Tales of Unquestionable Interest I

I, my mother, my aunt and my cousin went to the United States a few years ago to visit the rest of the family. It was my aunt and cousin's first time in America so the family decided to take them on a tour of the great state of California. Our first stop would be San Francisco.

It was a very long drive and we arrived well into the evening. All of us were hungry and exhausted. We were supposed to have dinner at some Chinese restaurant owned by a family friend. It was closing time when we finally got there but she generously accommodated us. Stepping out of the car was like walking into a freezer. At least it woke us up right quickly. We hurriedly rushed into the restaurant to escape the biting cold and to get some hot food into our empty bellies.

I don't like Chinese food and this meal was the authentic stuff. There was fish smothered in whatever sauce, wrapped mystery meat and fried things. Everyone else seemed to enjoy it. As usual, I was unsatisfied and had nobody to talk to. I decided to step outside to "get some air"; some cold, frigid air. At least it would fight back the drowsiness and the howling wind was better company.

While I was standing outside the doorway, some strange American man was staggering along the sidewalk. He was white, of average height and wearing an offensively bright pink shirt. He came up to me and asked me if the restaurant was open. I told him no, which was true by the way. He decided to get all up in my business and said, "Are you gonna deny me liquor?" I don't know what this guy's problem was. He wasn't even standing straight and his face looked like he had just gotten out of bed. "I don't even work here.", I said. Suddenly, a car came up and stopped in the middle of the street. The man looked at me, held a finger up to say something, then changed his mind and handed me this box of chocolates he was carrying instead. He stumbled into the car and it drove of.

Weirdo.

It was a box of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts. Nuts. Although I like chocolate-covered macadamia nuts (or chocolate-covered anything, really), the plastic cover of the box was already open so I thought better of it and just left the thing in the restaurant. For all I know, it might have been laced with whatever funny juice that guy was clearly on.

Overall, that was the only interesting thing to happen on my second trip to San Francisco. Frankly, I don't like the place. It's cold and full of homeless people and weirdos. We were even harassed by some middle-eastern looking punks on the street. One earthquake clearly wasn't enough.

I wonder if that guy is still alive and not drowned in a puddle of his own vomit.

Two Cities

I was gone the last two and half weeks to visit relatives in California. That was my fourth trip to that state, I think, and the sense of excitement that you get from visiting America for the first time lessens every subsequent trip you make. Not to say the whole trip was a bad experience but your perspective changes and you begin to see that the problems first world people face are not that different from us here in the third world "developing" countries.

Take water for instance. Cebu was in the middle of a nasty drought when I left. The rains have come at last, for all the good (and ill) that brings, but rainfall in California has been inadequate for the past five years. You wouldn't know it from all the lovely green lawns in suburbia but elsewhere was a depressing swathe of brown. We passed a small wildfire in fact, on the highway. All that dead grass makes good kindling for a stray cigarette thrown from some careless tourist's car window.

Traffic too was noticeably worse than my previous visits though still not as bad as the traffic here in Cebu. Manila traffic is in a whole different level of hell, of course. But it was plain to see that the car culture that pervades L.A. and it's neighboring cities is pressing its limits. They still have much room to solve the problem unlike the conditions here where limited space, over-development and lack of government funds make solutions difficult. If only our political leadership cared more about the development of the city instead of their petty political feuds and pretentious posturing.

It was nice to see the rest of the family again.

Dare To Be Different

One thing I'll never understand about Americans is their obsession over the issue of race. Of course, I have my own opinions but I'm just curious as to why the Americans cannot seem to get over it or look past it.

Granted, racism still exists. But people being racist is one thing, racism as a national institution is quite another. As far as I can tell, institutionalized racism against classes of people is nonexistent. Yet, when it comes to American civil society, it seems to be a cycle of never ending outrage. I'm sure you already heard about that NBA team owner because of course you have.

I'm no American. I don't even live there and all this is coming from the stuff I read which is secondhand so take my words with a grain of salt... or disregard them entirely; that's fine too.

Ever heard of the Social Identity theory? It's a theory suggesting that people identify themselves according to the groups they belong to. A Japanese person identifies himself as Japanese because he's from Japan. Simple, yeah? But Japan is a very homogeneous country. What about countries that are diverse?

Indeed, countries with mixed ethnic groups tend to have a lot of problems. In the Philippines, Muslim separatist groups fight because they do not identify themselves as "Filipinos" as strongly as they do the "Bangsamoro" idea or identity. It's often divisions on cultural, religios and racial lines. The theory of the "American Melting Pot" is that people of different races, creeds or backgrounds can come together and make America great. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts as it were. The American experiment is intriguing. Can common ideals unite everyone or will American society continue to experience friction until it breaks down? Again, grain of salt. I don't know everything but its fun to watch.

I have my own theory; America has finally morphed into a big reality show.

Tower of Babel

Today, I sent an email responding to an opinion piece in the local paper. I decided to share it here so that I won't have to work hard writing something else. It went something like this: 

"The outrage over Coca-cola's multilingual rendition of "America the Beautiful" is, in my opinion, not wrong or intolerant per se. While hate and racism should not be excused, objections to the song are not entirely unreasonable. Imagine if it were another country. Imagine an arena of French people in Paris. How would they react if La Marseillaise was sung in English , German or Arabic? They would no doubt be upset especially since the French are very conscious of their cultural heritage. 

A single national language is essential to developing a national culture and to maintain cohesion within society and government. Even the Philippines, a country which consists of diverse ethnic languages and dialects, has a national language. If in Araneta Coliseum, during a game, they sang the first part of Lupang Hinirang in Tagalog, then in Cebuano, Waray, Ilokano, Ivatan, Tausug and Gorontalo, nobody would understand it. Without one unifying language, it is difficult for cultures to assimilate and unite under one flag. People would scatter like the citizens of Babel. Therefore, it is understandable that many Americans would have strong reactions over the issue and their objections may not be borne out of intolerance and meanness but of love of country and national pride."

American View

While it is always fashionable to be anti-American, I actually admire American culture. To be specific, the culture or freedom, liberty and rugged individualism. America was born at a time when people were telling kings and tyrants to fuck off. It shouldn't be a surprise then to see Americans enjoying capitalism and democracy.

Speaking of capitalism, President Obama promised to reform the American health care system. He proposed a government health care plan to be available in the market. In addition, he promised that Americans who were satisfied with their health care plan could keep it.

Unfortunately...


Say what you want about it being a Republican video but it shows the concerns of Americans that the government option and the whole health care reform shebang is a Trojan horse for single-payer, government run health care. Americans don't like big government taking over their health care. Why? Because Americans traditionally believe in the free market and want less government. The specter of big government and the whisper of "socialism" drives the Americans crazy.

This got me thinking, in the Philippines, how do we view our government? Do we want less of it or more of it? On one hand, people feel that the government should take care of the poor, provide housing, give food, aid, etc. On the other hand, government is a lying, thieving son of a bitch. Believe it or not, there are communist assholes still holed up in the jungle, in the senate and in colleges. Personally, I hate anything to do with socialism and communism. The government is corrupt and inefficient. Is it sane to leave the economy, the means of production to a bunch of politicians? No. Government infects all it touches with patronage politics and corruption. The less of it in our lives, the better. We have problems but government should fix itself before it tries to fix anything else.

This health care issue in the United States has piqued my interest. I am a Political Science student after all. Will Americans allow government to interfere in the market? Will they stick to free market or allow government to squeeze in? What will be the consequences? Is it really socialism is disguise? Are Americans capable of waiting in lines? Is Obama just another liar politician? I want to see this.