In China, Honesty Is the Best Policy

My Chinese friend Yuying was in my house yesterday, and she saw a framed picture of me in the Philippines on my desk.

She picked it up and said, "Wow, you look very charming in this picture!"

Before I could thank her for what I thought to be a compliment, she looked at me and innocuously added,

"You really don't care how you look here in the US, do you?"

The Real Reason Why I Don't Attend Pinoy Parties in Columbia

During my first semester here, I didn't really meet too many Filipinos. Gil (the other Filipino Fulbrighter in Columbia) on the other hand seemed to have a radar for Pinoys, and managed to track down each and every one within a 20-mile radius, all within a week of arriving in town. And there are apparently a LOT of them.

In true Pinoy fashion, there were always parties being held for this or that occasion. Gil would sometimes invite me to go to some of them, even if I wouldn't know a soul in these gatherings (he of course knew everyone). I actually went to one, but I felt so out of place since I didn't know anyone. So I didn't go to other parties anymore. Months later, I discovered that feeling out of place would be the least of my concerns when I ventured to attend another party.

Early this semester, I was again invited (through the Pinoy grapevine) to a party. I was told it was being held by our host Mr. C, to get to know the Filipino students and welcome them to the community. The four students were Gil and I, Rollin, and Rene, a Jesuit priest (and as it would turn out, only the first priest in this story). Rene had told me the party would be a small dinner, just the four of us and our host.

So, off we went to the Missouri Country Club. (You might already suspect at this point that the reason I went to this dinner in the first place was the prospect of free food.) We were directed to a function room which 78-year-old Mr. C had reserved for the party. I was surprised to see that we were 15 in all, but I could handle that number well enough. The bigger surprise for me was that there were three other priests in the party, one of them a Monsignor. So, that made the gathering a little more than 25% Catholic priests. I spoke to each of them and they were nice enough, so I relaxed a little, despite my unease at being around so many men of the cloth. (Some background information: I'm what you could call a lapsed Catholic. I was brought up Catholic, but after a few years, my membership to the community seemed to have expired.)

Our host announced that dinner was to be served, and I was again surprised to see that we had place names, and with my luck, I was seated between our host Mr. C and one of the priests. Talking to the priest was easy; I asked him mostly about his life as a priest, since he was ordained only nine months before. THEN Mr. C turned to me and asked a question that I had sort of been expecting all evening with a touch of dread.

Mr. C: "So, Gidget, where do you go to mass?"

Me: (thinking for a moment of lying and blurting out some church's name, then realizing I didn't know the name of any of them)

"Uhmmm, well, uh, (voice volume uncharacteristically low)... I don't."

Mr. C: (Shocked that a pagan was partaking of his free food)

"Are you Evangelical?"

Me: (Not really knowing what that was, but not liking the sound of it either)

"Uhmmm, no...."

Mr. C: "Are you Muslim?"

Me: (considering for a split second saying yes to end the conversation)

"Uhmmm... no". (thinking "How do I get out of this?")

"Actually, I'm Catholic (well, that's what it says on my birth certificate, anyway), but I don't really go to mass."

(As if that would shut him up.)

The priest on my right side is of course now very interested in the topic at hand.

Adjacent Priest: "May I ask why you stopped going to mass?"

Me: (Squirming in my seat and thinking... AAAARRRRGGHHHH!!!!)

Before I could come up with an appropriate response that would not entail having to defend myself before this panel of priests (including a Monsignor, don't forget), Mr. C actually saved me by saying something that ended the priest's line of questioning.

Mr. C: (With conviction) "Don't worry, Father, we will get her back into the fold!"

After this uncomfortable exchange, I just concentrated on eating my dessert and avoiding topics of a religious nature. The rest of the evening's conversation however was interspersed with Mr. C's declarations that I will be going to mass sometime soon.

We said our goodbyes, and thanked our host for the evening. Mr. C turned to me and said, "We'll see you in church soon!"

As I went home, I remembered why I didn't go to Pinoy parties. The very simple question "Where do you go to mass?" is inevitable, and consequently, stressful for me. Of course I knew it. It's classic Pinoy small talk. I guess I thought I could handle it; then again I had no way of knowing that so many priests and "Katoliko-sarado"s would be in the party.

