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SALLY has streaks of titian running from crown to tips of her perfect, black bob. She ignores bystanders’ jokes that her latest ‘do makes her look like the shedding backside of a rodent that, old and blind, finally creeps out to die in the light.
“It’s the Korean look,” she explains to a curious early morning patron of her bodbod, kutsinta, tagaktak, puto and sikwate.
Sally is well known for her painitan (snacks stall) at the wet market in the corner of Banawa and Guadalupe. Old-timers like the sweet smell of freshly grated coconut wafting above the smell of fish and meat. Bystanders warm their gullets at her stand for just a few pesos.
Office workers trust Sally to neatly wrap their orders in a banana leaf before putting these in a handy plastic bag.
Recently, aside from her Korean “shag,” Sally has taken to wearing a “shoe raincoat,” plastic tailored to zip around the wearer’s shod feet.
“These are made in China,” Sally says of the peculiar fashion that’s practical for protecting shoes and the wearer from the water sloshing in the market stalls. “You can get them cheap in Milan.”
Sally’s Milan is not in Italy. It is the nickname for Manalili St., popular haven of cheap, imported merchandise.
Melting pot
Scratch a Filipino and one is bound to encounter someone not entirely Oriental or Occidental. What comes to mind is a new Asian, the Sallys who sell native street food but, in personal grooming and business etiquette, exude a graciousness and work ethic that’s hard to stereotype.
Transforming Cebuanos to become “heroic Christian citizens” having a direct stake in the upcoming gathering of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) is the advocacy of Dilaab, a new Catholic Church-based movement.
According to the Oct. 5 Sun.Star Cebu report of Jujemay G. Awit and Rosemarie O. Versoza, Dilaab is focusing on educating ordinary folks about their roles in the Asean summit.
Coordinating steward Fr. Carmelo Diola believes that simple actions like proper garbage disposal and observance of traffic rules can create “a positive impact” on visiting dignitaries.
Traditionally, hospitality requires the host to make guests welcome by keeping the house in order. A more genuine sign of cordiality is the empathy shown in the host’s recognition of the heritage shared with their guests.
Like the rest of Southeast Asia, Filipinos live in a “continuing past” that they seek to wrest from the clutches of the colonial, the backward and the defeatist. The historian Yuji Ichioka notes in wikipedia, for instance, that the term “Asian” is rarely free as a single adjective. It is oftentimes used as a compound term referring to an immigrant of Asian ancestry.
Yet, according to the same online encyclopedia, “Asian” increasingly supplants the word “Oriental” in formal and informal usage, as the latter is associated with stereotypes of the mysterious, treacherous East.
Contrary to old derogatory perceptions, Asian immigrants distinguish themselves in various fields. No matter their ethnicity, Asians make proud their homelands and adopted countries.
Global village
Filipinos may still reflexively think they are Filipinos first, Asians second. An ethnocentric Bisayang Daku or Bisdak (proud Cebuano) may peel off several layers before uncovering an Asian consciousness.
Recent developments chip away at this insular thinking. The ’70s-’80s wave of Japanese tourists was seized as opportunities for exploitation. Not only did it seem that the yen was easy to squeeze. This era proved to be an inexhaustible revolving door supplying Japanese naivete for Filipino knavery, from mail-order brides to sex tours.
The Korean influx of recent years is not the case. These Asian neighbors do not only bring their businesses and families to stay, their communities thrive on upgrading conditions local residents demand for themselves: not just entertainment and recreation but also education, health, peace and order, sanitation.
When they come to see Asian visitors as not merely transients passing through, Filipinos will show they are transcendent hosts, permeable to cultural osmosis.
Neri of Lila, Bohol worked as a travel tour driver in Cebu during the height of Japanese group tours. The taxi driver recently attended a half-day seminar conducted by the Cebu City Government to reinforce proper etiquette among taxi drivers.
He’s not waiting for the upcoming Asean summit to apply what he’s learned. Neri says he uses the meter for any passenger, local or foreign, wanting to be taken to a beach within city limits. “Dili ta gusto matagam sila (we don’t want them to have a bad experience and not return, right?)”
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