Pieces Collected

So, more pictures...
I showed you a "tricycle" on my last blog post, this time you get two other main forms of transit. On the left, a Jeepney: diesel, custom coloured, everywhere. On the right,

the LRT: light rail transit, fast and smooth, sometimes a little full. (Yes, the picture is a joke.)

You know how Anakin, or Luke Skywalker for that matter, were considered too old to join the order of Jedis. I feel a bit like them. I feel like I have got too much of my own worldview in me to understand or really integrate into Filipino culture. Its like I'm Luke, trying to pull the x-wing out of the swamp on Degoba- he has got his head around this force deal, but it won't overcome his too-long inbred understanding of gravity.

It's not as if I need to integrate or understand though. This is the fact i keep hitting my head against like I'm trying to scale a wall with fins and a snorkel. I have an analytical personality, and its this part of me that keeps on trying to reconcile life in Manila with life from my home neighborhood. Meanwhile someone needs to tell me that its like comparing apples and oranges, or mangoes and bananas. Not even. It's more like comparing music to the color green.
For an elemental example, i think, "I don't understand the Filipino love for basketball." Then i think, "Oh, It's like the Canadian love for Hockey!" And i think I'm making sense of things, until i move onto something the slightest bit more abstract and my system all falls apart.
The answer that keeps rattling through my head every time i hit the wall is "stop trying to understand and just be here, be now, be you. Don't get beyond or ahead of yourself. Observe."

Sunday I went to the "Mall of Asia." It is, according to Wikipedia, disputably the fourth largest mall in the world (outranking the West Ed by two places, although they probably still have the largest per-capita!)
Interestingly, they have something you would expect to find in Edmonton first- a skating rink. It was similar to a Canadian rink, except it was crowded with people skating with no particular flow or direction and slipping and falling and looking as awkward as the average Calgarian would with Chop sticks and steak.

As an aside, i should mention that the Filipino way of eating is most certainly not with chop sticks. They adhere to their distinct method of eating with fork (left hand) and spoon (right hand,) scooping their food onto their spoon which delivers to the mouth. It is an efficient system if you're food is pre-chopped (which it typically is,) although still tricky to switch over too. Hands are as often as not an acceptable way to eat as well.

The mall was crowded like Disneyland on a holiday- and for all purposes, that is not far from what this was. A Disneyland of the Philippines on Valentines day- a holiday that is a much bigger deal here than it is back home.

Apparently in some parts of the Province (the countryside) it is traditional to serenade your girl on her porch if you want to court her. This sounds familiar perhaps, but has been depreciated in our culture either on account of to few musically inclined men or too few porches... There could be other factors too, but I'll let you consider them as i set my ploy: If you can sing or play the guitar, squeezebox or x-box you should be writing up an inventory of girls that have porches. You could accompany a friend, you could wear a mask if you want to be anonymous (Zorro and Spiderman masks tend to be the most effective["I think in future everyone will be wearing them"]) but all I'm trying to do is bring this trend to Canada. It'll be a revolution.

There's a prayer I've seen countless times in those kind of cross stitch or scrolling letters frames hanging in bathrooms or kitchens all over- and it never really stuck to me until now. It's from an interesting guy, and it goes
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
This is an obvious product of realism, but it is something more to me as well. I think by accepting what we can not change we not only get peace in what we do, but can accept the possibility of miracles- things that are beyond us but not beyond God.

I've started my involvement in the counseling program here- which, i would say, has already exceeded my expectations. I came into the center that morning barely wanting to lift my legs with tiredness and a sort of depression that perhaps came upon me just from seeing all that i could not change. But once i started engaging with the program I realized what the families coming through the program were coming from, and the incredible upbringing I've had and things in my heart began to build and break. To be honest my day turned around as I started to pray for miracles, as the first tears began to fall, and as i realized that they were mine.

Yesterday I traveled, probably over an hour, to get to a church service my Filipino contemperaries go to. I was struck by how strange it is to live in a city where everything seems to take so much traveling. (All that travel can make you uncommonly tired too.) Its interesting that i would tend to think of a city with a word like "centralized", because that doesn't seem to fit here. Just one more thing i need to sit back and observe, rather than try to figure out.

One thing that gets confusing is the time change. I'm 16 hours ahead of life on the west coast, I think I'm going to re-set the time on my blog so that when it says "i did such and such on saturday night..." and it isn't even saturday night yet when you're reading it- it might at least make more sence when you see what time i posted it in my time zone.

Something that I, perhaps, am starting to figure out is the Filipino love for rice. You would think that if you had it as often as three meals a day that you would get tired of it. However, that is simply not the case. It seems only to feed the passion. I think I've begun to catch the gravity of the trend personally. I made dinner saturday night (chicken and beans) only to feel like the plate was strangely incomplete without rice. I added a pile to my plate, and indeed, my heart and appetite was thereupon set at ease.

I was sharing this growing adoration with my Filipino friends today at lunch and Noli said that if i eat more rice, i will learn more Tagalog (the prevalent language in Manila). He said that it is for the inverse reason that Filipinos try to eat more bread; to speak better English.

I walked up the stairs yesterday to find one of my room-mates, Shoimar, watching Olympic figure skating pairs. I was very excited. To be honest, I really like figure skating. And I really really like the olympics. To walk in just as an American couple did a jaw dropping short routine, and then to see them followed by an amazing Canadian pair... Well, I could have stopped watching right then. Both performances were so moving. And all in Vancouver, from Manila.

As i close off this entry I offer you to consider the triple patty goodness of this Sunday past.
1.) Valentines day (like i said, a big deal here)
2.) Chinese new year festivities
3.) 2010 Van Olympics are off to a start!
4.) Exactly one month to Pie day!
5.) My little bro asked his girlfriend of long enough to marry him!!! Big congrats!