Filipinos are a very direct people.
Add the Family dimension to that and you’ve never experienced honesty so candid.
Apparently, I’m fat.
And uglier and than they expected.
And honestly, I’ve never heard insults so laced with love. It’s not a mean-spirited kind of forthrightness. It’s a kind of frankness that comes from a place of caring and joviality, a casual, unasked for opinion that is to be swallowed with appreciation and volleyed back with humor, not defensiveness.
Don’t get me wrong. It still takes some getting used to.
I was greeted by a beloved pinsan who exclaimed, “Oh, you’re still very, very ‘healthy’!”
*Healthy = Fat.*
My Tita causally mentioned, “Look at that big stomach! Don’t you want to be sexy for your boyfriend?”
*No doubt that’s why I don’t have one.*
My gorgeous cousin told me that she was so surprised when she saw me! Apparently, the picture our Lola sent was incredibly misleading because in the photo I was pretty and had pigtails.
*1) Was pretty?!
2) I don’t remember the last time my hair was long enough to be in pigtails.*
Another Aunt handed me some yummy-scented papaya soap and offered vehemently to buy me more when I run out.
*Papaya WHITENING soap.*
My nine-year-old cousin said that I am “chub-chub, talaga!”
*Self-explanatory.*
The cherry on the top of it all (which I apparently shouldn’t eat) was when I was admiring a relatives jewelry, specifically her beautiful hand-painted bangles, and I mentioned the irritating fact that they were made for small wrists. Her BOYFRIEND jumped in and said (without malice or mean-spiritedness),
“That will give you some incentive to get fit! So you can wear them too!”
Really now, If I’m not going to lose weight for a man, what makes you think I’m going to diet for fucking baby-wrist-bangles?
Oh, and several children have commented that I look like a boy.
Which, to be fair, is what I’m going for sometimes. But, looking like a boi in queer-mo NoHo or lezbionic Brooklyn is perceived differently than looking like a dude in the Mall of Asia. There is no blatant female queerness on the street, in the media, or in advertising. Androgyny is not all the rage in the Philippines as in America. No representation = no reference for the general population = strange = pangit.
Oddly enough, to some extent, in the Philippines gay men are more accepted in the public sphere. Gay men have a special place in Filipino culture; drag queens, high-pitched hairdressers and flaming fashionistas are taken to be a part of life. However, queer women are rendered invisible.
Perhaps femininity is valued in a different way in the Philippines. It seems like femininity isn't viewed as a threat, unlike the States. It seems to be a trait that is honored, cultivated, and venerated. The Lola is the matriarch and everyone loves and respects their Nanay without compunction. Maybe it comes from Catholicism and the idolization of the Virgin Mary, a form of marianismo within the culture that worships femininity and sees it as something to be desired. Maybe that is why gay men are tolerated and represented more than gay women?... Hmm, research time....
The ego is a fragile entity, and especially for women it must be nurtured and stroked more often than not to undo all the fucked up shit that gets thrown at it by Hollywood, patriarchy and racism: Be Thin, Be Feminine, Be White = Be Beautiful!
I thank Smith College and feminists in my life for creating the open, accepting, progressive, queer environment that I was so blessed to be a part of. If it were not for the first two years of fantastic friends and feminist maintenance that fixed my abused and broken self-esteem and body image, and the last two years of confidence building and training in how to feel hot and fabulous as a genderqueer POC with a sexy beer belly – I don’t think I would be holding up as well as I’m doing now.
I was about to say I miss seeing people like myself.
Ironically, this is the first time in my life I've seen so many people who look like me.
No better place to see Filipinos than the Philippines.
Now, where are the queers, I wonder?
Such is the struggle.
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2 comments:
ah yes, the perpetual 'you so fat comments'
When I was in the PI last year, I got told that I shouldn't eat. oh, and that I should get my hair straightened and do the whitening soap thing too, and wouldn't i look so pretty if i did that?
Know what I did? I flaunted my big ass around town, sunbathed, curled my wild hair and ate as much halo-halo as I wanted.
- Rissa
Hey Krystal, I stumbled across your blog a little while ago on facebook, so I figured I would say hi. Other than the frank comments, how do you like the Philippines?
I think everybody else in the world thinks Americans are fat. I was in Bosnia last year, and some lady touched my stomach and asked me, "Oh, you're going to have a baby!?" Never mind that I only weighed about 120 lbs.
Even if they do think you look like a boy, you're still not panget, you're maganda, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise :)
Nicole Essex
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