with the Filipino side.... (mostly)

Alright,  I’ve been married to a Filipina American for almost a year now so between that and the six years I lived in the Philippines, I thought it might be time for some more posts on Filipino culture and how best to relate to it.  This post is specifically for those contemplating dating, shopping around on Filipino dating sites or getting married to a Filipino woman or man.  Here’s a list of things you never say to your prospective Filipino parents-in-law:

1)  “This food smells weird” – The aromas are going to be different from what you are used to – especially when it comes to the fish.  Filipino recipes are tough to navigate for a lot of people at first.  They will grow on you though.  So keep your initial reluctance to yourself.

2)  ”I hate karaoke” – Think karaoke is of the devil?  Tough.  You are going to need to sing and you may as well get in the spirit quick.  Filipino culture was not made for the bashful – my Filipino wife has assured me of as much.  So if you want to appeal to the Filipina heart then throw caution to the wind and belt out a few tunes.

3)  “I am on a diet” – Huh?  What’s that?

4)  Point out that they used “she” to reference a “he” – There are no pronouns in Tagalog, the Filipino language.  Prepare for some confusion when family gathers to gossip (I mean talk) about multiple people.  “He” will not be used, “she” will be used for everything.  Smile, nod, work things out from the context.  And if you still don’t get it, ask your Filipino significant other later.

5)  “I don’t like big gatherings” – Well, whether you do or not, rest assured that 50 relatives are still coming and expect to be fed.  Get to steppin’. Real life Filipino gatherings crave energy and being present.

6)  “Why are there beans in my dessert?” – Because you are eating halo-halo, a Filipino delicacy involving shaved ice, tons of sugar, beans and other assorted sweetness.

7)  “What kind of a name is Bong?” – Ask this question respectfully, a former president’s son was named Bong and it’s quite a common Filipino name.

8)  “Can I leave now?” – Um, no.  We just got here (four hours ago).

9)  “Who is Pacquiao?” – You have now asked for a beating.

10)  “Rice again?“ – Are you kidding?  It is like the Filipino oxygen.

There’s more of course so feel free to add to the list in the comments.

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Bjorn Karlman

Photo Courtesy of Peniel Eya

One of the friends that I am in touch with from childhood is Peniel Eya, a Cameroonian that I met when we were both about seven, growing up in a rural corner of the Philippines, about an hour from Manila.  In the picture opposite, we respectively make up the back left and right.  We were as close as early grade schoolers could get and shared a lot of experiences in school, sports and overall rabble rousing. As Peniel was one of my first close friends I remember being extra bummed when his family left the Philippines after a few years to go back to Cameroon.  Friendship, even back then, was a huge deal to me.

International Posse

I’ve made a lot of other close friends in the years since but I am really glad that Peniel and I are still in touch (and that he posts good pics on Facebook so I can illustrate my posts:)).  Being able to look back at the 20+ years that we have been friends I like to reflect on how friends impact me.  Peniel gave me insight into his Cameroonian/Francaphone culture and I learned a lot from this exposure.  Other closest friends were Filipino, Korean, Ghanian and Singaporian.  Although this kind of international exposure didn’t exactly solidify anything about my Swedish identity, I feel like it gave me a good start in becoming more of a world citizen.

Your Influencers

Several months ago I wrote a post titled Choose Your Friends Carefully… Building Your International Think Tank.  In it I made a case for having a strong accountability group of positive friends who push you towards becoming a better person.  I want to develop on that.  I really believe that, whether or not it is immediately obvious, we more often than not end up being the average of the handful of people that we hang around the most.  I mean this in the broader sense of environment – both online and day-to-day in-person interaction. Because this is reality, it makes a lot of sense to be proactive about the kinds of friendships you create.

Choose Friends that are Different

Does your network bring out the best in you?  Do your friends make you a generous world citizen?  Do they exert positive peer pressure on you?  Do they make you want to give of yourself more, to be more open-minded?  I have often found that developing friendships with people from vastly different backgrounds from me can really help me grow.  For example, moving up to to Northern California I was initially very nervous about the transition from ultra urban LA living and the accompanying lifestyle and political norms, to the exact opposite up north. For non-Californian CultureMutt readers, Northern and Southern California may as well be two different states.  There is no love lost between the two parts of the state.  ”You’ll stick out like a sore thumb”, I was warned as I announced I was leaving LA for a little Norcal mountain town.  And I did.  But more than three years later I am really grateful for my friends up here that have helped me grow.

The Challenge

As we start another week, let’s pause and be grateful for the friendships we do have.  Let’s also give some thought to how we can grow our circles to become more open-minded, better rounded and more generous.

