Hey guys,
So this is my second
semester at UNP (University of Northern Philippines) and so far my time has
been good. I’ve been doing more travelling that I like but that’s alright. This
is what I’m going to cover on this post for this week.
- Labayug for the weekend
- Festival
- Something in history
I’ll start with this
weekend! I went to Labayug to visit my niece who is here for a vacation. Being
with her made me miss home and realize the two different lifestyles my father’s
side has verse my mother’s side. She’s my niece but she’s only a year younger
than me.
The first difference
between my mother’s side and my father’s side is the age difference between me
and my cousins. In San Emilio, my cousins are my age and around thirty or more.
This is because my mother is the third oldest in her family. (She might be the
second I can’t quire remember haha). Anyway, I’m pretty sure she’s the third
oldest.
On my dad’s side
most of my cousins are late thirties or older while the people my age are my
nieces or great nieces. A respectful term when talking to someone older than
you in my family is ‘Manong’ and Manang’. Manang means ‘older sister’ while ‘Manong’
means older brother.
What I’ve come to learn
is that if a person doesn’t know you too well and needs to get your attention
they will either call you ‘Manang’ out of respect or ‘Ading’ depending on how
that person feels about you. Ading is the respectful term of ‘younger sibling’
which is used for either male or female.
The land lady and
some woman at the karenderias (mom and pop restaurants) that I eat at call me
Manang not because I’m older than them but because they don’t consider me a
child which is how some people taking the word ‘Ading’. Manang, Manong, and
Ading are all Ilocano terms.
If a person were to
use the Tagalog/Filipino term they would use ‘Ate’ (Ah-teh) and Kuya (Koy-yah).
Ate is the female term for older sister while Kuya is the word for older brother.
Anak (Ah-knock) *soft o* is the term for younger person as a general term.
The reason why I
bring this all up is because when I visited my niece’s family I met her parents
for the first couscous time. I know that
I’m calling her family as if they’re not my family but my family is so huge it
just makes it easier for me to place in my head that her family section is
different from mine lol.
Now my niece is
adopted into my family but she is also blood. What I mean is that she is
related to me in two different ways. Through birth, her biological parents are
my Manong and Manang because they are in the same generation as me. One of her
parents (I think it’s her dad. It’s hard to keep up with all this stuff lol) Anyway,
one of her parents is the child of my dad’s sister.
So, when I have a
kid, in this sense she would be their Manang. Since I’m in the same generation
as her parents she is supposed to call me Auntie but since we were both raised
in the US we both don’t care about those terms. We care about each other and
don’t require the respectful term. I guess I should say it’s more interpreted instead
of spoken between us.
Through her
adoption, she was adopted by my dad’s other sister. Through that marriage she
is in the same generation as me as would need to call me Manang instead of aunt
but as I said, it’s fine. I found it odd calling her parents Manang and Manong
since I call her sister Manang. I’m ‘supposed’ to call her sister who is thirty
something by name but since I know her through Filipino culture I can’t bring
myself to do it.
I hardly go to
Labayug because every time I go there I end up drinking a lot. I had eleven
drinks this time and luckily one of my friends called me and pulled me away
from the commission outside. However, I did abandon my niece which we had a
silent understanding that we weren’t going to do that but I didn’t realize what
I had done until the next morning.
When it comes to my
dad’s side I tend to be selective on who I am around because they have more of
a city folk culture. Not all of them are honest people. Now, on my mom’s side
there are people like that also but they’re not as obvious about it.
Despite all this, I
still care for my family no matter what. Today I woke up and found out three of
my cousins were in town. They all came from Candon but two of them came
together while the other came with his church group. I won’t be seeing the one
who came with his church group today but I told my cousins that I would buy
them dinner but I refuse to give them money and I’m even going to wait to get groceries
until tomorrow because if I buy them now they’ll eat them all and I rather not
get upset for that lol.
All I did while I
was in Labayug is drink and sing. I caught up with niece which is always fun. It’s
good to know that she has good friends in her life and that she’s happy. That’s
all I could ask for, for her. She should be leaving tomorrow for the US.
Well, I’m running
out of time. I want to share with you five Filipino artist and songs that are
popular in here. I don’t have enough time to link them for you but I can list
them!
·
- Buwan – Juan Karlos
- Huling Sayaw - Kamikazee
- Sana – I Belong To The Zoo
- Sa Ngalan Ng Pag-Ibig – December Avenue
- Ikaw – Yeng Constantino
Look them up some time and tell me what you think! They’re
all in Filipino however. There’s only one genre in Ilocano and I’m not a huge
fan of it. Well, I’ll catch you guys next week! Make sure to keep up on me on
the following
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Wattpad
If I don’t write a post here there’s probably a chance that I have written something on my Wattpad because there I post poems! They are shorter reads with more meaning. I am currently working on two poetry books but the more important one that ties into this travel blog is called ‘A Barrier Meant To Be Broken’. Below are the last five poems I wrote on there as of this post being queued.
A Barrier Meant To Be Broken
1.Leaving
2.Too Bright
3.Calculating
4.In This Country
5. A Silent Understanding
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