May 24, 2008 at 1:08 pm · Filed under general interest, life
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED…
The article is from a British journalist stationed in the Philippines. His observations are so _____! This was written in 1999. We may have a different reaction to this article, so, READ ON…
Matter of Taste
By Matthew Sutherland
I have now been in this country for over six years, and consider myself in most respects well assimilated. However, there is one key step on the road to full assimilation, which I have yet to take, and that’s to eat BALUT. The day any of you sees me eating balut, please call immigration and ask them to issue me a Filipino passport, because at that point there will be no turning back. BALUT, for those still blissfully ignorant non-Pinoys out there, is a fertilized duck egg. It is commonly sold with salt in a piece of newspaper, much like English fish and chips, by street vendors usually after dark, presumably so you can’t see how gross it is. It’s meant to be an aphrodisiac, although I can’t imagine anything more likely to dispel sexual desire than crunching on a partially formed baby duck swimming in noxious fluid. The embryo in the egg comes in varying stages of development, but basically it is not considered macho to eat one without fully discernable feathers, beak, and claws. Some say these crunchy bits are the best. Others prefer just to drink the so-called ’soup’, the vile, pungent liquid that surrounds the aforementioned feathery fetus…excuse me; I have to go and throw up now. I’ll be back in a minute.
Food dominates the life of the Filipino. People here just love to eat. They eat at least eight times a day. These eight official meals are called, in order: breakfast, snacks, lunch, merienda, merienda ceyna, dinner, bedtime snacks and no one saw me take that cookie from-the-fridge-so-it-doesn’t-count. The short gaps in between these mealtimes are spent eating Sky Flakes from the open packet that sits on every desktop.
You’re never far from food in the Philippines. If you doubt this, next time you’re driving
home from work, try this game. See how long you can drive without seeing food and I don’t mean a distant restaurant, or a picture of food. I mean a man on the sidewalk frying fish balls, or a man walking through the traffic selling nuts or candy. I bet it’s less than one minute.
Here are some other things I’ve noticed about food in the Philippines: Firstly, a meal is not a meal without rice - even breakfast. In the UK, I could go a whole year without eating rice. Second, it’s impossible to drink without eating. A bottle of San Miguel just isn’t the same without gambas or beef tapa. Third, no one ventures more than two paces from their house without baon (food in small container) and a container of something cold to drink. You might as well ask a Filipino to leave home without his pants on. Lastly, where I come from, you eat with a knife and fork. Here, you eat with a spoon and fork. You try eating rice swimming in fish sauce with a knife.
One really nice thing about Filipino food culture is that people always ask you to SHARE their food. In my office, if you catch anyone attacking their baon, they will always go, “Sir! KAIN TAYO!” (”Let’s eat!”).
This confused me, until I realized that they didn’t actually expect me to sit down and start munching on their boneless bangus. In fact, the polite response is something like, “No thanks, I just ate.” But the principle is sound - if you have food on your plate, you are expected to share it, however hungry you are, with those who may be even hungrier. I think that’s great! In fact, this is frequently even taken one step further. Many Filipinos use “Have you eaten yet?” (”KUMAIN KA NA?”) as a general greeting, irrespective of time of day or location.
Some foreigners think Filipino food is fairly dull compared to other Asian cuisines. Actually lots of it is very good: Spicy dishes like Bicol Express (strange, a dish named after a train); anything cooked with coconut milk; anything KINILAW; and anything ADOBO. And it’s hard to beat the sheer wanton, cholesterolic frenzy of a good old-fashioned LECHON de leche (roast pig) feast. Dig a pit, light a fire, add 50 pounds of animal fat on a stick, and cook until crisp. Mmm, mmm… you can actually feel your arteries constricting with each successive mouthful.
I also share one key Pinoy trait — a sweet tooth. I am thus the only foreigner I know who does not complain about sweet bread, sweet burgers, sweet spaghetti, sweet banana ketchup, and so on. I am a man who likes to put jam on his pizza. Try it!
It’s the weird food you want to avoid. In addition to duck fetus in the half-shell, items to avoid in the Philippines include pig’s blood soup (DINUGUAN); bull’s testicle soup, the strangely-named “SOUP NUMBER FIVE” (I dread to think what numbers one through four are); and the ubiquitous, stinky shrimp paste, BAGOONG, and it’s equally stinky sister, PATIS.
Filipinos are so addicted to these latter items that they will even risk arrest or deportation trying to smuggle them into countries like Australia and the USA, which wisely ban the importation of items you can smell from more than 100 paces. Then there’s the small matter of the purple ice cream. I have never been able to get my brain around eating purple food; the ubiquitous UBE leaves me cold.
Lastly on the subject of weird food, beware: that KALDERETANG KAMBING (goat) could well be KALDERETANG ASO (dog)… The Filipino, of course, has a well -developed sense of food. Here’s a typical Pinoy food joke: “I’m on a seafood diet”. “What’s a seafood diet?” “When I see food, I eat it!”
