sunken garden

We are home again after spending 2 weeks in my “home-country” which is defined in the Ebuna’s Dictionary as the place where you reached your maximum height. It will be almost two years since I left. My husband contended that I will be shocked.

Was I?

Not really but I certainly saw things in a different perspective. The humidity, dirty air and dusty surroundings were familiar. I didn’t mind eating rice three times a day but I must admit that I felt uncomfortably full most of the time. I had mango shake whenever it’s on the menu. I felt stuffed most of the time but eating monggo and tuyo, escabeche, sinigang na lechon was too irresistible.

So what took me by surprise?

Di laging masaya

What surprised me as soon as I landed and walked through the airport was that people aren’t as friendly and happy as I thought they were. Was it always like that? Have I been telling myself too often the cliche that Filipinos are happy people? How do you arrive at such generalizations? Have we been always characterized as such and how do we compare exactly to other races?

Yupi-yuping UP

I always though that my alma mater had character. It was an impressive campus for me (atleast 12 years ago). I recall that some of the ceilings at AS were broken. I particularly remember one room where the ceiling fan was dangerously hanging on to the ceiling. The fan was working but you might want to rethink sitting under it! I was awed by the size of the campus and I always regarded its brokendown state as “quaintness.” As I walk through SC in search for a cheap mananahi, I found myself wondering why UP looks the same or even worst. The SC was littered with posters and it looked the same. The UP theater looked like it had a gangrene. I didn’t get to look around more but what I saw depressed me. Why does our state university look like this? After all the countless malls sprouting like mushrooms all over Manila, the sight of my rundown alma mater is quite depressing.