I know that I have been with Kim for a long time now, because I can watch this video and legitimately laugh heartily at 99% of the jokes. The basis of most Filipino-American humor hinges on the clash between the two cultures, particularly the languages and the resulting accent. I’d say the majority of jokes that Kim’s aunts and uncles tell involve Tagalog words that sound like English words, or vice versa.
Tag Archive for 'Tagalog'
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.
Not alot of my friends go to the library. Most of my more studious friends are internet junkies who can google search just about any topic and get the required results. What most people don’t realize is that public libraries have reinvented themselves quite a bit these days and now you can request a number of different services through them. Some of which you don’t even need to step foot in the library for.
But before I get to that, let me back up a little. Many of you know that my girlfriend, Kim, is of Filipino descent. She and her sister, Rum are the 1st American-born members of their family and have lived their whole lives in the states. As such, they speak only some Tagalog (the “official” language of the Philippines), a little Kampangang (their mother’s dialect) and next to nothing of Ilocano (their dad’s dialect). In fact, they understand a confused mish-mash of the three languages (as their parents use all three for different words). They both have told me that they understand their parents’ languages better than they can speak them, and I think this is true for many who are the children of non-English speaking immigrants.
Anyway, just before I met Kim I had felt the inclination to learn a new language, but I wanted it to be something useful and I never decided on anything. When I started hanging out with Kim’s family it made sense to learn Tagalog as it would be something I could practice with real people. I started picking up a few words here and there and got really excited about it. I don’t speak too much of it but I think I know more than some of Kim’s cousins who’s parents speak Tagalog all of the time. I think my enthusiasm even inspired Kim to have a better understand of her parents’ language. We started developing more of an interest in the language and checked out a few books.
Flipping through a few Tagalog language books only helped me to discover that learning languages exclusively from text is about as engaging as learning music solely from instructional books. Not only is it not fun, it isn’t effective. It’s pretty dull and you NEVER get the pronunciations correctly, no matter how well the authors think they describe it. I was interested in finding some sort of computer-based interactive method or audio CD/Casette course but couldn’t justify purchasing it to myself. I also looked to see if any non-college credit courses existed in Virginia Beach (and to my surprise, the do not). So I kind of gave up for a little while.
Then one day when a Rosetta Stone commercial came on TV, Kim pointed out that Virginia Beach Central Library (where she works) offers free access to their website for library card holders. So a few nights ago we logged on and its actually kind of fun. Basical;y the program throws you in head first and says a few phrases that match up with the pictures. By trial and error, the student is able to learn what the words mean. I think this is kind of the same process that would go on in your head if you were lost in a foreign country and had to figure out what everyone was saying to you. The service would normally run something like 50 bucks a month but through the library it is totally free. You are not restricted by what languages you want to learn, you can browse through the different languages and dabble around. Pretty cool, huh? Pretty amazing, I’d say.
So, in addition to books and CDs, your local library has a ton of online resources. NetLibrary and EBooks are also great services that typically cost money and I understand that most public and academic libraries offer free access to these sites.
The gateway to Virginia Beach’s Electronic Resources is http://vbgov.com/dept/library/electronicresources. I am not sure what Norfolk’s library system has to offer but you can find out at http://www.npl.lib.va.us, and to the best of my knowledge you had to pay for a library card in Chesapeake if you are not a resident. I don’t know any Chesafreaks that read so you can do your own reasearch for that.
The bottom line is that there is more on the internet than myspace. If you are paying taxes then you are already paying for these services, you might as well take advantage of them.
