Saturday, September 09, 2006

Blogging Addictions and Filipino Pretense

This blogging thing is consuming me. I read blogs all day. I smell it. I touch it. I breathe it. I dream it. Is this the honeymoon stage? You fall in love so quickly, like an addiction you can't shake. And once you've done so much, you've had enough. You kick it to the curb like a one-week girlfriend. But hey, it's been three weeks. So that must mean that blog and I are still working it out.

For those who have been here before, you know that my blog has been under construction. And now, here's another remodeling. I think this is going to be the permanent version of it. It's clean and simple. It focuses on the topic at hand, not at some crazy pictures and design. So for those who were thinking I have an MPD = Multi Personality Disorder, yes, I did go through that in the last three weeks. I just couldn't decide which design I was gonna go with. Simple, clean, and to the point. That's it. That's what I'm sticking with.

Impressions and perceptions are two very important things to the Filipino Culture. I need not go back to the cell phone, Starbucks, and designer clothing as examples. Let me expand. Balikbayans for one thing love to give false impressions. There are so many balikbayans who ar guilty of pretending that they are super duper ultra mighty and high and rich when they go back to their respective provinces, when really, they are in debt in the good ol' US of A. That's right, my dad is to the extreme guilty of this. Mr. Show Off. My dad aside, I've seen so many others, and sometimes, this affects me tremendously because these show off balikbayans have paved the way for other balikbayans to follow.

Now so many balikbayans are pretending to be multi-millionaires. At first, I got into this mentality sicne I gave so much gifts, money, and clothes away. In fact, in my first ever visit back to the Philippines, I went home with only the clothes I was wearing, my wallet, and my shoes. Yes, even my underwears were given away.

Then there's the case of the let's-spend-the-thousands-of-pesos-we-don't-have for a birthday party and gaduation party and we will invite the whole town and we will show them how rich we are and so they will be so impressed we will be the talk of the town. Many Filipinos try to put on a big show just to pa-show, pa-impress. But in the end, it will be pa-hingi.

Even the Ilocanos, who are supposed to be kuripot or thrifty, show off how big a show off they are when it comes to the show off balikbayan phenomenon. What an irony! So are Ilocanos kuripot? Then why do they spend so much money showing off when they become balikbayans? I must say I have the best of both worlds. I am thrifty, but not kuripot. I like to show off, but I show off only what I have. Another paradox here.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's no honeymoon stage, I assure you. I've been blogging for three years and I'm still addicted.

AIEPRO said...

The accessibility of wifi and this lap top...makes it even easier to be addicted. haha.

Anonymous said...

i think being a poser is not only prevalent with balikbayans. it is extremely prevalent and obvious with the majority of our kababayans. Just sticking out their espensive cellphones everywhere and wearing fake signature clothes. That's being a poser all by itself. So untrue!!! Yuck!!!

AIEPRO said...

I am hopeful though that we will not be "posers" anymore. A lot of people are shocked when I just wear flip flops, t shirt, and shorts. Because they think that I should be wearing Prada all the time. Or somethiing like that.