There is magic in the tabula rasa, clean slate, of migration.
While for those with lives ravaged by war who come here with only the clothes on their back, there is no choice. But for us, who are luckily here for economic opportunities, there is the choice of reinvention.
To be whoever the fuck you want to be.
One could choose to change my name, at least what you wanted to be called. You could reinvent you entire look with a style you’d never dare wear in your home country. You could change career paths with the opportunities that were not accessible to you. You could also choose another partner by divorce. Or explore out of the kulambo of marriage.
By all means, do whatever the fuck you want.
This includes trashing beliefs that no longer serve you. You could switch religions or even just junk it altogether. You could now openly and legally be pro-choice. You could reinvent the wheel of tradition, making new ones of your own or perhaps tweaking ones that you’ve brought along with you.
In the short and sweet time in Dubai, holiday feasts always meant pork, pork and more pork. That forbidden, more expensive meat sold in the back of the store for non-Muslims only was always the star and the draw of parties. Masmasarap ang bawal, as they say. Our little group would spend hours catching up, joking around, sometimes videoke singing and a sprinkle of parlor games. Here in our corner of Texas, while pork is a plenty, we have steak - 2-inch thick slabs of corn fed bovine along with a hodgepodge of Filipino and Western dishes. Then ending with some parlor games or movie night of whatever popcorn movie of the season, which, to be honest, I often sleep through on the host’s massage chair.
All these were never part of my family traditions.
Traditions are the rhythm of life. As a watch tells you the exact second, minute and hour. As a calendar tells you what day it is. As the leaves of the tree tell you what season it is.
On New Year’s Eve, the Paterno family, of at least fifty people with Titos, Titas, cousins, nephews, nieces and significant others, greet the coming year with cocido - boiled beef, chicken, pork, a head of cabbage, green beans, potatoes, bananas, garbanzos together with the broth it was cooked in, low and slow for over eight hours, atop a charcoal stove, and a side of simmered tomato, sweet onion and olive oil sauce. On Easter, celebrated at the stroke of midnight after the 3-hour Easter Vigil on Black Saturday, a spread of the family recipe of oxtail kare-kare - no peanut butter, but real peanuts and ground rice paired with dry pork & chicken adobo. On Christmas Eve, Tita Trixie’s callos de Madrileño eaten with generous splashes of Tabasco and slices of baguette and butter to sop up all the sauce, Tita Josie’s chicken galantina, Excelente Chinese ham from Quiapo, Tita Lelet’s fruit salad - canned fruit cocktail in cream with slices of bananas, studded with chopped cashew. On Christmas Day, Tita Tess’ famous lasagna made with Magnolia Quick Melt cheese a.k.a. The Velveeta of the Philippines - so dense and compact that I eat it with…rice and the M. Paterno Street part of the clan spread with more galantina, turkey, leche flan. On Bonifacio Day or December 30 for the rest of the world, we enjoy Tita Elsie and Manang Uling’s rendition of Mongolian BBQ.All void of alcoholic revelry, drunken singing and disrupting the peace.
The last time I enjoyed all of this was eleven years ago.
When you’re removed from tradition, you miss a beat. As immigrants, you miss one then another and another and another. One day you find yourself completely out of synch, tune, never able to come round and catch up, to be one with that rhythm as it was. You now play to a different song. You run on a different calendar altogether.
While there is the option of recreating those holiday delights here, especially with the access through the Asian supermarkets and European imports, it is simply impossible.
While recipes can be shared electronically through the Internet an easy screenshot of the stained recipe index cards, how do you recreate it exactly as it is? Could one import a leg of Excelente Chinese ham into a country where meat imports go through a rigorous process and standards of quality check? (Not to say that quality is below par. Absolutely not! I’d rather say they do not know what the hell they are missing and would like to keep these things to ourselves. Note that you cannot even bring in slivers of jamon iberico de bellota in from Spain.) How do you replicate decades of cooking experience and instinct? How can I recreate that scene where each and every person partaking in the meal waited with bated breath, palate and stomach for 364 days for this exact moment in time? How do you get together people who’d happily bring home leftovers (if any even!) and savor each drop of sauce, licking each Tupperware clean and not ignoring it at the back of the fridge, eventually chucking it in the trash? (Yes, America I am looking at you! Notorious food throwers! Bah!)
There’s nothing like sharing a meal with people who share and love the same tradition.
There are no elbows to jostle with as you struggle to fish out a few of the rare slices of chorizo. There is no one to relive and relish shared histories with - awkward things we’ve done when we were children (or adults!), stories about our grandparents, challenges of cooking the traditional dishes on the table. There are no cold glass bottles of Sarsi or Pop Cola to chug. There are no Aguinaldo lines to fall into (if you’re a kid) or cute nieces and nephews who’d jump up and down when receiving their gifts. There are no rainbow colored Capiz parols that illuminate the darkest of nights.
Ten years ago, I cried on Christmas Eve.
It was the first Christmas away from my family and friends. But there I was staring at the ceiling of our Dubai flat (apartment to us in the US), my 6-month old husband snoring softly as tears started rolling down my cheeks. I haven’t cried since.
You accept this reality. You get on with your life, perhaps find things to fill that blank slate.
On our first Christmas in the US, we drove around Highland Park, the Forbes Park of North Texas, where the old oil money lived in their McMansions with professionally done lights. A horse drawn carriage clopped through the suburban roads carrying families swaddled in fleece, holding cups of hot beverage.
The lights didn’t hold the same dazzle and sparkle.
We were hungry and didn’t realize that most people actually took a Christmas break here, a stark contrast from the Christmas in a Muslim country we previously had. We drove to a Denny’s, the only place open that night. It reeked of damp carpet and hot brewed coffee. I ordered a burger. Gargantuan, able to feed two hungry people, yet I wasn’t. Truckers, a family and us were the lone server’s customers.
We used to make it a point to do the Christmas light tour through Highland Park. But now each Christmas is different. Often times spent with the ragtag Filipino family we’ve built with a rotating menu on whatever we collectively felt like eating on the day.
Yet it remains to be a blank slate, where we can be whoever the fuck we want to be and do whatever the fuck we want.
Have a merry Christmas if you celebrate. If you don’t, then enjoy this holiday’s break before we sprint into the new year.
Signing off for now from Kickapoo country / North Texas,
Didi