Are You Really Filipino: 115 Ways To Find Out

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Confused about your ethnic identity; Want to know just how Filipino you are? Take this less-than-scientific quiz to rate your Filipino-ness. You might just be surprised at the results!

Scoring: Give yourself 3 points if you can relate to the following characteristics yourself, 2 points if it relates to an immediate family member (mom or dad) and 1 point if you know of someone who has the characteristic.

(NOTE: This quiz was taken from “The Philippine Review,” August 1995 edition.)

MANNERISMS & PERSONALITY TRAITS:

• You point with your lips.

• You eat using your hands and have it down to a technique!

• Your other piece of luggage is a balikbayan box.

• You nod your head upwards to greet someone.

• You put your foot up on your chair and rest your elbow on your knee while eating.

• You use a rock to scrub yourself in the bath or shower.

• You have to kiss your relatives on the cheek as soon as you enter the room.

• You’re standing next to eight big boxes at the airport.

• You collect items from hotels or restaurants “for souvenir’s sake.”

• Your house has a distinctive aroma.

• You smile for no reason.

• You flirt by having a foolish grin on your face while raising your eyebrows repeatedly.

• You go to a department store and try to bargain the prices.

• You use an umbrella for shade on hot summer days.

• You scratch your head when you don’t know the answer.

• You never eat the last morsel of food on the table.

• You go bowling

• You play pusoy & mah jong

• You find dried up morsels of rice stuck to your shirt.

• You prefer to sit in the shade instead of basking in the sun.

• You add an unwarranted “H” to your name (i.e., “Jhun,” “Bhoy,” or “Rhon.”)

• You put your hands together in front of you as if to make a path and say “excuse, excuse” when you pass in between people or in front of the TV.

• Your middle name is your mother’s maiden name.

• You like everything that’s imported or “state-side.”

• You check the labels on clothes to see where it was made.

• You hang your clothes out to dry.

• You are perfectly comfortable in a squatting position with your elbows resting on your knees.

• You consistently arrive 30 minutes late for all events.

• You always offer food to all your visitors.

VOCABULARY:

• You say “comfort room” instead of “bathroom.”

• You say “for take out” instead of “to go.”

• You “open” or “close” the lights.

• You ask for “Colgate” instead of “toothpaste.”

• You ask for a “pentel pen” or a “ball pen” instead of just a pen.

• You refer to the refrigerator as the “ref” or “pridyider.”

• You say kodakan instead of “take a picture.”

• You order a “McDonald’s” instead of a “hamburger” (pronounced ham-boor-jer).

• You say “Ha?” instead of “What?”

• You say “Hoy!” to get someone’s attention.

• You answer when someone yells “Hoy!”

• You turn around when someone says “Psst!”

• You say “Cutex” instead of “nail polish.”

• You say “for a while” instead of “please hold” on the telephone.

• You say “he” when you mean “she” and vice versa.

• You say “aray!” instead of “ouch!”

• Your sneeze sounds like “ahh-ching” instead of “ahh-choo.”

• You prefer to make acronyms for phrases such as “OA” for overacting, “DOM” for dirty old man and “TNT” for, well, you know.

• You say “air con” instead of “a/c” or air conditioner.

• You pronounce the following words:”hippopo-TA-mus,” “com-FOR-table,” “bro-CO-li,” and “Mongo-mery Ward.”

• You say “brown-out” instead of “black-out.”

• You say “Uy!” instead of “Oops.”

HOME FURNISHINGS:

• You use a walis tambo and a walis ting-ting as opposed to a conventional broom.

• You have a “Weapons of Moroland” shield hanging in your living room wall.

• You have a portrait of “The Last Supper” hanging in your dining room wall.

• You own a karaoke system.

• You own a piano no one ever plays.

• You have a tabo in the bathroom.

• Your house is cluttered with burloloys.

• You have two or three pairs of tsinelas at your doorstep.

• Your house has ornate wrought iron gates in front of it.

• You have a rose garden.

• You display a laughing Buddha for good luck.

• You have a shrine to the Santo Nino in your living room.

• You own a “Barrel Man” (shwing!)

• You have a parol hanging outside your house during the holidays.

• You cover your living room furniture with bedsheets.

• Your lampshades still have the plastic covers on them.

• You have plastic runners to cover the carpets in your house.

• You refer to your VCR as the “Beyta-Max.”

• You have a rice dispenser.

