Xenophobia Begins at Home 5: Koreans

Background:

metaphorically kicking your face daily

metaphorically kicking your face daily

Unlike our other Asian neighbors, the Koreans do not have a long history of trading with our ancestors. This is probably because they spent their time being part of China and fending off Japanese invaders for so long. It’s sort of hard to think about trade when you’re facing armadas of samurai and such. The Japanese finally got them eventually and did to them what they did to us in World War II for 35 years or so.

In the ’50s, our Batallion Combat Teams marginally helped them fight off North Korean and Chinese attacks in the aptly-named Korean War. For which they thanked the Philippines by setting up trade and tourism deals with us in the late ’90s.

Since then, millions (billions?) of Koreans have set foot on our shores to evangelize, put up shops and learn English from our college students at P50 pesos an hour. They actually pay much more than that, around P300, but most of it goes to the Korean owners of the language tutorial centers.

What we call them:

Interestingly, because our ancestors lived in a time before there were Koreans (in the country, obviously. They’re not some magical race that suddenly popped into existence,) we’re stuck with just calling them Koreans. Sometimes we call them anyong (from the Korean salutation annyeong), kimchi or jamppong (from the cup noodle ad,) which just proves older generations right: the kids today don’t even try anymore.

What we say about them:

Officially, the Koreans are honored guests, and one of our largest trading partners. With industrial giants like Hanjin Heavy Industries providing jobs and each Korean coughing up money to the Bureau of Immigrations, the government couldn’t be happier.

The informal economy centered around tutorial centers is a steady (if niggardly) source of easy money for our college students. Coupled with the fact that most Korean tutees are the same age as their tutors, a smooth cultural exchange is guaranteed. Also, a smooth exchange of sex for promises of marriage and a wonderful life in Korea, resulting in the yet-unwritten but canonical social realist short story Impeng Koreano.

Unofficialy, though, it’ll be hard to find a Filipino who doesn’t resent Koreans. Noisy, brusque and given to disregarding essential things like respect for a host country’s culture, Koreans either walk around like they are our lords and masters, or ignore us altogether.

They are generally loud, and will think nothing of walking down the middle of the street in packs in the middle of the night chattering away like we don’t need to sleep before showing up to teach them English the next day.

A source in the hotel industry even said that their housekeeping staff would rather clean up after a bumbay than a Korean because they tend to spit everywhere. For a relatively new arrival to our country to overturn a centuries-old stereotype in just ten years is a pretty telling thing, don’t you think?

Why we’re douchebags for saying it:

We’re not, really. Cultural differences, we can chalk up to simple misunderstanding, but ten years into the Filipino-Korean experience and they’re getting ruder by the day. And the worst part is that Koreans, in Korea, are very much like the Japanese: slanty-eyed and very big on courtesy. They’re how Filipinos were if  Zaide’s historical accounts were somehow actually historical: they venerate their elders, they take care not disturb the harmony of others, and put a huge premium on education and cleanliness.

Somehow, when they get to our country, they throw all of that out the window, mixed with some spit, more likely than not. Maybe it’s our fault. Maybe it’s because we’re also impolite and dirty as a culture, and that encourages them to act like goddamned grade school boys on a field trip. Maybe Rizal was right when he wrote “to this country come the dregs of the Peninsula (Korean Peninsula, in this case) and if one arrives a good man, soon he is corrupted in the country.”

Maybe it’s because for the last ten years we’ve let them have their way because of the money they bring. It’s sort of a buy the ticket, take the ride deal, I guess.

On the other hand, maybe they’re just assholes.

Mi Ultimo Adios in LOLcat, poor taste

Found on the Internet:

Someone actually made a LOLCat translation (I guess) of Gat. Jose Rizal’s “Mi Ultimo Adios.”
It is, ultimately, indistinguishable from the original, which is fine, because you never really read the original anyway.
Credit (and enmity of Filipino Departments everywhere) go to a certain M. Sereno
—

Kthxbai cheezburger,
U srsly yummeh cheezburger,
Mai shiniez I gif u, tho it no can has teh cheez
N even if it had moar of teh cheez
I wud gif u all dat cheez.

