The Convivial Gist

T ravelling... leaving home for an exotic and unfamiliar locale surely  evokes excitement.  When I was growing up in the sleepy barrio in the Southern Philippines, I am always wondering what lies beyond the mountains and the seas that enclosed my little world. But this notion was in between my preoccupation of  trying to get ahead with  the childhood game of tumbang preso http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumbang_preso so that I won't  end up being labeled as bagoong (salted paste made from shrimps and small fish).  Later on in life, I developed an  insatiable itch for discovering what lies further the confines of my abode. I considered those travels as one most important chapter of my adult life. These are experiences and memories that like education, are always portable  and it goes with you all the time.  I was wondering why to  some people, traveling is such a daunting task, an interruption to their prosaic life.  As if, they are about to leave their cocoon, that stepping o

Having lived the first 44 years of my life in a homogeneous society like the Philippines, racism was kind of a vague issue to me. But when  I moved to United States and married an American , I was slowly introduced to this kind of order in America.  I became an honorary black woman.  I said that because I embraced not only him but also his "people" but still maintain my Filipino values and culture . Color blind as I am in my relationship with my husband and his family, I am was also aware of  the ugly presence of discrimination and racism  that lurks from time to time being a mixed couple - a black man and an Asian woman. My husband told me he was used to it and he understands why I was perplexed by it in considering the society where I came from.   We suffered the curious looks, the disappointed looks, why I married a black man look, why did he marry an Asian look ,why did you take away our man look , maybe she just needs a green card  look,  you name it we experienced it.