Oh the holiday season in a developing Catholic nation! Bring on the whole roasted pig, the midnight mass, and the constant requests by my friends and neighbors for christmas presents! All eyes behold the palm trees strung with inexpensive lights, lights that were recalled from some US discount store chain five years ago due to fire hazard! Celebrate the old white men and their twelve-year old brides who return home for the holidays and parade their holy whiteness while wearing speedos on the beaches! Yes, yes, yes! And thanks be to the children for lighting my dog's tail on fire – a festive fireworks show indeed!
But above all, my favorite part of the holidays: caroling children – perhaps angels? – who unknowingly sing the wrong words to the famous song, “joy to the world, the lord is come, let earth receive her king, and every boy and every girl, we never want to sing, we never want to sing, we ne-he-e-e-ever want to sing.”
How I do love the holidays here. Food, family, friends, and fun abound (please admire the alliteration). The spirit of christmas is in its purest form, with dancing and games and general good cheer. And did I say no presents? No presents! No holiday shopping for gifts that no one needs anyway! Added to that are significant amounts of alcohol and strange food choices acquired for free or cheap. I share today an excerpt from my diary on December 21 of last year:
Eating sea anemone: a cross between squid and bubble gum in texture. More like pesto sauce than seafood. Salty, pleasant, kind of buttery. Nothing like pesto, actually, except for the fact that it's green. Satisfying. Definitely fatty. Hope I don't die. Next to try: dog, cat, and monkey. Ha ha ha.
We cooked up a species of sea anemone that is horridly poisonous when not cooked properly (hence the death comment), but my current blogging endeavor serves as proof positive that the chef knew what he was doing. As an afterward, at this point in my experience I have only monkey left to taste. I recommend dog and cat only to the desperate, those lacking tastebuds, those with no morals, or those with extreme allergies to all other forms of food. And with that for you all to stew over, Merry Christmas! My best wishes to everyone and their pets.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Globalization
The following is an e-mail I recently received from a longtime friend. As a holiday gift, he is trying to compile a music C.D. for a group of us who went to high school together, and we have all been commissioned to choose four songs for the C.D. that represent our current musical interests as well as our current place in the world. I found his message amusing.
To add to this clear evidence of a world in the throws of globalization and ever-decreasing borders, I also want it known that my town - which has no phone lines, no municipal water line, no city-wide trash collection, and electricity in only 40% of homes - will be getting wireless internet access by month's end. Merry Christmas to me!
"OK people:
So far, Adam, Katrina, Adam, Marisa and Cristina have turned in their song selections. Still missing songs from Chris, Kira, Joan and Alex. Out of all the people that haven't turned in their songs, I assumed since Katrina was living in a third-world country, living on an island with no power and having to travel to another island by boat to use a computer, that she would understandably be the last one to turn in her song selections. However, I was wrong. Feel ashamed that the girl with no electricty beat you to turning in your song selections.
Nate"
To add to this clear evidence of a world in the throws of globalization and ever-decreasing borders, I also want it known that my town - which has no phone lines, no municipal water line, no city-wide trash collection, and electricity in only 40% of homes - will be getting wireless internet access by month's end. Merry Christmas to me!
Sunday, December 03, 2006
A Courting We Shall Go
To the query "You'll have to explain to me just what the process of 'courting' is like," the answer goes something like this:
1. Guy texts my phone saying "I love you always" in Tagalog.
2. Then Guy respectfully talks to my host father and asks, "Can I date her?"
3. Host father respectfully replies, "You'll have to ask her."
4. Guy takes that as a whopping "yes" and comes to my home, unannounced, with a bucket full of fried chicken and waits for me to consume it all.
5. Katrina says "I don't want to date you."
6. Guy thinks to himself, "Isn't she great?" and goes home a smitten kitten.
Never have I agreed to go on a date since coming to this country, but on occasion I have been duped into one. . .which is exactly what led to the Second Worst Date of My Life (the first being the other time I was duped, after which Beboy asked me if I would mate with him).
