Filipinos Are Still Orientals

[Manila, 4/15/25]

Twenty-four hours from now, I’ll be on a plane to Saigon. At 7PM on this Saturday, I’m again at Uncle John’s. This was the first Manila space I entered. The numerous homeless just outside have become familiar though, frankly, no less shocking. No one should have to sleep on cardboard night after night, much less babies. From my seat I can see one feeding from a bottle. On Orosa, I saw another inside a dirty mesh crib under the burning sun. Next to it was a tent and a broken down pedal tuk-tuk. It’s in a decent neighborhood, with the US Embassy just half a mile away.

Flanking Uncle John’s entrance is a boy and a young man, each with a coffee cup, ready for coins. The boy, barefoot, often wanders right in. Barely above his station, the staff is sympathetic. If someone gives him an empanada or kariman, he’ll just eat it at a table.

As you can see, I’ve picked up a few words. My Tagalog mastery is coming along. Soon, I’ll attempt the great Tagalog novel. A million bucks from the Swedish Academy sounds about right. It’s way past time. Already, I’ve learned to not pass water at any spot with this gentle admonition, “BAWAL HUMITI ITO!” The rest of Manila is fair game. Everybody else is doing it. It’s probably not wise, though, to urinate at the base of the statue of Moses right outside the Supreme Court. President Bong Bong Marcos will boink me right into Camp Sampaguita.

Kariman is actually short for the Japanese karintou manjou. Everything Filipino is penetrated by the foreign. The Tagalog vocabulary has 4,000 Spanish words. Seeing “basura” with “bawal,” I could figure out it meant don’t litter. Basura is Spanish for trash. The English here has some quirks. Loitering in Uncle John’s, I’m actually a “bystander.” A bedspacer has a bed in a shared room. At first I thought it meant alternating a bed with someone.