Journeys to the Middle East: Part 2

Second, I led more or less a sheltered life while growing up in Chicago. I’ve mentioned in previous articles that for various reasons, my parents separated us from Filipino people and things. So I effectively lost my country, my culture, and my native tongue. But, unexpectedly, I found so many Filipinos working throughout the Middle East. I hadn’t been around so many of them, since I was a little boy in Manila. They’d smile that knowing smile at me – knowing that I was their kababayan (fellow Filipino). Funny thing, though, once they’d hear my American accent, they’d get confused and wonder where the heck I was from – Indonesia?  Malaysia?  Japan? I’ve had Filipino friends in Dubai jokingly tell me to keep my mouth shut and let them do the talking.

I joined this consulting firm, because I knew they had a strong presence in Asia – and more specifically because I thought I’d have an opportunity to make my first visit to the Philippines in ages and ages. Well, I never made it to Asia, while I was with the firm, even though I pushed for a year to join a consulting project there. Instead, I landed in the Middle East. One key reason I felt so at home in the Middle East was the wide presence of my kababayan.

Third – and this is the main reason why I felt more than just at home, but fated to be here in the Middle East – I had a particular series of conversations, over time, with various Saudis. A couple of them, on separate occasions, said I looked Saudi. I was flattered, and thanked them. But another incident made me shudder. Three Saudi men asked me if I had trained them before. I said, “It’s possible. I’ve done many training programs before. Where were the programs held?” “Jeddah,” they replied. “Well, no,” I corrected them, “It wasn’t me, because I’ve never been to Jeddah.” These men were actually not asking to begin with. They were convinced that I had, in fact, been their trainer. When I joked, “Well, it must’ve been my twin brother,” they were not laughing in the least! (Oh, man, I exclaimed to myself, I just had to slide out of that conversation.) What I came to learn was that the Western province of Saudi Arabia, where Jeddah is located, was populated with Central Asians and other Asians. One gentleman said I must be a “Bohari Saudi.” I related this story to a Pakistani driver in Riyadh, and he confirmed that I looked as such.

So I had begun to wonder, Do I have Arab blood in me? I suppose it’s possible that I have ancestors from Central Asia. But what I think is a more plausible explanation is this. I do have Spanish heritage, with Spain having colonized the Philippines for almost four centuries. And we know that Arabs had a strong presence in Spain at points in history. Maybe some of my ancestors – from my great grandfather, and back – were Arab Spanish.

My friend Herdie, the most Arabic non-Arab I know.  Me, do I look Arab?

But did fate bring me to the Middle East, because somehow it knew that this region was my home?  I’ll tell you, my relationships with the Arabs in the region were more than just about friendships. There was a resonating connection we forged with each other. Honestly, I think they loved me, because I could understand them. I listened to them, with the kind of empathy in which I placed myself mind and spirit in their bodies. In turn, I loved them because they’d share their personal stories and helped me learn and feel comfortable. Over dinner, another Saudi gentleman mentioned having traveled to Makkah in the last few days of Ramadan one year. He had brought his son with him, but he felt the need to be in the mosque by himself, so he had him stay with his sister. He told me about being very uncomfortable sleeping on the floor the first few nights in the mosque. But by the fourth or fifth night, it was a sort of revelation he had. His eyes lit up in the dim light of the restaurant, as he related his story. He said he felt close to God, at that point. Americans don’t often talk about religion. The country is so secular in its separation of church and state that it’s outside business protocol to talk about God or religion. You just don’t do that. But there I was, with this Saudi gentleman, talking about this very thing – the first of many such open conversations I’ve had.

Such talk of God didn’t so much shape my religious ideology and values, but more, I think, it gave a forum for the things that were already inside me, then, to come forth. Interestingly, some friends have not only wondered whether I was Muslim, but have complimented me when I had said something that mirrored Islam. This is my story – I was born Catholic, but gave up this religion in my teens for reasons I talked about in a previous article. I had never studied Islam, except for reading a few articles and a couple of books on Arab culture and history. But clearly what was emanating from my heart and mind, naturally, was Muslim!

We did our best to accommodate prayer times, in scheduling our programs in the Middle East. Besides the curiosity and learning I had around this, I came to pine, quietly, at the relative lack of sacredness in American society. A Muslim friend tells me, his daily prayers help him not only to feel close to God, but also to rid himself of any negative feelings about anyone. How wonderful, I thought. Since arriving in the Middle East, I’ve incorporated prayer in my daily sitting meditation.

*

Note:  A version of my article was posted on Relativity Online.    

Journeys to the Middle East: Part 1

Have you ever visited a place, and found the place changing your life before your very eyes? Is there such a thing as fate that happens in your life?

