1. I realize I've turned into the classic, loathed stereotype of the whiny balikbayan: complaining constantly about the heat, the humidity, the traffic. (I'm even more appalled because I study the damn subject.)
2. Ate three balut eggs in one sitting the other day. Yum. (The fourth I had to discard because the duck was a little older, and the beak made a disgusting little snap when I bit into it.)
3. May Starbucks na doon. [Translation: there's already a Starbucks there.] This is something one hears from balikbayans returning to the United States, often accompanied by that the economic situation in the Philippines is improving, or "Umaasenso na ang Pilipinas." (It is indeed true that there are at least four Starbucks shops between Alabang and Susana Heights alone.)
The recent explosion of malls (and Starbucks) in Manila does not mean a thing, of course; it only means there are more places for people to window-shop. (My friend and former classmate Lotta has a great essay, which I read quite a while back -- so my memory probably fails me -- where she argues that the malls function to prop up civil society, as spaces that provide the illusion of democraticization. Or something like that. But the SM Megamall, to take one example, still reinforces those class distinctions: the proles are free to jostle each other for space on the first floor by Jollibee and the discount clothing stores, while on the top floors (where the expensive boutiques are), the air conditioners actually work, the tisoys shop, and the chauffeurs wait by the entrance to the parking lot.)
"May Starbucks na doon" is distantly related to something I often hear as well, "Nasa Amerika na siya" [Translation: s/he's already in America now] -- with that na ("already") signalling a kind of teleology to Filipino immigration to the United States -- and so I spend a little chunk of my dissertation exploring that na.
4. Most people think that Filipino popular culture is completely in thrall to American pop culture. And yes, one can turn on Philippine radio and hear almost nothing but American Top 40 pop dreck (nothing but Nelly, Nelly, Nelly and more Nelly, with some Busta Rhymes and Mariah Carey thrown in) or feel trapped in a '70s time warp (I don't think one can even hear Randy Vanwarmer's "Just When I Needed You Most" on U.S. oldies radio stations anymore). But this is false on a couple of levels: global mass culture has, in any case, almost always been centered in the West; and two, the Philippines still obviously takes its cues as well from the rest of Asia. (Walk into any good-sized mall and most of the stores you will see are branches of HK/Taiwan/Singapore originals.) Case in point: the biggest, drop-everything-you're-doing show on TV right now is a "chinovela" -- a soap imported from Taiwan called "Meteor Garden." Dubbed in Tagalog, it stars one-half of a female singing duo and all four members of a boy band named F4. Their songs (in Mandarin, I think) are played all over the marketplaces here, and their posters are all over store and bus windows.
5. The ringtone on my dad's Nokia cell phone is Missy Elliott's "Get Ur Freak On," for some inexplicable reason.