OMG FAYT!
N teh kittehs also gif u der shiniez.
Whar kittehs? Dun carez:
Scratchy place, roll-around place,
Dey r all place for gif teh shiniez.

I go bai nao, omg hi2u sun
N omg bai2u dark,
N omg if u need moar colorsz
I gif u red splashies,
U can has it.

Wen I wuz itty bitty kitteh
N again wen I wuz haf biggr kitteh
I c u in sleepytime, cheezburger,
Yummeh cheezburger,
Full of shiniez and kitteh drugz.

Mai shiniez it can has
For teh win! I sez bai to u cheezburger,
For teh win! I sez bai nao for moar cheez
For u n moar cheezburger yummehz
N for mai wunnerful cheez sodat I can has too.

Wun day if u can seez mai kthxbai place
N windses! N flowersz!
Can has kissumz plz? I can has no can see,
But I can has kissumz!
N cheez!

Shiniez plz moon,
Shiniez plz dawn,
Blow plz windses,
I wants teh birdsies! In mai base
Singings teh songses.

Moar hot plz sun,
Rain plz to cum bak to sky?
N kittehs plz to cwy?
N wen timez wifout noise u pray, cheezburger,
Plz ask Ceiling Cat to gif mi cheez.

Plz ask Ceiling Cat for kittehs hu r ded,
N srsly ded, n omgwtf ded,
N for mommeh kittehs hu cwy,
N kittehs wifout mommehs,
N for cheezburger, dat u can has moar cheez.

N wen kthxbai place iz dark,
Wen ded r loneleh buh not rly,
Dun distewb! Ssshhhh kitteh!
If u hears moozeek
Iz jus mi maekin moozeek for u, cheezburger.

N when kthxbai place u forgots,
Even rockz forgots, no remembers,
Scratch wif big claws, maek messiez
So dat mai kittehdust dun go ‘way
N pwns teh burger on youz.

Den dun carez if I iz forgots,
I pwns ur sky! I r in ur base!
I be moozeek
N shiniez, n cheez,
N meni meows of mai feelingz. U no can see?

Mai cheezburger, hu I wants moar dan moar,
U can has ears plz, kthxbai — I go ‘way
From other kittehs, mommeh and daddeh kittehs, sexeh kittehs,
I go whar can has no doorz on fridgsesz, no lids on foodz,
Wer der is cheez. N moar cheez.

Kthxbai, litter kittehs, kittehs for teh win,
LOL kittehs, WTF kittehs,
Kthx, nao I sleepiez,
Kthxbai kitteh i dun kno, kthxbai shineh kitteh,
Kthxbai all my base. I r ded, I has moar cheez.

Facebook is now officially broken

Facebook used to be the thinking man’s answer to the retardedness  of Friendster and Myspace. But as we have learned (if only vaguely) from high school science class, the universe tends towards entropy.

We all knew that Facebook was bound to fail eventually. But just like a nicotine junkie slowly filling his lungs with tar, we ignored it and pinned our hopes on science finding a cure for lung cancer in the very near future.

But this is it. This is the high-water mark, this is where the wave will finally crash. We thought it would be the inane applications that would do it, or the Filipino translation that you can’t figure out how to turn off. But in the end, it was Man. Because Man destroys everything he touches, even,  eventually, himself.

fbook

Being Poor 2: More lessons from the ’80s

It has been said that a hungry man is an angry man, and if an SWS survey conducted last year is to be believed, there are about 4.3 million households that are pretty pissed right now.

The government has admitted that the current global financial crisis has affected food security, but says that it has programs and plans to address the problem.

Given how the government can take a P1-billion grant to curb corruption and still end up with worse corruption, we’re better off fending for ourselves.