Six months after the horrors of the September 11th terrorist attacks (2001), I made my very first trip to the Middle East. And nothing about my life could ever be the same again. It wasn’t anything that I chose to do – but, as I’ve come to see, a thing that somehow was chosen for me. What’s more, to feel so much at home in the Middle East was something I could not have imagined in a million years.  I was a privileged boy from Manila, who became an American citizen from Chicago and who had rarely traveled outside the North American borders.

How and why does a Filipino-American feel at home in Middle East? I’ll tell you the story.

Diplomat Radisson, Bahrain, Friday brunch (2004).

I was working for a US-based international consulting firm, and a colleague contacted me about a consulting project in Bahrain – leadership programs. Apparently my General Manager had assigned me to be part of this team, because of the successes I’ve had in consulting on such programs – and because, I imagined, he knew I was ‘game’ to travel to some place new. At first, I had no idea where Bahrain was on the map. So, yeah, it was new alright!

The client was Saudi Arabian, the biggest oil producer in the world. And, collectively, the projects we were doing for them came to be among the top two or three projects that our firm was doing worldwide. Fairly quickly, I was involved in something that had high visibility in the firm – not just because of the business potential of working with this client, but also because there was quite a stir in the American media and public about the fact that the majority of the terrorists were Saudi.

*

The trip from Chicago, through Amsterdam, then to Bahrain in March 2002 was interminable. We arrived in the middle of the night, tired but too restless to fall asleep. Our client planned to take the team out for lunch, so he met us at the hotel. The noonday sun was way too brilliant for my eyes, even while standing inside the gilded lobby of the Intercontinental.

Well before this trip, we were oriented to Arabic culture and trained on how this project was going to be different from others we had done. We were schooled, for example, to never show the soles of our shoes, and this meant that we were to keep our feet on the floor whenever we sat with our client. On our first meeting, I sat nervously like this, upright with a stiff back and as alert as possible in the haze of jet lag and sleeplessness. We were also told not to eat with our left hand, so even lunch and dinner were, at first, an awkward experience, as I kept my left hand on my lap and ate with my right hand.

Further, we were not to extend our hand to shake an Arab lady’s hand, unless she extended it herself first. Remember, we were working with a client from a country that was among the most conservative and strict in the Islamic world. So, knowing this, I took these cultural lessons further and made sure that I made no eye contact with Saudi ladies (many were completely covered). I also made sure that there was absolutely no risk of brushing up against them. Now, don’t think I was taking this to an extreme. I was spot-on with the extra caution I was taking. In fact, our security detail in Riyadh, for another Saudi project, told me that, yes, even the slightest, incidental contact with a Saudi lady could land me in jail.

David, one of my consultant pals.  We ventured to the Van Gogh Museum on our first layover in Amsterdam.

Thankfully, all such nervousness passed in short order. I quickly and markedly came to relish my trips to the Middle East – which were about once a month, lasting two to six weeks.

I found the diverse people in the region to be the friendliest I’ve known, without question. For example, I was in Kuwait, and had a business meeting scheduled with a prospective partner. But the taxi driver didn’t know exactly where the office building was, so without speaking English, he vaguely pointed me ‘somewhere over there.’ After walking around for a few minutes, and running late for my meeting, I walked inside the Kuwait Finance House for help. The Arab gentleman at the front desk must’ve seen on my face that I was lost. Well, he not only gave me directions, but he actually got up and walked me to the office building! No way would this happen in Chicago.

What’s more, the Saudi managers we were working with often invited us for dinner at their homes. I had my first ‘dose’ of their hospitality – and further lessons on their culture – when a colleague and I arrived to find our host’s wife and daughters separated from anything we did. The four of us, including his brother, had a lavish spread for dinner, which his wife had prepared for us. An Omani manager I was coaching offered to show me around Muscat, as our visits were often consumed with work so I had had very little chance to tour the city. In Dubai, too, I easily made friends, in just a matter of a day or two, during extended layovers, for example, from Riyadh to Muscat. For instance, an Emirati gentleman took me out for dinner, the first time we met, and we talked for hours as if we were brothers.

Interestingly, I’ve had a number of friends tell me that people in the region weren’t very friendly. So they’d look at me with a fair amount of skepticism, when I kept saying the opposite.

Pyrrhic Victory over my Native Tongue: Part 2

While diverse nationalities make up the US as a country, Americans in general are known for their can-do spirit.  A writer once described Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, as having the “confidence that seems to come so naturally to Americans.”  To be sure, over many years in the US, I came to adopt that can-do mindset and to walk with an air of confidence about me.    

