What a great title. I wish what I was about to say was as exciting.
Sometimes I need a break from the coffee served in our office and I take a quick stroll down the street to Daily Grind Unwind in Virginia Beach’s Town Center, the owner of which happens to be Filipina. I believe her name is Juliet, and she has several members of her kapamilya (family) working with her. I assume they are all related but even if they aren’t, they are.
First I gotta say that, at this point, my integration into Kim’s family is almost seamless. I’m always trying to learn some new Tagalog words, but I haven’t really moved past the casual greeting stage. I know quite a few words, but I can’t really carry on a conversation. I can understand more than I can speak. I would love to take a class and I am shocked that there aren’t really any in the area. There are other big dumb white guys in Kim’s family and some of them are twice my age and still look just as awkward sitting in a room of Filipinos as I am sure they were the first day they met them. I hate that. I feel like they are cheating themselves out of really experiencing the culture, but more than anything I think its a little disrespectful to their wife/girlfriend’s family.
Kim’s Uncles believe in America more than my own parents, most of them came here with nothing and made it into something: by joining a foreign country’s Navy and sacrificing citizenship (the policy at the time) in their home country in the process. I think about it and it’s awe inspiring. It’s incredible. I can’t even leave the state! I don’t think their own children are as impressed or as proud as I am. So yeah, these people made such an effort to get to know my own bastardized, retarded culture, I might as well have some kare-kare and learn how to say thank you.
And let’s be honest… educated non-ethnic Americans (like myself) love to attempt to identify themselves with a culture they have nothing invested in. At this point, I would say that I am invested in this culture, but at the time I met Kim I was just another overly apologetic, self-loathing white guy dating an Asian girl.
…Anyway.
Whenever I go into Daily Grind I always try to greet them in their language, mostly because– and if you’re a non-Filipino who speaks any Tagalog you know this– Aunties really flip out (pun, haha) when they see a big silly white guy speaking Filipino and then they give you 10 hours of questions about how you learned it and where you’re Filipino friends are from, and whats their last name and sometimes, just sometimes, there’s a discount on your Slurpee.
So these aunties down at Daily Grind see me around Town Center and we say kumusta ka to each other and laugh and its great. It’s like being in a club. Also, it’s practice. If screw up I can correct myself and learn from mistakes before I try to say something new with the Kabute (Kim’s family).
So today I get some coffee and an egg and cheese croissant. I am sipping my coffee and I think the white girl behind the counter was flirting with me, but I am pretty clueless with that stuff so maybe not and one of the Filipino ladies brings out my egg and cheese and I instinctively say salamat (thank you)– not because I thought it would be cool, or to show off or anything. I saw a Filipino face and I just said it, like it was the thing to say (which it is). I kind of smiled, but I was more smiling at myself. I had not met this particular woman before, but she responded by making a face that was half smile and half shock. She just kind of opened her mouth enough so that I could see a couple of gold teeth.
By this point, the other two ladies were laughing at me a little (like they do every time I say anything) and we exchanged several magandang umagas and I went back to the office.