A local police officer who has a "thing" for me regularly texts my cell phone, often stops by the house, and searches for me in my local haunts (a.k.a. the post office and the municipality dump site), always pursuing the same interest: will I go out with him on a date? Just one date?
No. I will not.
But we know each other, and I know he has an English competency exam coming up. In a last-ditch effort to be in my breathing space and, therefore, close to me, he proposes that we have an English-speaking study session. Eager to make English speakers of them all, I agree under the strict terms that we are studying and we are pals only. A handshake, a spit in the dirt, and a pinky swear later, we are on for studying at the local market among pig carcasses and the recent squid catch.
First, let me say it before anyone else does: I'm an idiot.
I realize things are going south when the books close a mere five minutes after they are opened, and he says he must "quickly pick something up in the next town." Ever the faithful teacher, I go with him to......a local disco. He wants to dance. Can't fight the feeling.
Me, I refuse. There will be no dancing. Can we just sit somewhere and talk, he asks. I'm tired and want to go home, I say.
Well why don't we sleep right here, he asks with a wink.
And then I proceed to make him cry in shame and embarassment.
"You are very disrespectful. You are a liar and you are treating me like a prostitute. You are not respecting me or my family. God will judge you harshly for treating a foreign visitor this way. Shame on you. Your English is very good."
I add the English part because I read somewhere that you need to add something positive to every criticism.
He cried and cried and cried because I hurt him so. This was the second time in my life that I made a grown man cry, and it was no less satisfying than the first. Does it make me a bad person if I say that some people just deserve the humiliation? It was so awful in the greatest kind of way, the kind of way when crushing someone with the emotional calibur of a 14 year-old makes you so happy and proud of your cruel self.
1. Guy texts my phone saying "I love you always" in Tagalog.
2. Then Guy respectfully talks to my host father and asks, "Can I date her?"
3. Host father respectfully replies, "You'll have to ask her."
4. Guy takes that as a whopping "yes" and comes to my home, unannounced, with a bucket full of fried chicken and waits for me to consume it all.
5. Katrina says "I don't want to date you."
6. Guy thinks to himself, "Isn't she great?" and goes home a smitten kitten.
Never have I agreed to go on a date since coming to this country, but on occasion I have been duped into one. . .which is exactly what led to the Second Worst Date of My Life (the first being the other time I was duped, after which Beboy asked me if I would mate with him).
A local police officer who has a "thing" for me regularly texts my cell phone, often stops by the house, and searches for me in my local haunts (a.k.a. the post office and the municipality dump site), always pursuing the same interest: will I go out with him on a date? Just one date?
No. I will not.
But we know each other, and I know he has an English competency exam coming up. In a last-ditch effort to be in my breathing space and, therefore, close to me, he proposes that we have an English-speaking study session. Eager to make English speakers of them all, I agree under the strict terms that we are studying and we are pals only. A handshake, a spit in the dirt, and a pinky swear later, we are on for studying at the local market among pig carcasses and the recent squid catch.
First, let me say it before anyone else does: I'm an idiot.
I realize things are going south when the books close a mere five minutes after they are opened, and he says he must "quickly pick something up in the next town." Ever the faithful teacher, I go with him to......a local disco. He wants to dance. Can't fight the feeling.
Me, I refuse. There will be no dancing. Can we just sit somewhere and talk, he asks. I'm tired and want to go home, I say.
Well why don't we sleep right here, he asks with a wink.
And then I proceed to make him cry in shame and embarassment.
"You are very disrespectful. You are a liar and you are treating me like a prostitute. You are not respecting me or my family. God will judge you harshly for treating a foreign visitor this way. Shame on you. Your English is very good."
I add the English part because I read somewhere that you need to add something positive to every criticism.
He cried and cried and cried because I hurt him so. This was the second time in my life that I made a grown man cry, and it was no less satisfying than the first. Does it make me a bad person if I say that some people just deserve the humiliation? It was so awful in the greatest kind of way, the kind of way when crushing someone with the emotional calibur of a 14 year-old makes you so happy and proud of your cruel self.
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