• You own a turbo broiler.

• You own one of those fiber-optic flower lamps.

• You own a lamp with the oil that drips down the strings.

• You have a giant wooden fork & spoon hanging in the dining room.

• You have wooden tinikling dancers on the wall.

• You own capiz shell chandeliers, lamps or placemats.

AUTOMOBILES:

• You own a Mercedes Benz and call it “chedeng.”

• You own a huge van conversion.

• Your car chirps like a bird or plays a tune when it’s in reverse.

• Your car horn can make three or more different sounds.

• Your car has curb feelers on it.

• You hang a rosary on your car’s rear view mirror.

• You have those air fresheners in a bottle.

FAMILY:

• You have aunts and uncles named “Baby,” “Girlie,” or “Boy.”

• You were raised to believe that every Filipino is an aunt, uncle or cousin.

• Your dad was in the navy.

• Your mom or sister is a nurse.

• You get smelling kisses from your grandma.

• Your parents call each other “mommy” and “daddy.”

• You have a family member that has a nickname that repeats itself (i.e., “Deng-Deng,” “Ling-Ling,” “Jong-Jong” or “Bing-Bing.”)

• You put hot dogs in your spaghetti.

• You consider dilis the Filipino equivalent to french fries.

• You think that eating chocolate rice pudding and dried fish is a great morning meal.

• You order things like tapsilog, longsilog, or tocilog at restaurants.

• You instinctively grab a toothpick after a meal.

• You order a “soft drink” instead of a “soda.”

• You dip bread in your morning coffee.

• You refer to seasonings and all other forms of monosodium glutimate as “Ajinomoto.”

• Your cupboards are full of corned beef hash, Spam and Vienna Sausages.

• “Goldilocks” means more to you than just a character in a fairy tale.

• You appreciate a fresh pot of hot rice.

• You bring baon to work every day.

• Your baon is usually something over rice.

• Your neighbors complain about the smell of tuyo on Sunday mornings.

• You eat rice for breakfast.

• You use your fingers to measure the water when cooking rice.

• You wash and re-use plastic utensils and Styrofoam cups.

• You have a supply of frozen lumpia in the freezer.

• You have an ice-shaver for making halo-halo.

• Your cloth tablecloths have tell-tale “toyo circles” on them.

• You eat purple yam-flavored ice cream.

• You gotta have a bottle of Jufran handy.

• You fry Spam and hot dogs and eat them with rice.

• You think half-hatched duck eggs are a delicacy.

• You know that “chocolate meat” isn’t really made with chocolate.

249-345 points: Judging from your high score, you are an obvious transplant from the Philippines. There is no doubt what your ethnic identity is! You’re Filipino, through & through.

173-258 points: Congratulations, you’ve retained most of the Filipino traits and tendencies your family has instilled in you.

170 and under: You have OFT (Obvious Filipino Tendencies). Go with the flow to reach full Filipino potential. Prepare for assimilation; resistance is futile.

The Hate Letter

Read this “HATE letter”. It is so funny and creative.
This is a loveletter from a boy to a girl….However,
the girl’s father does not like him and wants them to
stop their relationship……and so….the boy wrote
this letter to the girl……. He knows that the
girl’s father will definitely read this letter

The Hate Letter

1 “The great love that I have for you
2 is gone, and I find my dislike for you
3 grows every day. When I see you,
4 I do not even like your face;
5 the one thing that I want to do is to
6 look at other girls. I never wanted to
7 marry you. Our last conversation
8 was very boring and has not
9 made me look forward to seeing you again.
10 You think only of yourself.
11 If we were married, I know that I would find
12 life very difficult, and I would have no
13 pleasure in living with you. I have a heart
14 to give, but it is not something that
15 I want to give to you. No one is more
16 foolish and selfish than you, and you are not
17 able to care for me and help me.
18 I sincerely want you to understand that
19 I speak the truth. You will do me a favor
20 if you think this is the end. Do not try
21 to answer this. Your letters are full of
22 things that do not interest me. You have no
23 true love for me. Good-bye! Believe me,
24 I do not care for you. Please do not think that
25 I am still your boyfriend.”

So bad!! However, before handing over the letter to
the girl….the boy told the girl to “READ BETWEEN THE
LINES”, meaning-only to read 1.3.5.7.9.11.13 (Odd
Nos.)

