Where's the Patis
WHERE'S THE PATIS? Carmen Guerrero-Nakpil
About the Author Carmen Guerrero Nakpil who is "Chitang" to her family and friends is a practicing journalist whose takes time out now and then from her daily journalistic chores to write fine essays. She is fortunate to have an impish sort of humor that has kept her sense of balance well, a perceptive mind that can see beneath the veneer of sham, a fierce pride in her identity as a woman, and a skill for elegant expression that is the envy of many and the equal of few. Experience has taught her that any clever woman can preserve domestic tranquility by the mere act of perpetuating man's alleged superiority to anything he surveys. This is practically what every woman knows but which unfortunately few men realized. Nakpil also came into this world under a lucky star. She was born and raised in Manila; her family has been distinguished both in Science and in Letters; she received her education from an all-too-proper private school for girls; she never knew want; and she was the only girl in the family.
Travel has become the great Filipino dream. In the same way what an American dreams of becoming a millionaire or an English boy dreams of going to one of the great universities, the Filipino dreams of going abroad. His most constant vision is that of himself as a tourist. To visit Hong Kong, Tokyo, and other cities of Asia, per chance, to catch a glimpse of Rome, Paris, or London and to go to America( even if only for a week in a fly- specked motel in California) in the sum of all delights. Yet having left the Manila International Airport in a pink cloud of despedidas and sampaguita garlands and pabilin, the dream turns into nightmare very quickly. But why? Because the first bastion of the Filipino spirit was the palate. And in all the palaces and flesh pots and skycrapers of that magic world called "abroad" there is no par/5 to be have. Consider the
About the Author Carmen Guerrero Nakpil who is "Chitang" to her family and friends is a practicing journalist whose takes time out now and then from her daily journalistic chores to write fine essays. She is fortunate to have an impish sort of humor that has kept her sense of balance well, a perceptive mind that can see beneath the veneer of sham, a fierce pride in her identity as a woman, and a skill for elegant expression that is the envy of many and the equal of few. Experience has taught her that any clever woman can preserve domestic tranquility by the mere act of perpetuating man's alleged superiority to anything he surveys. This is practically what every woman knows but which unfortunately few men realized. Nakpil also came into this world under a lucky star. She was born and raised in Manila; her family has been distinguished both in Science and in Letters; she received her education from an all-too-proper private school for girls; she never knew want; and she was the only girl in the family.
Travel has become the great Filipino dream. In the same way what an American dreams of becoming a millionaire or an English boy dreams of going to one of the great universities, the Filipino dreams of going abroad. His most constant vision is that of himself as a tourist. To visit Hong Kong, Tokyo, and other cities of Asia, per chance, to catch a glimpse of Rome, Paris, or London and to go to America( even if only for a week in a fly- specked motel in California) in the sum of all delights. Yet having left the Manila International Airport in a pink cloud of despedidas and sampaguita garlands and pabilin, the dream turns into nightmare very quickly. But why? Because the first bastion of the Filipino spirit was the palate. And in all the palaces and flesh pots and skycrapers of that magic world called "abroad" there is no par/5 to be have. Consider the