Funny o the day (only read if you've been to Philippines).

[eightnsand]

HOW WOULD YOU KNOW YOU ARE AT A FILIPINO PARTY?

You're an hour late and there's still nobody there! There’s enough food to feed the Philippines.

You can't even get through the door because there's a pile of 50 shoes blocking the way.

You see a huge fork and spoon on the wall, a framed picture of the Last Supper, a huge Santo Nino,and a barrel man.

They're singing "Peelings" on karaoke.

There's a piano in the living room for decoration.

You are greeted by a Tita Baby and/or a Tito Boy.

The older men are in the garage playing posoy-dos, or poker or 31, the women are in the kitchen gossiping, or are playing mahjong,the other people are in the entertainment room singing karaoke, and the kids are outside the streets running around unsupervised.

There's goat 'pulutan' beeing cooked.

There's a crazy woman with a camera going around the room snapping away and

yelling, "Uy peeeek-chuuur!"

You enter a family party and you "Mano" to half the old crowd and when you leave you have to say goodbye to EVERYONE that's related to you as a sign of respect. You end up saying hello and goodbye for a total of 30-40 minutes.

You know you're at a Filipino party when you hear a male's voice on the karaoke trying to emulate Frank Sinatra's "My Way."

Women are still doing the "todo todoâ€

When there's at least one or more with the name : JP,JJ, JT,TJ,DJ,AJ, RJ,LJ, Lingling, Bingbing, Tingting, Dingding, Wengweng, Bongbong, Dongdong etc.

All the old aunties and guests are already wrapping up food to take home.

You have the Pacquiao fight on the illegal cable boxes on the 70" LCD in the movie room,

The 10 yr old 50" CRT in the living room,

The 15 yr old 30" tube in the breakfast nook,

The 20 yr old 15" tube in the kitchen,

The 30 yr old 13" tube in the garage

And the Little portable by the BBQ grill,Because TVs are NEVER retired in a Filipino household, they merely get demoted to whichever room doesn't have a TV yet(hahaha),then it ends up in the balikbayan box to be sent to a relative back home, and it ends up being the main TV at the house again.

The aunties & guests are showing off their "designer" Louis Vuitton and Coach bags that they secretly bought at a swap-meet . .

Someone is always in the kitchen constantly cleaning up, and you're not sure if she's the maid or a relative, so you greet and kiss them on the cheek
anyway.

Relatives/friends will ask you where you work and if it's a retail job or if you work at an amusement park, they'll ask if you can get them a discount.

The lumpia is gone in 5 minutes and they are frying up another batch.

They play achy-breaky heart over and over again. Oh Filipino.... !!!

 

[Klif]

Been there, done that. Clark Air Base 1972-1973. (6922nd ESG) Had a lot of friends that lived off base so went to a lot of parties. Always brought party favors (American cigarettes and booze) and always took home a doggie bag of ribs (usually BBQ dog ribs). Saw more big forks and spoons hanging on the walls than I've ever seen in America and a lot of places had velvet Elvis pictures and black lights. Of course that was a long, long time ago.

 

[SAR 6114]

All I have to say about the P.I. is..........The Nipa Hut!!!!!

 

[Klif]

During my time at Clark, on McArthur Highway there was the "Fire Empire", "The Rumors", "The Brown Jug", "The Keyhole", "Michael's Bar" on Field Avenue, and "Knobber Sally's Place". Many a GI spent time in the VD line waiting on a penicillin shot a day or two after a night at the Fire Empire or Sally's place. When you heard screams of agony from the latrine down the hall you knew someone would be in line for their shot pretty soon.

 

[Klif]

On the other side, I met quite a few bar girls (their parents would contract them to the bars since girls weren't much use growing food but could make a good living in the bars) that went to college during the day and worked the bars at night. Quite a few of them could speak 4 or 5 languages (not counting Tagalog or English) and I met several who went on to become doctors. When you are poor sometimes you have to do whatever you can do to get by.
Many of the girls working in the bars got pregnant and the younger GIs would do the "right" thing and marry them, bring them back to the land of the big BX (USA) and some days walking around base you'd walk by a woman and get that sense of dejavue of I know her from somewhere but was always gentleman enough not to ask where I might be remembering her from.
Alas, when the volcano blew and pretty much wiped out Angeles City, most of the bars and a lot of the base, I have no idea what became of the folks that made their living on and around the base.

 

[moosensquirrel]

Love those LBFM's

 

[eightnsand]

Love those LBFM's

its in their culture to please and the funky stuff is like any other transaction. east asians are pretty chill peoples.

 

[dhepler]

Saw no mention of baluts, monkey meat, San Miguel and big sal. Lost in translation and the 60's

 

[biker_bill]

I still have a craving for monkey meat, but really anything you marinate in ginger and teriyaki and cook on a little hibachi is gonna be good, compared to the food on a troop ship.

78,79 & 80 is when I was there and you could get 7 of those monkey meat sticks for a buck.
Any music ever recorded on a cassette for a buck.
I remember thinking the place was a den of iniquity, like Sodom or Gomorrah.... (Olongapo)
(I was pretty sure I just dodged a bolt of lightning several time)!!

dhepler - San Miguel was still the beer, but boy that stuff could give you the runs!

 

[BillsCamino]

Not in the service but as a tourist a few years ago...

Passing thru the metal detectors upon entering the Mall of Asia (Manila)

Riding around town in a Jeepney...