Through the Eyes of a Foreigner
by Andrew Engel
The Missing Pig
Mark Twain once remarked that; “The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.” He must have been part Filipino, because nothing is truer of the Filipino people than their ability to use humor both to deflect and to manage circumstances that can be testing.
And it is a form of humor that is distinctly Filipino, using a refreshing level of awareness and a self-deprecation style as well as a nifty exploitation of language and imagery.
It also generally avoids sarcasm. Filipino’s don’t use the tongue to make fun of or lash other’s mistakes; it’s just not in their nature.
So, when a friend related an incident following the devastating rains and flooding in Matina recently, he did so with a sense of irony, but with no harm intended.
He had woken to find a torrent of water had flushed down a gully at the bottom of his land like some tidal tsunami, destroying all it encountered, including his fence line and 50 bananas plants.
As he stood surveying the damage and calculating the costs a nearby resident came wondering down and asked, “Sir, Sir, maayong buntag, puede mangotana sir? Kita bamo sa among baboy?”
My friend paused, looked at his neighbor and replied, “Pila edad, baye o lake?
(rough translation: “Morning sir, sorry, but have you seen my pig?” response, “how old, was it a boy or girl?”)
It takes a special kind of mentality to find humor in such circumstances. Of course, there is a time and place for everything, but I have to think that as miserable as he was feeling, my friend drew solace from the exchange.
For my part I was left with the image of the flood of water and debris storming down the gully with the pig perched on top!
I think we all know how humor can help one feel better, relax a tense situation, and probably lower blood pressure. Of course it is good for us, isn’t it?
Let me digress briefly. One thing I don’t understand is why so many of the world’s leading comedians and satirists are manic depressives, or should I say suffer from bipolar disorder. Perhaps their humor is too unkind and infects their being? It has been suggested that there is a relationship between genius or people with creative talents and forms of bipolar disorder.
To that I say, whew!
I have some other favorite Filipino anecdotes as related by friends.
“A Filipina returned to her humble home in the provinces, having lived in America for a number of years, replete with Nikes, branded clothing and….. an attitude to match. She explained that she no longer spoke her dialect and could only converse in English. So sorry, but it had all been forgotten!
A bump against a door was responded to with ‘ouch’, a surprise with ‘wow.’ Not a word of Visayan passed her lips for several weeks.
Her relatives found it difficult to keep digging from their pockets the odd English word reserved for foreigner visitors or the local foreign priest.
One morning she was out early exercising in her Lycra training gear when a bee stung her on the leg. She jumped in pain and ran off screaming, “Agay! Agay! Agay! Tabang!Tabang!Tabang”!
The moral of the story being that you can take the girl out of the “bukid , but not the “bukid” out of the girl. As the Greeks might have said, her hubris had been pricked.
Another of my favorites is:
“A young Filipino boy lives in LA with his parents. The family had recently emigrated and the boy had some problems assimilating. At school he found that his classmates all had models of American super heroes: Superman, Batman and the like.
He complained to his father that Filipinos didn’t have a super hero and that he felt left out. ‘Oh don’t worry’ his father told him ‘we will fix that.’ The next day at school, during lunch with an array of super heroes set out on the lunch table, the young Filipino boy reached into his back pack and produced proudly a statue of…….Santo Nino”.
There are many causes of laughter. Trying to understand a new language can be really funny. A friend living in Mexico was driving with a Mexican acquaintance who was learning English. They stopped the car and my friend turned to his acquaintance and said “the door is ajar” meaning he hadn’t shut the door properly.
Perplexed and confused his Mexican friend replied,” how can a JAR be a DOOR?”
Mangling a foreign language can be even better as I found recently with the Visayan dialect.
I was practicing words, struggling with the vowel sounds as usual and trying to remember complete sentences. In this case I had heard the expression, “tisoy ako”. I liked the idea of representing myself as a white Filipino so again and again in private I had repeated the phrase,”tisoy ako, tisoy ako, tisoy ako”, seeking to lock it into in my memory.
Finally, an opportunity arose where I could use it as a group of young Filipinos called out “hi Joe”. Nothing gets your attention quite like being called an American when you are from down under.
Without hesitation and anxious to use my new vocabulary I yelled back from my car, “dili ko Americano, Australiano Ako…….PISOT AKO!” (I’m not an American, I’m Australian, I’m uncircumcised)
Needless to say everyone in my car collapsed in hysterics. I didn’t see the reaction of the youngsters. My guess is that they were completely stunned.
When I found out what had been going on, I didn’t see the funny side…immediately. Somewhat wounded, but not defeated, I resolved to re-enter the battle at a later time.
My weapon of choice will be…yes, you guessed it, humor. One other thing, if at some future time I completely lose my memory, forget all the words I have ever known, I guarantee you that the last two that go will be…… tisoy ako.
(Comment or write to Andrew at engelmint@hotmail.com)
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