Oh well, never again will I let the thought of free food cloud my judgment.
(The chocolate dessert WAS pretty good though...)

Clubbing in Columbia

One fun thing about being a student again is going out with girlfriends and dancing the whole night till my weary knees give out. I've been going out with other international students- Felicity (South Africa), Maria Ines (Peru), Anahit (Armenia), and Biljana (Serbia). Columbia is a small city, but it has its fair share of clubs and bars because it's a university town. Also, because they cater a lot to students, these bars have great deals on drinks as long as you have your student ID. If you want to get drunk, Deja Vu is good on Thursdays, where you drink all you can for $5, and Fieldhouse is good on Fridays, where you can drink all you can for $10. It's a bit more expensive; then again, more people are out and about on Friday night. Even if you don't want to get drunk, these places and some others are great if you just want to go dancing.

It's also fun for me to watch the social scene in the American midwest. One thing I've noticed in all the clubs I've been in is that the men I've seen so far fit the stereotype about dancing guys. And that's "white men can't dance". I observed that the only guys who knew how to dance were either black or Mexican. I guess like almost all stereotypes, there's a grain of truth in this one. I had a momentary internal struggle, as I tried to decide if I was being racist for being particularly thrilled when a black guy told me I was a good dancer. Such thoughts I ponder on the dance floor.

More unsettling thoughts occur to me when they play '80s music. I've heard Madonna's "Like a Prayer", Prince's "Kiss", and Michael Jackson's "Beat It". It was funny to see university students singing along to these now-classics. I thought I was probably the only one in the club who had danced to those songs when they were actually still HITS. It was easy enough to blend into the young crowd, but that's only because I concentrated on stopping myself from doing the Moonwalk.

The Thoroughly Un-Modern Woman

I watched Thoroughly Modern Millie last night with high expectations. After all, it had won six Tony Awards including Best Musical in 2002. The story (set in the roaring '20s) goes like this- Millie is a girl from Kansas who wants to try her luck in New York City. Her main stratagem to achieve success in the Big Apple is to find a job and marry the boss. But then she falls in love with a "poor" man. She decides to discard her plan to marry for money and chooses to marry for love instead. Voila! The "poor" man turns out to be a millionaire (and indirectly, still her boss)! So Millie leaves her secretarial job (which she was very good at, by the way) to marry her Prince Charming.

Despite the musical's title, Millie turned out to be a very old-fashioned girl whose purpose in life was to get a man to provide for her. Aside from the gender sterotypes, I didn't like the cultural stereotypes either. There was a subplot involving some Chinese men which is too complicated to explain. I was dismayed to see them portrayed as poor men (speaking in very broken English, of course) who were doing all they could to rescue their mother from her miserable life in Hong Kong by getting her to the US.

I know that this musical is set in the 1920s, but all those stereotypes continue to exist up to now. With the help of productions like this, I'm sure they will be around for a long, long time.

Finally Cooking

Back home, I used to tell everyone that I cooked well. I based this statement solely on my experience when I was still in high school (quite some time ago), as a summer time cook in the house when the household help took their summer leave. Of course, since I never really got around to cooking again since that time in the slightly distant past, my current friends never believed me. Even my siblings seemed to have forgotten that I was the family cook for a while. They say that maybe the experience was so traumatic for them that they blocked it from their collective memory. Ha!

Well, circumstances have forced me to be re-acquainted with my (alleged) inner cook. It is just too expensive to eat out everyday in the US, which is what I did back home. So after eating mostly sandwiches and salads for a few months, I've actually prepared meals that involved a pan and cooking oil. And I am happy to say that I actually believe my own story now. Right now though, I've convinced only myself. One day I might actually have other people taste my cooking and live to tell the tale.

New Year's Resolutions

In true procrastinating fashion, I have come up with a list of my New Year's resolutions on the first day of February. I have always made a list of resolutions when a new year comes around, and these lists are often long; too long to be realistic. So this year, in the interest of keeping things real, I have made the list very short.

1. Lose weight. (this one is consistently number one on my list)
2. Manage time better.
3. Speak up in class more.

There. Short and relatively painless.