July 26, 2007
Jailhouse Thriller
The Philippines is on the news again. It always worries when we appear in the foreign media – that usually means a bad thing. The last time we made the headlines some psycho held hostage a busload of school children to bring attention to the country’s poor state of education. Well, this latest incident is more of peculiar (especially to non-Filipinos) than embarrassing.
I usually have my daily dose of Hollywood gossip in the morning while still struggling to get out of bed. I think the timing is perfect – half of my brain cells are usually still in trance-like state at 8 a.m. and watching the latest escapades of Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears on E! News does not require much of a mental effort. So what put us on the news this time? A video-taped live performance of some 1,500 inmates at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPRDC) dancing to the tune of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” I think the video premiered on Youtube and was quickly picked up by the media.
Come on, you have to admit that it cracked you up at some point. I was impressed by the near-perfect coordination. But then again if you practice under the watchful eyes of fully-armed jail guards, something good has to come out of it. The husband thought it was a little strange. “Don’t ever tell me again that prisoners in the Philippines are living a hard life!” he said jokingly. I’ve been to the CPDRC a few times when I was still in the Philippines for some interviews. Inmates would stage some kind of presentation for their families and visitors on certain occasions and to break up the monotony of prison life. Well, the CPDRC inmates may not have done justice to Michael Jackson’s video, but this “Jailhouse Thriller” is quite a production number. However weird and crazy it was, those inmates looked like they were giving the performance of a lifetime.
Here's a Reuters story on the dancing inmates - Jailhouse rock: Philippine inmates groove on the Web
July 25, 2007
Overcoming Tagalog tongue twists
I’ve made friends with more Filipinas in the area in the last 6 months and that’s a good thing. When you’re in a foreign country trying to fit in while getting accustomed to pluralized living (i.e. marriage), it’s a big deal. Last week the husband asked if I was trying to set up a glee club when I told him my friends and I were going to have another picnic to celebrate Anne’s birthday. Eight girls showed up, including Ashley, a Taiwanese who happens to be in the same ESL class that Anne, Bernadeth and Maribel are enrolled in. We found a nice spot at the Oronoco Bay Park in Old Town Alexandria that offered a spectacular view of the Potomac. The weather was perfect for a little barbeque party too. The men in the group took care of the grilling while the girls happily feasted on rice, ginataang mongo, biko and pancit, as if we’d been deprived of Filipino food for years. So, all is good and fun, right? Well, not if you’re split in three different languages. There’s Maribel and Bernadeth who speak Tagalog, while Rose, Anne, Diane, Elisa and I speak the Cebuano/Visayan dialect. Ashley, of course, can only converse in English. Visayans make no pretense on how we detest talking in Tagalog simply because our tongue is not suited for it. We pick the wrong syllables to put emphasis on and our accent is simply too thick to embrace Tagalog. Nothing against Tagalog-speaking people though. We have decided that to save ourselves from the embarrassment of fumbling over words and misplacing our I’s and E’s, we will have to converse in English. I thought Maribel was being funny (or hard of hearing) when she asked me to repeat something that I had said three times, until it dawned on me that she couldn’t understand Cebuano. Notwithstanding the language barrier, we had a wonderful time just hanging out and sharing stories about marriage and men. More birthday celebrations coming up!
I am so ready for this picture. :-) The girls whipped up quite an appetite once they saw Elisa's specialty - ginataang mongo.
On the 21st, Saturday, we drove to Maryland for a housewarming party hosted by an officemate of the husband. At one point, the hostess showed off her new pair of three-inch heels. The women, of course, oohed and ahhed over it while the husband sat there with a “I-don’t-know-what’s-going-on-here” look. The conversation at one point shifted toward how men suffer from acute impatience when it comes to shopping. But boy, when it comes to electronic gadgets and house tools, they certainly act like they have all the time in the world. I think Home Depot is their kind of mall. The husband recently bought new “toys” – a mechanic’s tools set and an electric drill. It took him probably half an hour to find the right kind (although they all looked the same to me), much like how we girls need an eternity to find the perfect shoes. Prior to that, we were in the garden section and sensing that I couldn’t make up my mind on the kind of plant that I want, he grabbed a small pot of bromeliads and commanded, “Let’s go!”
Men find themselves "lost" in the shoes section while most of us women are absolutely clueless when it comes to gadgets and tools.