So.. please try reading it again! It’s so smart &
sweet…. It is better to laugh about your problems
than to cry about them.”

that’s the true meaning about love,sometimes its seems
bad that the truth is someone really loves us so much!

Uniquely Pinoy

Below is the article written by British journalist stationed in the Philippines written in 1999. In this article, he describe how unique and creative Filipinos are. I want this to share with you because i was amazed how grateful he is living in the Philippines and experienced those things he never encountered before.

Matter of Taste
by Matthew Sutherland

I have now been in this country for over six years, and consider myself in most respects well assimilated. However, there is one key step on the road to full assimilation, which I have yet to take, and that’s to eat BALUT. The day any of you sees me eating balut, please call immigration and ask them to issue me a Filipino passport. Because at that point there will be no turning back. BALUT, for those still blissfully ignorant non-Pinoys out there, is a fertilized duck egg.

It is commonly sold with salt in a piece of newspaper, much like English fish and chips, by street vendors usually after dark, presumably so you can’t see how gross it is. It’s meant to be an aphrodisiac, although I can’t imagine anything more likely to dispel sexual desire than crunching on a partially formed baby duck swimming in noxious fluid. The embryo in the egg comes in varying stages of development, but basically it is not considered macho to eat one without fully discernable feathers, beak, and claws. Some say these crunchy bits are the best. Others prefer just to drink the so-called ’soup’, the vile, pungent liquid that surrounds the aforementioned feathery fetus…excuse me; I have to go and throw up now. I’ll be back in a minute.

Food dominates the life of the Filipino. People here just love to eat. They eat at least eight times a day. These eight official meals are called, in order: breakfast, snacks, lunch, merienda, pica-pica, pulutan, dinner and no-one-saw-me-take-that-cookie-from-the-fridge-so-it-doesn’t-count. The short gaps in between these mealtimes are spent eating Sky Flakes from the open packet that sits on every desktop. You’re never far from food in the Philippines . If you doubt this, next time you’re driving home from work, try this game. See how long you can drive without seeing food and I don’t mean a distant restaurant, or a picture of food. I mean a man on the sidewalk frying fish balls, or a man walking through the traffic selling nuts or candy. I bet it’s less than one minute.

Here are some other things I’ve noticed about food in the Philippines . Firstly, a meal is not a meal without rice – even breakfast. In the UK , I could go a whole year without eating rice. Second, it’s impossible to drink without eating. A bottle of San Miguel just isn’t the same without gambas or beef tapa. Third, no one ventures more than two paces from their house without baon and a container of something cold to drink. You might as well ask a Filipino to leave home without his pants on. And lastly, where I come from, you eat with a knife and fork. Here, you eat with a spoon and fork. You try eating rice swimming in fish sauce with a knife.

One really nice thing about Filipino food culture is that people always ask you to SHARE their food. In my office, if you catch anyone attacking their baon, they will always go, “Sir! KAIN TAYO!” (”Let’s eat!”). This confused me, until I realized that they didn’t actually expect me to sit down and start munching on their boneless bangus. In fact, the polite response is something like, “No thanks, I just ate.”
But the principle is sound – if you have food on your plate, you are expected to share it, however hungry you are, with those who may be even hungrier. I think that’s great. In fact, this is frequently even taken one step further. Many Filipinos use “Have you eaten yet?” (”KUMAIN KA NA?”) as a general greeting, irrespective of time of day or location.

Some foreigners think Filipino food is fairly dull compared to other Asian cuisines. Actually lots of it is very good: Spicy dishes like Bicol Express (strange, a dish named after a train); anything cooked with coconut milk; anything KINILAW; and anything ADOBO. And it’s hard to beat the sheer wanton, cholesterolic frenzy of a good old-fashioned LECHON de leche feast. Dig a pit, light a fire, add 50 pounds of animal fat on a stick, and cook until crisp. Mmm, mmm… you can actually feel your arteries constricting with each successive mouthful.

I also share one key Pinoy trait —a sweet tooth. I am thus the only foreigner I know who does not complain about sweet bread, sweet burgers, sweet spaghetti, sweet banana ketchup, and so on. I am a man who likes to put jam on his pizza. Try it!

