Balat Sa Pwet

In case you've been wondering what "Balat Sa Pwet" is in English, it's called a Mongolian Blue Spot. Or, quite simply, a birthmark in your buttocks. I kind of pity the Mongolians to have such a mark in your body that only appears in the buttcheek region be named after their race. I mean, shit, they could just have named it "blue spot of awesomeness that is not awesome" for all we care. But no. It had to be mongolian.

Seriously speaking though, these birthmarks are limited to people of Asian descent, particulary the mongoloid subspecies of man (i.e. people with slanted eyes). A racist birthmark, yay! They're supposed to disappear after a while too. It's like marks of God kicking you in the buttocks just before you enter earth, so you know by preview what to expect if you screw up.

One odd local tradition about these things though is that the old people from the provinces deem birthmarks as unlucky signs. When something goes wrong they'd say "Sino ba dito may balat sa pwet?" (Who in here has a birthmark in his ass?")

That shit is just wrong. I mean, how did they find out that a birthmark in the arm is not as unlucky as a mark in your butt? Did they do trial and error on this one? I can imagine now:

Village Elder: Another villager died from a falling tree today.
Villager: uhuh.
Village Elder: That's the third one this week.
Villager: Maybe we should stop cutting trees using knives so they dont fall on us.
Village Elder: That's retarded. What will you be suggesting next? Serrated foot-long blades?
Villager: But...
Village Elder: Who's your village elder? I call the shots here.
Villager: ...
Village Elder: Have you checked the corpse for funny marks?
Villager: There's one dark shade in his buttocks, sir.
Village Elder: Eureka! I think we've solved our problems.

For the record, I had a birthmark when I was a kid and yes, I was so damn afraid of showing it to other people because they will inevitably blame me for anything from natural calamities to their own stupidity, with emphasis on the latter.

For me, I think these blue marks are just proof of nature that being alive kicks ass.

Reunion Fun

I hate reunions. Don't get me wrong, I like to see acquaintances I havent seen in quite a while, granted I do not owe them anything and they do not have any warrants for my arrest.

Then there are those "formal" reunions. Highschool reunions, gradeschool reunions, organization reunions, family reunions where you are forced to attend. I hate them all. It's like nobody ever goes there to just be there. Everybody has to one up one another like Super Mario going for 99 lives.

(side topic: who was the person who discovered how to get 99 lives in mario? He's one tough hacker.)

And if they don't have anything to boast, people in reunions go around comparing. Either comparing you with other people in the reunion ("wow, james has more money than you red. Have you ever tried getting yourself adopted by your cousin?) or comparing you with your previous self ("you look darker than before. have you been working as a construction worker?")

It's public critic-a-thon with retards waiting on the line for any calls of opportunity to babble about useless comparisons. I hate it. You hate it. You know you do.

It's time to take an offensive, have fun at reunions. You know what's fun to do at reunions? Give the nitpicker attendees something to much like your foot - or, if you hate spending nights in jail, a comment or two.

That's right. Fight fire with fire.

Here's what you should do. Upon arriving, start a duck-shoot frenzy by using only a couple of words: "Tumaba ka." (You've gained weight) Watch smiles crumble with this one. It's a known fact that there's only one direction for weight without any clinical procedures: up. And it's a given too that people are no more insecure anywhere else than their weights.

They'd shut up and you get your piece of mind. Later (maybe much later when they decide they can one up on you), they'll go back to you and say something to come back at your comment.

But you can smile confidently and say "Not true. You're just trying to get back at me~".

With more and more people having their night ruined by your secret weapon, they'll start to grow uncomfortable and seek to end the circus as fast as they can. You all go home and then finally, you can go do what you want to do.

Of course you'll be losing an acquaintance or two but what the heck? With only idiots around, being antisocial is bliss.

Bayanihan

So my sister and I were talking about the lost traditions of the past a few days ago. One of them, she was bayanihan, literally meaning "heroism". As kids we were taught that the best example of this is a group of men trying to move a house using their bare arms.

As a kid I've always questioned motives as to why a house has to be moved specially since back in the day, there wasn't really much "prime estate" to choose from, the only things around you were muddy roads and rice fields. But that's besides the point.

As for the picture being drawn like communist propaganda, don't ask me. I have no fucking idea either.

Anyway, going back to the topic, she told me Filipinos are outsmarting one another now, stealing and scamming their fellowmen. They are not helping each other in the same spirit as the picture shows us anymore.

I looked at the picture hard and figured the puzzle out.

The tradition didn't disappear. We were just reading our cards wrong.

I mean, nobody ever mentioned the house belonged to anyone of those men.

At least, not yet.

I mean, if it takes 3 men to steal/rob/snatch a cellular phone, it's only logistically right to have more men on the job when stealing the house of some douche from the next village.

I imagine poor Mario going back at the end of the day working at the fields screaming:

"Where the FUCK is my house?"

Bayanihan, bitch. Welcome to the Philippines.

Mt. Everest the easy way.

Mt. Everest the easy way.

I got to watch an interview of the guys who reached the peak of Mount Everest. Funny how there's just two guys being interviewed when there were, if im not mistaken, more than 10 people training back in New Zealand when they got featured last year. Altitude problems are the worst.

Two sherpas died at about the same time the RP team was climbing up the mountain. Pity our kabayans didn't think of the easier, more rustic way of getting to where they're headed. How? Pedicabs!

Boy, those things can get you anywhere you want to. I've ridden those things through floods, through storms, through head-on traffic, into a forest, upward mountain roads, across towns. If you can get there without flying, they can take you there.

I can almost imagine it. Mountaineers approaching a pila of bicycle cabs. Cycler (or whatever you call it) asks, "Boss san tayo?" Mountaineer, all geared and stuff, gets in and says "Mt. Everest, sa tuktok." Pedicab boy stares at the RP Mountain team with a worried face and finally says after moments of deliberation, "dagdagan nyo na lang konti ang bayad ha?"

Sherpa? Fudge that. SHETODA!

p.s. Is it just me or does one of the Everest guys look like that Black Eyed Peas guy?

May 22, 2006