Enter little Ronnie boy, subjected to quite a bit of teasing, yes, but with a good amount of smarts and nerdish determination, wholly breathing in that American oxygen and poised to strengthen my command of English in a forthright manner. 

My mother loved to read 'Readers Digest,' and had a collection of this magazine in the basement.  There was a regular section called Word Power in each issue.  The reader was quizzed on the meaning of 20 words, then on the next page each word was defined and given a bit of its derivation.  I took every single issue I could find, cut out the Word Power section, and organized them into a folder.  I also made lists and lists of such words. 

What’s more, I read the dictionary.  (Yes, I told you I was a nerd, didn’t I.)  And I added more words and definitions to my lists.  I even made myself get into the habit of having a notebook handy, whenever I read a book.  So when I ran into a word I didn’t know, I’d jot it down and later on re-visit my trusted friend, the dictionary, to learn its definition.      

Oh, I didn’t stop there!  I managed to get audiotapes for learning to speak English.  At night, alone in my bedroom, I followed each lesson.  I’d hear the man or woman speak a word or phrase, then I’d pause the recorder to repeat after him or her.  Night after night, I learned my lessons with a can-do discipline that wasn’t typical of many children.

Still, later on, I fell in love with British literature – that of William Shakespeare, WH Auden, Thomas Hardy and Jane Austen.  There was a series of British programs on “Masterpiece Theatre,” based on high-level literature, which I’d watch without fail.  I’d record some of these programs, then practice speaking like the British actors – for example, Sir Derek Jacobi as Shakespeare’s “Richard II” and “Hamlet.”  I’d memorize passages of Shakespeare, and recite them in the car, in the library, and around the university campus.  Heaven only knows how the British voice re-shaped my English. 

In any event, through my teens, I successfully fortified my command of English and gradually rid myself of my accent. 

*

We know that many immigrants to a country will collect themselves into neighborhoods or villages, so as to retain the old world in the new world.  They have a great deal of love and respect for their home country, and this remains undiminished even as they pursue opportunities in their new country.  Their children are reared in such a context. 

My parents were not like these immigrants.  They gradually and systematically separated my sisters, brother and me from virtually all things Filipino – the country (absolutely no annual leave back home), the people (away from relatives), the history and culture (no books, art or programs on these).  In effect, what they aimed for, even before we left the Philippines, was an utter, categorical immersion into American life.  It was assimilation into the new country that, for each of us children, surpassed 100%. 

Unfortunately, as a result, we as a family also came to disfavor Filipinos.  This is sometimes called “reverse discrimination” – a certain bias against others of the same nationality or race as ours.  There is the notion that people who’ve been historically disfavored – even oppressed – may identify with the attitudes of the oppressor or in the least hold others of their kind in disregard.  The psychology is this – such people may be attempting to master, even control an experience of powerlessness and disenfranchisement that lies within them.     

I can tell my bold Filipina friend that this reverse discrimination isn’t something I’m proud of – is something I’m ashamed of, in fact.  Thankfully, such an attitude remained at low levels, and I rid myself of this as I began to rediscover my Filipino identity in my 20s and to appreciate my Filipino heritage.  

In the end, I am forever grateful to the years I spent growing up and working in the US.  The negative things that happened to me were, indeed, a positive impetus to learn, to progress, and to become a contributing member of the wider global society.  Yes, I admit that the command of English I gained effectively came as a Pyrrhic victory – I lost my native tongue.  Still, I can count on that same can-do spirit as I work to re-learn Tagalog.  

*

Note:  A version of my article was posted on Relativity Online.   

Pyrrhic Victory over my Native Tongue: Part 1

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” a bold Filipina friend, told me once, out loud in front of others at a party. I had just arrived in Dubai, fresh off the plane from Chicago, and she was introducing me to a community of my kababayan (fellow Filipinos).

She was referring to the fact that I couldn’t speak Tagalog – my native tongue. How I lost it is a journey in itself.

*

Soon after the Americans wrested control of the Philippines from the Spaniards, teachers came in hordes to teach English in schools at the start of 1900s. English gradually supplanted Spanish. Even as a government commission identified Tagalog as a national language, English never lost its standing – effectively creating a country with “disglossia” (two official major languages).

With their books, blackboard and chalk, teachers have a power far greater than soldiers with tanks, machine guns and ammunition to re-shape an entire culture. So the Americans wove their language into the cloth of Philippine life. Stitched it, even, on the very tongue of the Filipino. I remember asking another Filipina friend, for example, whether she had lived in the US, because her accent didn’t quite have that Tagalog sound to it. In fact, I could pick up some familiar American tone. She said, “No, I just watched ‘Sesame Street.’”