Filipinos also eat strange bits of animals — the feet, the head, the guts, etc., usually barbecued on a stick. These have been given witty names, like “ADIDAS” (chicken’s feet); “KURBATA” (either just chicken’s neck, or”neck and thigh” as in “neck-tie”); “WALKMAN” (pigs ears); “PAL” (chicken wings); “HELMET” (chicken head); “IUD” (chicken intestines), and BETAMAX” (video-cassette-like blocks of animal blood). Yum,yum. Bon appetit.
WHEN I arrived in the Philippines from the UK six years ago, one of the first cultural differences to strike me was names. The subject has provided a continuing source of amazement and amusement ever since. The first unusual thing, from an English perspective, is that everyone here has a nickname. In the staid and boring United Kingdom, we have nicknames in kindergarten, but when we move into adulthood we tend, I am glad to say, to lose them. The second thing that struck me is that Philippine names for both girls and boys tend to be what we in the UK would regard as overbearingly cutesy for anyone over about five. Fifty-five-year-olds colleague put it. Where I come from, a boy with a nickname like Boy Blue or Honey Boy would be beaten to death at school by pre-adolescent bullies, and never make it to adulthood. So, probably, would girls with names like Babes, Lovely, Precious, Peachy or Apples. Yuk, ech ech. Here,
however, no one bats an eyelid.
Then I noticed how many people have what I have come to call “door-bell names”. These are nicknames that sound like -well, doorbells. There are millions of them. Bing, Bong, Ding, and Dong are some of the more common. They can be, and frequently are, used in even more door-bell-like combinations such as Bing-Bong, Ding-Dong, Ting-Ting, and so on. Even our newly appointed chief of police has a doorbell name Ping. None of these doorbell names exist where I come from, and hence sound unusually amusing to my untutored foreign ear. Someone once told me that one of the Bings, when asked why he was called Bing, replied, “because my brother is called Bong”. Faultless logic. Dong, of course, is a particularly funny one for me, as where come from “dong” is a slang word for well; perhaps “talong” is the best Tagalog equivalent!!!
Repeating names was another novelty to me, having never before encountered people with names like Len-Len, Let-Let, Mai-Mai, or Ning-Ning. The secretary I inherited on my arrival had an unusual one: Leck-Leck. Such names are then frequently further refined by using the “squared” symbol, as in Len2 or Mai2. This had me very confused for a while. Then there is the trend for parents to stick to a theme when naming their children. This can be as simple as making them all begin with the same letter, as in Jun, Jimmy, Janice, and Joy. More imaginative parents shoot for more sophisticated forms of assonance or rhyme, as in Biboy, Boboy, Buboy, Baboy (notice the names get worse the more kids there are-best to be born early or you could end up being a Baboy). Even better, parents can create whole families of, say, desserts (Apple Pie, Cherry Pie, Honey Pie) or flowers (Rose, Daffodil, Tulip).
The main advantage of such combinations is that they look great painted across your trunk if you’re a cab driver. That’s another thing I’d never seen before coming to Manila –taxis with the driver’s kids’ names on the trunk. Another whole eye-opening field for the foreign visitor is the phenomenon of the “composite” name. This includes names like Jejomar (for Jesus, Joseph and Mary), and the remarkable Luzviminda (for Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, believe it or not). That’s a bit like me being called something like “Engscowani” (for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). Between you and me, I’m glad I’m not. And how could I forget to mention the fabulous concept of the randomly inserted letter ‘h’. Quite what this device is supposed to achieve, I have not yet figured out, but I think it is designed to give a touch of class to an otherwise only averagely weird name. It results in creations like Jhun, Lhenn, Ghemma, and Jhimmy. Or how about Jhun-Jhun (Jhun2)?
How boring to come from a country like the UK full of people with names like John Smith. How wonderful to come from a country where and exoticism rule the world of names. Even the towns here have weird names; my favorite is the unbelievably named town of Sexmoan (ironically close to Olongapo and Angeles).
Where else in the world could that really be true? Where else in the world could the head of the Church really be called Cardinal Sin? Where else but the Philippines!
Note: Philippines has a senator named Joker, and it is his legal name.
Source: Email from Namraida in CDO
May 21, 2008 at 6:35 am · Filed under blog, general interest
THE GHOST SH*T
The kind where you feel SH*T come out, see SH*T on the toilet paper, but there’s no SH*T in the bowl.
THE CLEAN SH*T
The kind where you feel SH*T come out, see SH*T in the bowl, but there’s no SH*T on the toilet paper.
THE WET SH*T
You wipe your ass fifty times and it still feels unwiped. So yo end up putting toilet paper between your ass and your underwear so you don’t ruin them with those dreadful skid marks.
THE SECOND WAVE SH*T
This SH*T happenes when you’ve finished, your pants are up to your knees, and you suddenly realize you have to SH*T some more.
THE BRAIN HEMORRAHAGE THROUGH YOUR NOSE SH*T
Also known as “Pop a Vein in your Forehead SH*T”. You have to strain so much to get it out that you turn purple and practically have a stroke.