Said fending for ourselves primarily limited to foraging at the supermarket, here are some god-sends from the ’80s that will keep you and your wallet relatively full (if not necessarily happy.)

Mang Tomas

If Perla is the jack-of-all-trades in the world of soap, Mang Tomas is the Jack (Bauer) and MacGyver of food in general. Not that it will fashion a helicopter out of spare parts or bust you out of a Vietnames POW camp, but it comes pretty damned close for something made of chopped liver.

Originally marketed as lechon sauce, it needed to rethink its strategy once lechon became a once-a-year delicacy so it soon became a sauce-for-all-seasons. Lechon manok, porkchops, crispy pata, sundry pork products. Pretty much anything would taste better with Mang Tomas. It was like edible weed if weed weren’t already edible in itself.

For the really poor (or high,) Mang Tomas was good as a substitute for meat. Poured on rice, it was not so cruel as not being fed. Mang Tomas was arrogant enough to advertise that it was good on bread, much like, say peanut butter, jam, and other bread spreads not made of chopped liver. And it does make sense, after a fashion. It was like duck liver pate, only made of pork, runny, and was the final undeniable sign that your parents just weren’t making enough.

Pic Related: Poverty Sandwich

Pic Related: Poverty Sandwich

Colored Bread

There was a time when an afternoon snack consisted of some random bread from the sari-sari store and some soda. If you were a bit more middle class than most, you got pan de coco or spanish bread. This was basically bread filled with margarine or coco jam, good for that extra burst of sugar to tide you over until dinner.

For those on a tighter budget, it was colored bread. Essentially, this was just plain bread, likea dinner roll, made festive with food coloring. The coloring didn’t really add anything to the bread, but one must keep up appearances.

So, you had random chocolate-colored bread, ube-colored bread and the sickly-pink-red pan de regla (bread of menstruation. If nothing else, the color helped distract you from the fact that you were hungry.

And then, of course, there was the rarely-seen but forever-remembered mutation called rainbow bread.

100% RDA of Vitamins FD&C

100% RDA of Vitamins FD&C

If you’re not at a birthday party and are made to eat rainbow bread, your mother probably resented you for being born.

Healthy Snacks

Most kids hate vegetables. Most kids love snacks. So, someone came up with the most insidious plot to deceive children since a wolf pretended to be someone’s granny: they made Snacku! vegetable flavored snacks.

Made of healthy rice crackers and fortified with iron, it would have been the golden mean between what kids want and what parents want their children to eat, finally bridging the gap between generations while keeping kids healthy.

Like most utopian ideas, it failed horribly. Snacku! tasted worse than okra (universally hated by children) and had a suspiciously green tinge, like someone had gotten too creative with their watercolouring project (or had no talent.) The ultimate test to find out if your parents secretly hated you was if they gave you Snacku! in the afternoons.

snacku1

In time, children were practically begging to be fed actual vegetables instead of this mutated munchy. They even offered to do extra chores and eat soap just to get away from this stuff.

Sadly, with a more health-conscious consumer in mind, many other “healthy snacks” are being offered on the market now.

And we’re not talking about peanuts or sunflower seeds, either. We mean vitamin-fortified corn-based snacks that are little more than updated Snacku!. Even sadder, not even twenty years of technological advancements have succeeded in making them not taste like ass.

The Internet Comes to the Philippines (to die)

gmameh

We Filipinos have been pretty slow when it comes to trends, but we do compensate for our tardiness with vigor and enthusiasm.

The emo look/lifestyle/philosophy, for example, took several years from the release of the first Dashboard Confessional single to take root in our tropical shores. Anyone who has been out this Christmas season knows,however, that 90% of the country’s youth now wears skinny jeans, large belts and scarves. It has gotten so bad that it has driven the original hipster middle-class emo kids to hard drink for being alienated once again.

The Filipino zeitgeist is the world’s social barometer, and once we pick something up, then a shark is about to be jumped, and a fridge is about set to be nuked.

read more »

Logic, the government and you, Part One

An Inquiry Into Values

Despite numerous scandals our Fearless Leader (fearless of God, anyway,) the Arroyo administration (and sundry family members, which is sort of the same thing) has survived scandal after scandal.

