lowquality.net

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.