*

My upwardly mobile parents not only moved the family into a well-to-do Manila suburb, but also enrolled me at the nearby Don Bosco school – where English was actually the primary language. This was a Filipino school, mind you. There was a separate class for Tagalog, although I have virtually no memory of it. I never really learned how to read or write in Tagalog, so I can only conclude that that class ranked quite low on the school’s ladder of priorities.

So, you see, by the time we left the Philippines in 1968, I was boy with an under-developed tongue for my native language. A weak tongue is easy to lose. The fact that I can’t speak it, well, what do I have to ashamed about? I was simply being swept by my parents in a certain direction, and in turn they were being swept by the American zeitgeist of the 1900s.

*

I wrote about the wonderfully mistaken slurs of Jap and Chink directed at me, in my preceding journal entry here. But children at school didn’t stop at this, as they also teased me for my accent.

The th and the f sounds aren’t easy for a number of Filipinos. So 'third' and 'north' become tird and nort, and 'forty' and 'fifty' become porty and pipty. I remember one classmate who laughed at me, when he heard tief come out of my mouth, instead of 'thief.' Shameful, to say the least, as this sort of teasing happened more than once.

Sadly, one teacher played into this as well. As much as I learned English as a little boy, my command wasn’t very good. So, in 7th grade, when our English assignment was to read books and write reports, my report had run-on sentences; paragraphs with little structure or organization; and patches of spelling errors. In retrospect, I knew my report was terrible, but did the teacher have to speak about my report to the class as an example of bad writing? Hell, at least, he could’ve left my name out!

From Manila, to Chicago: Part 2

I remember a boy named, Raul, a Puerto Rican.  A smallish boy – a gangbanger – he had a clutch of boys in the neighborhood.  Thankfully, I was never part of this.  But, curiously, he took a liking for me.  He sort of came into my circle. (Well, not really, as I had no circle.)  For instance, I’d go home for lunch, then he’d come by our apartment building and wait outside for me so that he could walk me back to school.  Somehow I felt safe and proud to be friends with him.

Raul wasn’t a very bright boy.  This, mixed with a troublesome nature, made him the butt of even the teacher’s awful jokes and derisions in class.  “Raul, you have no class!” 

So, there it was, I understood it.  Without his ever demanding anything of me, I helped him with his schoolwork.  The stuff of friendship.  I got the protection that probably helped me stay out of trouble, in countless, unknown instances.  He got a better footing with his academics. 

         

Again, not much talking about it, Raul and I learned lessons for a lifetime. 

*

“I’m gonna kick your ass!” was so effective.  Yet, so ineffective at the same time. 

More than 40 years have passed, since those fateful first months in Chicago, I have very rarely been slurred upon by others.  Maybe it has to do with the toughness and confidence I’ve kept building up over years.  Maybe it has to do with the several relationships and circles I’ve chosen to put myself in.  Maybe it has to do with my smarts.  Who knows.

You see, here’s the thing.  Jap and Chink still reverberate within me.  Why?

Filipinos, by and large, don’t have very strong self-esteem.  Today we’re spread around the world, but more often than not, you’ll find us to be more deferential than assertive, more serving than commanding, more friendly than tough-ass.  Why?

For centuries, the Philippines was under colonial rule – by the Spaniards largely, but the Chinese and Americans figure prominently into this.  The northern part of the Philippines was their stronghold, and they came in when the economic and social fiber of development was still in its nascent stages.  More than just neglect to build the economic foundation of the local people, they actually dismantled it!  For example, Chinese merchants got small-time farmers to sell rice, below its value.  Then, in turn, they sold it at above this value.  

Imagine cutting off a baby’s feet, before he can even walk! 

That’s what happened.  We were duly servants in our own home.  Invisible, in a similar vein as author Ralph Ellison posed the Black American.   

Yes, by the late 1800s, the ongoing stirrings of rebellion in the country led to the formation of a national identity (albeit roughshod and patchwork).  The Philippines gained its independence.

But still, why is our self-esteem generally still low, more than a hundred years later? 

My take on this:  This bit about independence is a pipe dream.  The 1900s was the era of the Americans.  Their sheep’s clothing was liberator, which hid the wolf of oppressor underneath.  More powerful than the Spaniards, I believe, the Americans entered our brain (e.g., through books and TV) – and planted themselves within our tongue (i.e., through language, Filipinos became one of the best English-speaking Asians in the world). 