THE CORN SH*T
No explanation necessary.
THE LINCOLN LOG SH*T
The kind of SH*T that’s so enormous you’re afraid to flush it down without first breaking it up into little pieces with the toilet brush.
THE NOTORIUS DRINKER SH*T
The kind of SH*T you have the morning after a long night of drinking. It’s most noticeable trait is the tread mark left on the bottom of the toilet bowl after you flush.
THE “GEE, I REALLY WISH I COULD SH*T” SH*T
The kind where you want to SH*T, but even after straining your guts out, all you can do is sit on the toilet, cramped and farting.
THE WET CHEEKS SH*T
Also known as the “Power Dump”. That’s the kind that comes out of your ass so fast that your butt cheeks get splashed with the toilet water.
THE LIQUID SH*T
That’s the kind where yellowish-brown liquid shoots out of your butt, splashes all over the side of the toilet bowl and, at the same time, chronically burns your tender poop-chute.
THE MEXICAN FOOD SH*T
A class all its own.
THE CROWD PLEASER
This SH*T is so intriguing in size and/or appearance that you have to show it to someone before flushing.
THE MOOD ENHANCER
This SH*T occurs after a lengthy period of constipation, thereby allowing you to be your old self again.
THE RITUAL
This SH*T occurs at the same time each day and is accomplished with the aid of a newspaper.
THE GUINESS BOOK OF RECORDS SH*T
A SH*T so noteworthy it should be recorded for future generations.
THE AFTERSHOCK SH*T
This SH*T has an odour so powerful than anyone entering the vicinity within the next 7 hours is affected.
THE “HONEYMOON’S OVER” SH*T
This is any SH*T created in the presence of another person.
THE GROANER
A SH*T so huge it cannot exit without vocal assistance.
THE FLOATER
Characterized by its floatability, this SH*T has been known to resurface after many flushings.
THE RANGER
A SH*T which refuses to let go. It is usually necessary to engage in a rocking or bouncing motion, but quite often the only solution is to push it away with a small piece of toilet paper.
THE PHANTOM SH*T
This appears in the toilet mysteriously and no one will admit to putting it there.
THE PEEK-A-BOO SH*T
Now you see it, now you don’t. This SH*T is playing games with you. Requires patience and muscle control.
THE BOMBSHELL
A SH*T that comes as a complete surprise at a time that is either inappropriate to SH*T (ie. during lovemaking or a root canal) or you are nowhere near SH*Tting facilities.
THE SNAKE CHARMER
A long skinny SH*T which has managed to coil itself into a frightening position - usually harmless.
THE OLYMPIC SH*T
This SH*T occurs exactly one hour prior to the start of any competitive event in which you are entered and bears a close resemblance to the Drinker’s SH*T.
THE BACK-TO-NATURE SH*T
This SH*T may be of any variety but is always deposited either in the woods or while hiding behind the passenger side of your car.
THE PEBBLES-FROM-HEAVEN SH*T
An adorable collection of small turds in a cluster, often a gift from God when you actually CAN’T SH*T.
PREMEDITATED SH*T
Laxative induced. Doesn’t count.
SH*TZOPHERENIA
Fear of SH*Tting - can be fatal!
ENERGIZER vs DURACELL SH*T
Also known as a “Still Going” SH*T.
THE POWER DUMP SH*T
The kind that comes out so fast, you barely get your pants down when you’re done.
THE LIQUID PLUMBER SH*T
This kind of SH*T is so big it plugs up the toilet and it overflows all over the floor. (You should have followed the advice from the Lincoln Log SH*T.)
THE SPINAL TAP SH*T
The kind of SH*T that hurts so much coming out, you’d swear it’s got to be coming out sideways.
THE “I THINK I’M GIVING BIRTH THROUGH MY ASSHOLE” SH*T
Similar to the Lincoln Log and The Spincal Tap SH*Ts. The shape and size of the turd resembles a tall boy beer can. Vacuous air space remains in the rectum for some time afterwards.
THE PORRIDGE SH*T
The type that comes out like toothpaste, and just keeps on coming. You have two choices: (a) flush and keep going, or (b) risk it piling up to your butt while you sit there helpless.
THE “I’M GOING TO CHEW MY FOOD BETTER” SH*T
When the bag of Dorritos you ate last night lacerates the insides of your rectum on the way out in the morning.
THE “I THINK I’M TURNING INTO A BUNNY” SH*T
When you drop lots of cute, little round ones that look like marbles and make tiny splashing sounds when they hit the water.
THE “WHAT THE HELL DIED IN HERE?” SH*T
Also sometimes referred to as The Toxic Dump. Of course you don’t warn anyone of the poisonous bathroom odour. Instead, you stand innocently near the door and enjoy the show as they run out gaggin and gasping for air.
THE “I JUST KNOW THERE’S A TURD STILL DANGLING THERE” SH*T
Where you just sit there patiently and wait for the last cling-on to drop off because if you wipe now, it’s going to smear all over the place.
Source: email from a Aileen (dish)
