVE fried fish, especially with some vinegary sawsawan on the side (MASARAP!). but when i arrived at school, i would braid my hair tightly and try to stay as still as possible hoping not to create even the slightest breeze that would betray my fishy smell. but my third grade teacher, who had an extremely sensitive nose would always complain, "does anyone else smell... FISH!?" and would run to the windows and dramatically throw them open.
we almost never had another pizza night, a mcdonalds run, an italian beef au jus, a gyros, or sweet and sour chicken - because that would've been downright insulting and well, wasteful to lola.
lola was very religious too. my mom and i went to church every sunday before lola came. after her arrival, we were going to novenas on tuesday nights and were hosting a local santo nino statue for a week, once a month. i remember being very afraid of the santo nino statue specifically. he just did not look like a very innocent, very approachable baby jesus. then, one day i saw a smear of what looked like chocolate on his face and i was sure he was walking around eating our bread at night. one night i woke up from hearing a loud growling coming from outside my room and i absolutely FLIPPED OUT. i ran as fast as i could with my eyes shut into my moms room. she walked me back to my room where we saw lola asleep on the sofa, mouth open wide. her snoring, the loud growling of a mythic beast out of dante's inferno, echoed from front door to back.
my lola, who owned land and businesses in the philippines was also our financial advisor. she judged when items (houses, clothing or an apple) were a bargain or too expensive. she was also the keeper of our social calendar. her intuition was very sharp and she could spot a bad influence from miles away. though my family and i were dubious to her counsel, she was usually right.
despite all of that, she wasn't perfect. ;) she had generalized/flawed ideas about people and other things and did not have the curiosity or vision to see beyond what she "knew" and learn something else - though not necessarily something new or better.
lola used to drill tell/remind me that when i got older, it would be my responsibility to live with and take care of my mother and father, just like my mother was taking care of her. in return, my mother would help me care for my children and my house. it was something i naturally took for granted. it wasn't meant or perceived as a burden to me at all. i was actually looking forward to it.
i learned a few things from my lola. mostly, how to hand and machine sew and embroider. i'll never forget the day i could sew faster on a machine than lola. her face was beaming and her eyes were moist. it never occurred to my family that i might choose to make sewing or fashion design/production into a career.
i fantasized about my mother teaching my children how to doodle just like she taught me. i was curious to see if they would be interested in her work as a civil engineer and what mechanical wonders she could show them in detail. i hope that she teaches the paloma to knit (even though i can too) and that she shows the porkchop how to fix things (since the thin man isn't really all that handy and my mom is even more handy than me). i'd love to see her teach them how to play sungka, to make a parol at christmas time and how to haggle a seller/the selling price of any item to what they're offering.
but, in reality my mother (and stepfather) has no interest whatsoever in living with me, my sisters, my brother, our spouses/significant other or her precious apos. we all have room for both of them. we all have offered. none of us are crazy or violent (much). but, the both of them (now well into their 60s) are adamant in wanting and asserting their independence from us. at first, we thought they were too proud to admit that they were getting to old for the daily stress of work. but, we all realize now that they are still not ready to "settle down". although they do not shirk babysitting duty (much), we do have to check with them ahead of time to make sure that they're not working, on a cruise/vacation/road trip or playing golf or going to a *insert filipino social organization " party/ball or are otherwise mysteriously unavailable. not all, but many of my fellow pinay moms/dads have "hit it rich". their moms and dads often invite their grandkids for sleepovers and weekends. they care for their grandchildren during a weekday(s) so that one of the parents can take care of errands unencumbered around town sans kids and nap schedules and potty breaks.
please don't misunderstand. i love my mom desperately. i want my mom to experience everything that she wants out of her life and this wide wide world. especially because she sacrificed so much of herself for me, my siblings and our diverse futures. but, sometimes often, i need help or even just some guidance or sisterly/motherly support, just like she did when she was a single mom trying to make a life for our family. i treasure her experience and her knowledge and her history and my kids need to learn from her, to ask her questions, to listen and remember the melody and cadence of her speaking voice. i want them to see and recognize the small mole on her left temple like i remember the deep scar on my lola's forehead - the scar she told me that god had put there to remind her that she had a purpose, that she was worth something. i need my mother to help me carve our time for my self too, just like my lola helped her to do the same.
intellectually, i know an experienced and reliable babysitter will do in a pinch. and in a way, i don't want my children to have a lola like mine. my mother is really my lola's complete opposite. and theirs was not a soothing relationship of equals. i really thought that my mother and i would collaborate and cobble a modernist interpretation of the tradition that my grandmother recited like a mantra or religious dogma.
so, on the days that it rains, literally and figuratively, it still deeply disappoints and wounds me that i can't count on her to be there for my children, like my lola was there for me, and my mom, unconditionally and almost as elementally, as water or air.
anyway. The gathering in the sports complex was part of efforts to smash the Guinness world record for the most number of women simultaneously breastfeeding their babies.I'm saddened with all this. Hopefully, there is truly enough awareness focus in breastfeeding that can open up more Philippine moms to breastfeed.
The large number of tired moms was a coup for organizers, trying to promote breastfeeding in a country where many poor families believe that expensive powdered milk is more nutritious.
Around 16,000 children die every year in the Philippines because their milk formula is mixed with dirty water or the wrong amount of powder, according to the World Health Organization.