The Americans more or less left.  But I argue that we are still an oppressed lot.  By whom?  By the longtime wealthy, powerful families in politics and business.  You learn not to mess around with them.  Because if you do, you’ll see that corruption is the least of your worries.  You literally put your life in danger.  My parents must’ve known this.    

I challenge any of my kababayan (fellow Filipino) to win me over with the notion that Filipinos are independent.  He or she will fail.  Today we are still under colonial rule. 

*

Shame is a powerful social, behavioral tool in Philippine culture.  It’s a way to command obedience from children by parents and teachers – and from everyday citizens by those in power.

In fact, oddly enough, to feel shame was a sort of badge of honor amongst Filipinos.  So much so that for a child to be scolded with walang hiya (shameless) was doubly shaming! 

For a non-Filipino, this can be a maddening, twisted thing.  I’d agree.

Jap.  Chink.  This made me profoundly ashamed. 

The slur wasn’t even the fucking right nationality!  How odd and cruel can children be.  Damn it, didn’t they know I was not Japanese or Chinese.  It was as if I didn’t deserve the honor of being kicked in the gut with my own nationality.  Instead, it was like having my gut ripped out of me!  More than just invisible, I was now hollow. 

Talk about self-esteem.  Walang hiya.  Talk about shame.  How deep can you go with your nth power? 

Jap.  Chink.  Oh, I can forgive.  But never forget.  

*

Note:  A version of my article was posted on Relativity Online.  

From Manila, to Chicago: Part 1

Jap. 

Chink.

I was 9 years old and newly arrived in Chicago. Jap. Chink. Racial slurs for Japanese and Chinese, that’s what some kids at school called me. Something to do with my squinty eyes.

My new Philippine passport (1968)

America was virtually a Shangri La for a Filipino boy – the “Land of Milk and Honey.”  America was flowing white and brown.  I also understood the figurative meaning of the phrase.  So I set about to list all the toys and clothes I wanted, because in America I could have whatever I wanted to have.  Heady stuff, for a little boy.  I tried to get my sisters (6 and 4 years old) and brother (5 years old) to create their own list, but they noted only a handful of things.  “You can have more, you can have more,” I urged them. 

By most accounts, we had a good life in the Philippines.  Both professionals – Mechanical Engineer and Pharmacist – my parents had a house built in Parañaque, southwest of Manila.  So we lived a middle class suburban life, and accordingly I went to the well-to-do, Catholic all-boys school of St. John Don Bosco nearby.  What’s more, we had two housemaids living us and taking care of us. 

My parents, though, had a sense of a future not looking so bright at all.  The 1960s was the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos, and economically and politically they felt that trouble was afoot.  I never knew how or when they began to plan our departure from the Philippines, but in 1968 my father’s two sisters and their families left from America in May.  We followed suit in September.  In 1972, President Marcos declared martial law.  Foresighted, my parents?  Surely.

*

I was a shy but playful boy on the westside of Chicago, where there were many more Latinos than Filipinos.  Autumn cool was already in the air, and there seemed to be more cloudy days than I remembered seeing in the Philippines.  It was ideal weather, regardless, for recess in the playground. What goes on in the playground was a microcosm of what was to come for us children.  All that made living delightful was there – the running, the climbing, the jumping.  Play was an entire language for us.  No need for words, really.  The groan from exerting on the monkey bars.  The screaming laughter from some sort of chase.  The soft thud of falling down.

Jap.  Chink.  In the playground, I soon learned to retort, “I’m gonna kick your ass!”  My older cousins taught me that, as they, too, were subjected to such slurs.  “I’m gonna kick your ass!”  I kept saying it, until it stopped feeling awkward and stupid to say. 

*

Life in Chicago was a far cry from our spacious home in Parañaque.  For the first few months, we were amongst three families living in a three-bedroom flat.  The three sets of parents – mine, my two aunts and their husbands – each staked out a bedroom.  We children – a total of 14 in the household, with a wide range in age – mostly slept on the living and dining room floor. 

It was fun for a while, but the cramped quarters led a couple of us cousins to fight amongst ourselves.  Never mind the other kids at school. 

“I’m gonna kick your ass!”  Remarkably it must’ve worked.  Soon thereafter I heard Jap and Chink very little.  Shy or not, I saw clearly that there was value in being tough. 

*

But better than being tough, I found that the real ticket into social circles and approval was my academics.  I was a smart boy.  I came to learn that Philippine curriculum was more advanced than that of America.  There, children go from elementary school to high school – that is, from 6th grade to high school.  In America, there were 7th and 8th grades to navigate, before high school.  So, instead of 18 years old, many Filipinos are in the university at 16 years old.  So the curriculum, from early on, was geared along such a timeline.

Cool, totally cool.