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Thursday, November 27, 2003
Magsaysay: The realities of a balikbayan
By Jo Magsaysay
Whatever
Have you ever seen that commercial about the balikbayan grandmother that kept on saying, “Walang ganito sa America?”
And how many of you recent ‘returnees’ silently agree with her, while ‘stayees’ find her remarks funny?
How many times have you caught yourself sounding like the Americanized grandma? Statements like, “If this were the States there wouldn’t be uncollected garbage.” How about this? “In Germany, drivers would never have been allowed to hoot their horns or change lanes when they want to.” Or, “Our roads are so bad and awful, in Sweden all the roads are graded and fixed every summer and it’s like driving on clouds.”
And how many times do we catch other people giving us that “there she/he goes again” look? The “you-think-you-are better-than-us” stare?
I’ll bet many times unless you are really thick-skinned.
We also have the ‘barrio, barrio’ syndrome. Meaning many ‘returnees’ seek out other ‘returnees’. Why? Since the ‘stayees’ cannot seem to understand us balikbayans, it’s easier to communicate with them because they, like you, lived abroad. They would normally have the same sentiments as you. There is also the unspoken sentiment that they would rather be abroad than live home.
Then why return at all, when most balikbayans criticize almost every aspect of the Philippine society and government? That, where they came from was far more superior than good old Philippines?
Many return for varied reasons. To retire. Jobs contracts are finished. Divorce. Family ties. Being sickly and needing care. Dying and want to be around family our home is just where the heart is.
What many Filipinos fail to understand, are that many balikbayans have their own culture shock to deal with when they return to the Philippines for good.
It’s just many of us go into denial that we are actually getting a culture shock from our own country. It is normally understood that culture shocks happen when adjusting to new countries of domicile, but few will admit they get one when they return back home. Especially if you have left home for 10 years or more.
What many forget is that when they left the Philippines, it looked different. There was more order, peso was higher and had more value. It was shocking to see a P1,000 bill, because when you left the highest denomination was P100. There were less cars and vehicles. Traffic was only bad during Christmas and that was in Manila. Now a little rain, floods are everywhere. What is normally a 20-minute ride home now takes two hours. You cannot remember having your nerves as frayed as this before. You seem to see more garbage and so many beggars. Dirt seems to be everywhere. And worst, the roads seem to be narrower and you now need a 4x4 just to drive the city streets! More chaos and less order.
Then you have the balikbayan children. They look like every other Filipino, but think and act like foreigners. It’s not a put on, it’s how they really are and nobody understands them. Filipinos think they are putting on airs and are ridiculed or made fun of. Thus making their assimilation even harder. The balikbayan is suddenly faced with all these things.
Living in an organized society, the memory of what you left behind slowly fades from your subconscious. Your adoptive country now teaches you how to follow rules, respect people and property. You learn time management, you also find out that if you work hard, you get compensated just as much. Because it’s a first world country, everything works. Trains, buses, underground all leave and arrive on time. Streets are clean and are even washed and shampooed once a month.
And there is dignity in work. You could be a postman, a policeman, or a caregiver and yet you are not looked down upon. In fact you are appreciated.
But life outside is fast, and in some societies even clinical. Winters are harsh and cold. It’s dark half of the year. The citizens of your new country are seemingly unfriendly, so engrossed and always in a hurry! All you seem to remember is that from the time you get out of bed, you hit the floor running.
You need to organize the kids, breakfast, take them to school and then go to work. Then it’s pick-up time for kids, go home, cook dinner and then do the washing up, the ironing or some household cleaning. No time to relax. By the time you finish, it’s time for bed. Then you wonder, “Where did my time go?” I want to relax.
Then you think of home. You feel a stirring in your heart, as you think of the warm breezes on your faces when you were a kid. All the familiar smells that go with the breeze… the smell of adobo, bu-ad being fried, hot tsokolate for breakfast… and Christmas gatherings with family with the inevitable lechon… time to go to the beach and just relax…
Then one day, you decide, we’re going home! We miss what we remember in our moments of loneliness abroad. You remember the fun things and precious moments you left behind.
Then you do go home. That’s when you are hit by the realities that you forgot about when you were abroad. Returning home suddenly doesn’t seem to be as easy or exciting. You go into denial and then start sounding like the “Americanized grandma”. You keep computing everything back to Deutshe marks to US dollars or English pounds, and therefore almost everything is cheap. Only you are not earning a foreign currency anymore.
That then becomes a reality check. Everything works in the reverse now.
It hits you like a ton of bricks. For many, denial goes on for sometime, eventually you have come to realize why you’ve decided to return.
Returning to the Philippines is home. No matter how bad everything is or gets, we have our families who love us, our friends who never gave up on us, you wake up to sunshine almost daily, and all the familiar things and smells are real… because you are where you belong…home.
(November 27, 2003 issue)
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