It’s the weird food you want to avoid. In addition to duck fetus in the half-shell, items to avoid in the Philippines include pig’s blood soup (DINUGUAN); bull’s testicle soup, the strangely-named “SOUP NUMBER FIVE” (I dread to think what numbers one through four are); and the ubiquitous,stinky shrimp paste, BAGOONG, and it’s equally stinky sister, PATIS. Filipinos are so addicted to these latter items that they will even risk arrest or deportation trying to smuggle them into countries like Australia and the USA , which wisely ban the importation of items you can smell from
more than 100 paces.

Then there’s the small matter of the blue ice cream. I have never been able to get my brain around eating blue food; the ubiquitous UBE leaves me cold.
And lastly on the subject of weird food, beware: that KALDERETANG KAMBING (goat) could well be KALDERETANG ASO (dog)…

The Filipino, of course, has a well-developed sense of food. Here’s a typical Pinoy food joke: “I’m on a seafood diet. “What’s a seafood diet?” “When I see food, I eat it!”

Filipinos also eat strange bits of animals — the feet, the head, the guts, etc., usually barbecued on a stick. These have been given witty names, like “ADIDAS” (chicken’s feet); “KURBATA” (either just chicken’s neck, or “neck and thigh” as in “neck-tie”); “WALKMAN” (pigs ears); “PAL” (chicken wings); “HELMET” (chicken head); “IUD” (chicken intestines), and BETAMAX” (video-cassette-like blocks of animal blood). Yum, yum. Bon appetit.

“A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches” — (Proverbs 22:1)

WHEN I arrived in the Philippines from the UK six years ago, one of the first cultural differences to strike me was names. The subject has provided a continuing source of amazement and amusement ever since.

The first unusual thing, from an English perspective, is that everyone here has a nickname. In the staid and boring United Kingdom , we have nicknames in kindergarten, but when we move into adulthood we tend, I am glad to say, to lose them.

The second thing that struck me is that Philippine names for both girls and boys tend to be what we in the UK would regard as overbearingly cutesy for anyone over about five. Fifty-five-year-olds colleague put it. Where I come from, a boy with a nickname like Boy Blue or Honey Boy would be beaten to death at school by pre-adolescent bullies, and never make it to adulthood. So, probably, would girls with names like Babes, Lovely, Precious, Peachy or Apples. Yuk, ech ech.

Here, however, no one bats an eyelid. Then I noticed how many people have what I have come to call “door-bell names”. These are nicknames that sound like -well, doorbells. There are millions of them. Bing, Bong, Ding, and Dong are some of the more common. They can be, and frequently are, used in even more door-bell-like combinations such as Bing-Bong, Ding-Dong, Ting-Ting, and so on. Even one of our senators has a son named Ping. None of these doorbell names exist where I come from, and hence sound unusually amusing to my untutored foreign ear.

Someone once told me that one of the Bings, when asked why he was called Bing, replied, “because my brother is called Bong”. Faultless logic. Dong, of course, is a particularly funny one for me, as where I come from “dong” is a slang word for well; perhaps “talong” is the best Tagalog equivalent.

Repeating names was another novelty to me, having never before encountered people with names like Len-Len, Let-Let, Mai-Mai, Ting-Ting or Ning-Ning. The secretary I inherited on my arrival had an unusual one: Leck-Leck. Such names are then frequently further refined by using the “squared” symbol, as in Len2 or Mai2. This had me very confused for a while.

Then there is the trend for parents to stick to a theme when naming their children. This can be as simple as making them all begin with the same letter, as in Jun, Jimmy, Janice, and Joy.

More imaginative parents shoot for more sophisticated forms of assonance or rhyme, as in Biboy, Boboy, Buboy, Baboy (notice the names get worse the more kids there are-best to be born early or you could end up being a Baboy).

Even better, parents can create whole families of, say, desserts (Apple Pie, Cherry Pie, Honey Pie) or flowers (Rose, Daffodil, Tulip). The main advantage of such combinations is that they look great painted across your trunk if you’re a cab driver. That’s another thing I’d never seen before coming to Manila — taxis with the driver’s kids’ names on the trunk.

Another whole eye-opening field for the foreign visitor is the phenomenon of the “composite” name. This includes names like Jejomar (for Jesus, (Joseph and Mary), and the remarkable Luzviminda (for Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, believe it or not). That’s a bit like me being called something Like “Engscowani” (for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland).

Between you and me, I’m glad I’m not.

