When you think of Valentine’s Day, what thoughts and feelings go through your mind? For many it conjures up romantic undertones and a chance to show off your romantic side. But beyond that what does Valentine’s Day really accomplish? This question popped up during my conversations on-line using the social networking site known as Facebook. For those who are unfamiliar with Facebook, it is a web site where you create a profile and then link it up with your friends and family. What makes Facebook so appealing to Filipinos is the ability to interact with our friends at any time by leaving them messages or chatting in real time. Comments are always a highlight as all your friends are able to see the comments left by you and other as well as reply to them. A cyber-conversation if you will.
Category: Rant
Fourth of July
***This is just a rant folks, from a long time Oregonian living in Southern California who often times misses the comforts afforded to those living in Oregon.***
Today is July 4th. The date that many American’s look forward to every year. That one time when, most Americans get to let off some steam by setting off fireworks. I say most only because down here in California they don’t allow fireworks. Gay marriages and texting on your cell phone while driving are legal, heck even shooting whales from a moving vehicle (provided you are not shooting them with a firecracker) is legal.
It sucks. Plain and simple. The first year I was down here I went with my aunt and parents to Mexico and had a wonderful time down there. Pretty much everything in Mexico is legal there, but you should be forewarned that the quality of the fireworks are not regulated so you do have some risk of your fireworks not doing what you think they should be doing. The same goes for the quality of the gas they sell at the pumps, but that is a whole other story.
What I find odd down here in southern California, which is vastly different than Oregon, is there are no firework booths. In Oregon, come early June you see fireworks booths sprout up on practically every street corner. They sprout up overnight- much like a Starbucks location. Of course, even in Oregon, your selections is a bit limited to some nifty sparklers, smokes bombs and spewing volcano’s that whistle so loud they ring in your ears for the next week. So for the true enthusiast, an annual trip to the city of White Swan on the Yakama Indian reservation in Washington was a much needed pilgrimage. No holds barred there. Roman candles, Black Cats, Red Rats, heck even M-80 and dynamite could be found and purchased there.
Getting back to my rant on no fireworks on the 4th. I suppose that living down here, we do get a lot of fires started by fireworks. But I want to clear up this misconception. The fires are not started by fireworks, they are started by pyromaniacs, idiots and cow pie eating nimrods. Saying that fires are started by fireworks is like saying guns kill people. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
Unfortunately, down here, we have an over abundance of numbnuts and meadow muffin eating wankers, not to mention this being the mecca for village idiots to spend their summer vacations, So I guess I can understand the concern for locals not wanting their million dollar homes torched up.
In a quick view of videos on youtube, there are endless videos of people showing you how not to play with fireworks. Of course the titles don’t say “how not to play with fireworks”. The titles generally are more inclined to say something like “redneck fireworks”, “a funny thing happened to Bubba on the 4th” or “the reason why the fire department had to come and rescue a tailess cat from a tree”.
As luck would have it these folks have ruined the fun for the rest of us and now we, in southern California, have lost out on one of the most beloved traditions on one of the most adored holiday.
So tonight, in order to squeeze out some enjoyment over kicking the British out of country, I am relegated to taking my boys over to an over packed Olympic Training Center to watch a 5 minute production put on by evil dictators and fascists or, as the wifely person calls them, the Homeowners Association.
Happy Fourth of July everyone and I will do my best to enjoy what little freedom I still have.
…WTF, no sparklers, that womps!
***follow up. I was in error about the fireworks lasting 5 minutes. This year the Home Owners Association went all out and gave us an enhanced version which lasted 9 minutes.***
What the #@^!* is TISOY?
Tisoy. For many of you this probably the first time you hear of the word Tisoy. You are probably thinking to yourself, WTF is a Tisoy? Tisoy is a Tagalog (Filipino) word describing someone who is of mixed race. In my case, Filipino and Scottish.
For many bi-racial and multi-racial people the identity of race always poses a unique situation. Often times they are view by society as being “Half” or placed in a situations where they are viewed as not quite being up to the standards of being “Full”. When someone asks me what my race is, I reply “I’m Filipino” invariably the next words out of their mouth are “You don’t look Filipino, you must be half?”
I’m sure it isn’t said in malice, but I often feel like I have to justify who I am because I am not as dark, I’m not as short, I don’t have a button nose, or for some reason I just don’t fit into the mold of what they view as what a Filipino is.
So lately when people ask me what I am, I tell them I’m 100% Tisoy which seems to make those who understand Tagalog content. They understand that I’m mixed race, but at the same time I understand, at least in part, Tagalog so I must be Filipino enough for them. I guess many of the older generation the reply of being 100% Tisoy isn’t what then expect and my response more than not, is a great ice breaker and I enjoy watching their faces as they digest my response.
For those who insist on me being Half Filipino, can you please let me know what part of me is Filipino? Is my left hand Filipino. How about my ears, which one is Filipino and which one is not. Both of my eyes are brown, so perhaps those are Filipino. I am fluent in one of the two official languages of the Philippines, so perhaps if I learn the other official language, that would make me full.
Perhaps I would be seen as more Filipino if I pronounce my “F’s” as “P;s” and my “V’s” and “B’s” or added stuffed animals in my back windows of all of our cars.
So, what is a Tisoy? Well it is, as the philosopher José Vasconcelos Calderón states in his essay, La Raza Cósmica, it is the fifth race, the next step up in the evolutionary chain. Or in today’s politically correct terminology, A tisoy is simply a Hybrid.
When was the last time you enjoyed the thrill of an original hybrid? And no, I”m not talking about the Toyota Prius.