BY JACOB YAP –
It has always been easy for me to understand why I never truly loved the Philippines. For one, my Australian upbringing has influenced me tremendously. Born in Australia, I never learned the main dialect of Tagalog, which led to many a confusing and quiet family gathering. On the east side of Melbourne, there was never a sizeable community of Filipinos to share that culture with. Even my last name, Yap, has a Malaysian origin, not a Filipino one.
These little disconnects, these ripples, formed into the larger tide of my critical disposition for my home country. The cuisine, how either sickly sugary, fatty, or generally unhealthy the ingredients are (and is almost certainly the reason why you’ll never find high end Filipino food anywhere). The geography, the unbearably dry and humid conditions, the infrastructure that has seen too many corners cut out of it. And whilst I’m reasonably apolitical, anybody can see from five minutes of research the reckless and heavy-handed policies of President Duterte, and the corruption hanging over the Philippine government.
I feel these bugbears of mine stem from how the Philippines has been influenced. From the 16th right up the end of 19th century, the Philippines stayed under Spanish control. Four centuries of influence crop-dusts a country’s language with Spanish words, converts the religion to Christianity, exchanges the currency with the Peso, and eventually stirs up enough unrest and a Philippine revolution to try and claim independence. Then in the modern 20th century, the baton of occupation was handed over to the United States, plunging the Philippines into war, into sickness, into starvation, into death. As if they couldn’t catch a break, the country then experienced Japanese occupation, and the atrocities and war crimes that came with it. Some people argue that America never left the Philippines, still influencing the television, radio, cinema and other outlets of pop-culture to this day. It’s created an amalgamation of what Filipino culture is, that blurs the lines between what came from someone else, and what originated from our little archipelago.
Past hardships led to present-day Philippines, and it is this present-day Philippines that made my parents choose to live somewhere else. Many Filipinos work towards becoming nurses, housekeepers or maids, maybe because of our caring nature, but also because they are needed everywhere in the world; Every time I’ve been overseas we meet at least one Filipino working in the hospitality industry. Those who can’t leave, dream of doing so, with performance competitions of singing and dancing showcased every day on TV and in the cinema, as if winning would be the golden ticket to a better life.
But it is this perseverance, this tenacity that describes the Filipino spirit. The idea of taking something forced upon you and changing it to something better. Our culture is not something that is well received by the rest of the world, but it is kept alive by the small communities, and the large diaspora all over the globe. And whilst I could change where I live or who I am, I can never escape or deny the fact that I am Filipino. Even with my vast criticisms of the Philippines, there is a sense of pride to be found in the resolve, the optimism of the people to find a better life, to cultivate a legacy and continue the traditions. Because truly, what else is passed down from one person to another other than their culture?
Jacob Yap is the Secretary of the Filipino Association of Monash (FAM).
You can learn more about FAM at: https://www.facebook.com/FAMonash/