And how could I forget to mention the fabulous concept of the randomly inserted letter ‘h’. Quite what this device is supposed to achieve, I have not yet figured out, but I think it is designed to give a touch of class to an otherwise only averagely weird name. It results in creations like Jhun, Lhenn, Ghemma, Bhong, and Jhimmy. Or how about Jhun-Jhun (Jhun2)?

How boring to come from a country like the UK full of people with names like John Smith. How wonderful to come from a country where imagination and exoticism rule the world of names.

Even the towns here have weird names; my favorite is the unbelievably named town of Sexmoan (ironically close to Olongapo and Angeles). Where else in the world could that really be true? Where else in the world could the head of the Church really be called Cardinal Sin? Where else but the Philippines!

Note: Philippines has a senator named Joker, and it is his legal name.

Late 80′ or Early 90’s ka ipinanganak kung…

Late 80′ or Early 90’s ka ipinanganak kung…

1. Kilala mo ang Moffats, Spice girls At Aqua.
2. Nag sasayaw ka ng Backstreet boys.
3. Pinapatunog mo ang takip ng Gatorade.
4. 25 o 50 sentimoslang ang marie biscuit.
5. Napanood mo sa channel 2 ang eat bulaga at okey ka fairy ko.
6. Nag lalaro ka ng text at pelikula ang design ng mga ito with dialog pa.
7. Favorite mo ang Power Ranger at nag aaway away kayo ng mga kaibigan mo dahil Gusto ninyong lahat na kayo si Red Ranger.
8. Inaabangan mo ang Mga munting pangarap ni romeo.
9. Ang mga babae nag lalaro ng Paper doll na piso isa.
10. Paborito mo ang Bazooka bubble gum at may komiks pa etong kasama na kinokolekta mo.

11. Nakikipag barilan ng Pellet gun.
12. Pag Bagong taon mag papaputok ka ng 5 star dahil wala pang piccolo noong mga panahon na yon.
13. Kinakanta mo ang Chorus ng “Pare ko” ng eheads at sisigaw pagdating sa may MURA na part.. pagkatapos ay papaluin ka ng mama mo dahil masama ang mag mura.
14. Meron kang Tomagotchi.
15. Kung girl ka nagkaroon ka ng butterfly na hair clip na pinauso ni jolina magdangal.
16. Nag iipon ka ng Kisses na pabango at tutusukin ng karayom para mabilis manganak.
17. Wala pang PSP nun kea ang nilalaro mo ay ung pinipindot na may tubig at ipapasok mo ung ring sa mga patulis. kung medjo may kaya Brick Game nilalaro mo. At kung mayaman kayo Game Boy ang hawak mo.
18. Bago magsimula ang klase, nakikilaro ka muna sa 10-20, jackstone, langit lupa, taguan, dr. quack quack, tumbang preso, at agawan base
19. Batibot ang usong palabas. Akala mo nga mag-dyowa o mag-asawa sina Kuya Bodjie at Ate Sheena.
20. Pinanood mo sa sine ang Batang X.
21. Napanood mo sa TV ang balita tungkol sa Y2K Virus.
22. Pinanood mo sa Channel 9 ang marimar.
23. Pinapanood mo rin ang ATBP. sa Channel 2
24. Inuutusan ka ng mama mo na ipa-rewind ang VHS tape ninyo sa kapit bahay ninyo dahil wala kayo nun.. kung meron man ikaw parin ang mag rerewind.

25. Palitan kayo ng Tapes ng mga tropa ninyo.
26. Sinasayaw nyo ang Macarena at Shalala.
27. Wala pang bubble gang.. kasi tropang trumpo ang uso nun.
28. Adik sa Super Mario at Battle City ng Family Computer.

Sarap balikan ng pagkabata lalo na kung masasayang alaala ang babalikan mo…
eh ngaun anu alam ng mga kabataan? manood ng bold sa internet at magdota maghapon? shet anung nangyari sa kabataan… hehehe

Guitar legend-inventor Les Paul dies at age 94

At age 94, the guitar legend finally gave in to the “dying of his light”. pneumonia.

for all those who doesn’t know who les paul is, he invented the solid-body electric guitar out of a “log”.

some of the popular rock guitarist uses this signature guitar (manufactured by gibson and epiphone)

jimmy page (led zeppelin)
pete townshend (the who)
slash (guns n’ roses)
and many, many more.

this is a sample of the gibson les paul standard:

les paul is also one of the most expensive guitar and it is known for its very good quality and so is considered as one of the most popular guitar.

source:  More Info