The recent impeachment complaint was not the first time that charges of corruption and general assholery have been thrown at the president, and she has survived each one virtually unscathed because she has mastered the tactics of rhetoric and reprisal. (Also, possibly, a Mephistophelian deal of some sort.)

Here are some defenses that she and her lackeys have used so the next time that the government basically tells us to go fuck ourselves, we’ll at least be aware of it. Remember, knowing is half the battle. The other half mostly involves violence and pointy objects.

read more »

Monico Puentevella’s Shining Moment

The day the impeachment complaint filed by Joey De Venecia was killed

on the House floor, Rep. Monico Puentevella called a press conference to

expose the truth behind anomalous China deals included in the complaint.

Monico Puentevella

Monico Puentevella

He then produced documents to prove that the China deals were hatched in De Venecia’s own house and that the former House Speaker had lobbied for his son, Joey’s, company to get the contract for the National Broadband Network. Puentevella said that the entire impeachment  complaint was based on De Venecia sourgraping and wanting political payback.

That ousted house speaker (and Star Wars mainstay) Rep. Jose De Venecia, Jr. was in on the deal, and that he had tried to wrangle the NBN contract for his son is no surprise. In the Shakespearean tragedy that is Philippine politics, De Venecia is Hamlet’s mom: dirty, bloody, protests too much, and, ultimately, is someone’s bitch.

What was shocking was how Puentevella handled what he saw as his “shining moment.”  In a classic example of Philippine politicking, Puentevella showed that he was not exposing De Venecia because the guy was corrupt and, as he said, “should be charged with violations of the Ant-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act,” but because he had dared attack the president.

Asked why only came out with his revelation the day of plenary voting on the impeachment complaint, he replied that he had had to attend some thing or other with the Philippine Sports Commission and wasn’t able to attend the committee hearings on the impeachment.

Which is fine, I guess, if, for some reason goddamned sports is somehow more important than the accountability of the president. Which is, again, fine if the anomalous ZTE-NBN deal hadn’t been exposed years ago with public debates and Senate hearings focused on getting to the bottom of the deal.

But Puentevella only came out then because “he had had enough” of De Venecia blaming the bad deals that he had negotiated on the president, and not because it’s illegal. Which, really, in no uncertain terms, is fucked up by all standards of decency, integrity and justice.

When asked whether his expose of De Venecia’s influence-peddling and general holier-than-thou attitude would lead to an investigation by the House ethics committee, Puentevella said that he would still have to consult with members of his party because he was, as he said, “a team player.” He told teporters that he “want to judge anyone because I don’t want to be judged,” prompting at least two simultaneous and totally spontaneous snorts of derision in the press conference room of the House.

He added that he did not come out with his revelation immediately because he wanted to wait for De Venecia to make a move against the president. Perhaps Puentevella has some sort of selective clairvoyance, being able to foresee De Venecia’s betrayal of the president, but not the trouncing that our Olympic team received in Beijing this year.

More probably, however, Puentevella is representative of the kind of politics and sense of civic duty that our politicians have been exercising since we became a nation.

In perhaps the most painful to watch, and the hammiest performance by a sitting member of Philippine Congress, Puentevella repeated  the whole charade on the House floor, hysterically shouting “You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!” while waving his documents in the air.

Conveniently, or aptly, forgetting, Jack Nicholson’s overly-quoted character in that movie was the bad guy.

Not Monico Puentevella

Not Monico Puentevella

Oh, those bright-eyed youngsters.

In the tradition of Pisay: the movie, a Cinema One Original film–

UPCAT: the movie. Stay tuned for sequels Shifting: sa pusod ng registration (the movie), AWOL: kasangga mo ang langit (the movie), and Overstaying: uulit ka pa (the movie).  In theatres and state universities near you nationwide.

–PreMadonna