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Bjorn Karlman

It all started when I was a freshman in college.  A couple buddies and I had flown from Geneva down to the French Riviera and, after an action-packed weekend we were on the way back to Geneva.  Only we didn’t want to pay for the last night at the hostel, especially since we had a super early flight and it hardly seemed worth paying for a night of very little sleep.  So we took the train out to the airport in Nice and stumbled in a little before midnight.  We set up camp next to the check-in desk, laid our sleeping bags out on the floor and slept fairly well until it was time to catch the flight.  I was so happy with the experience that I have become a huge fan and evangelist for airport overnighting.  Here are the advantages, as I see them, to skipping on hotels and sleeping at airports instead:

Saving Money

As mentioned, this is what got me started sleeping in airports.  It is hard to find even motel accommodation in most world cities for less than $50 so if you are traveling on a budget and would rather spend your $50 (or much more) on something else, airports are a good option, at least for  a night or two.

Security

With a few commonsense steps, you can safeguard passports and wallets (I sleep with them in my pocket).  After that, airports are often fairly safe places to sleep.  They are patrolled constantly and there are security cameras everywhere.  I have spent many a night in airports and never once been robbed or given any trouble whatsoever.  You are more likely to be troubled in an open-plan dorm-style hostel (large rooms filled with beds) than you are at an airport because airports invest so heavily in security.

Facilities

One of my pet peeves about being on the road is the condition of restrooms.  I hate dirty restrooms and will often bluff my way into upscale hotels to use nice facilities.  The great thing about airports is that the restrooms are typically in respectable shape.  They are fairly clean, have toilet paper (in certain parts of the world this is far from a given in public facilities) and many airports have showers.  Check out this awesome site for ALL you would ever want to know about the best airports to overnight in and the amenities that each have.

It’s Stylish

OK, so not always.  But more and more stylish sleep pods like these in Atlanta and Philadelphia, these snooze cubes in Dubai and these super cool sleep boxes in Moscow make it not only easier to sleep in airports, but they allow you to do so in style.  A word of caution on these though… the pricing adds up to that of a hotel if you sleep for several hours so these sleep pods are more for shorter naps.  My preference is the trend in more and more airports to get rid of those ridiculous arm rests and simply create couches like the one below that I slept on for hours in Sacramento last Sunday.

Alright, those are my initial thoughts on sleeping in airports but I’d be interested in hearing your ideas.  Hit me with some in the comments.

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Bjorn Karlman

I was sweating bullets.  “We normally only hire native French speakers for these positions,” the manager sneered.  My first call in my summer telemarketing job had been less than stellar.  I was calling in French to business execs in France, Belgium and Quebec.  The young manager was not much older than me and was eager to throw his weight around.  I could tell that he was going to be trouble.

A Mistake?

I muttered something and kept calling.  The next conversation was not better.   “Not interested.”  This was going to be rough. Had I made a mistake taking this job?  Was my French not up to par?  Had this been too much of a risk?  Was I just setting myself up for massive humiliation? There was no way to know yet so I stayed on the phone, hoping against hope that the “next call” would be better.  It rarely was.

It got worse

My direct supervisor was not much of a creative soul and simply opted for old school pressure.  “Show me the leads (“yes” responses) Bjorn!  I need better than this!”  He kept at it day in, day out.  I was heating up for a shouting match.  Finally I took him into a conference room.  “You better lay off, your pressure isn’t working!”  I told him.  Luckily, the comment seemed to help more than it hurt.  He gave me more space.

Pushing Aside Disbelief

“The people that get leads are the ones that believe they will…” I overheard another floor manager, (one that I liked) say to another caller.  I wasn’t sure how much it would help but I decided to try this approach and believe that I would rake in leads.  I physically stood up and walked around during calls.   I got weird looks.   I ignored the fact that the entire remainder of the French team were native French speakers.  I pushed, and pushed and pushed.  It was a risky, aggressive approach because it drew a lot of attention and would be hilarious to others if it failed. The French team started joking about my approach and the overly casual French I was using to “close” and get leads.  I kept going.

The Results

As I pushed aside the fear of failure and stopped thinking about the absurd risks involved in trying to sell in a foreign language, the results started coming in.  First it was one or two leads here and there.  Then they came in more steadily.  Somehow my non-native French turned out to be a plus because the execs thought I was more of a technical expert calling from the US and not just another telemarketer.   Every time a lead came in, I would come over and tell my supervisor.  The leads would go up on a white board in a tally format.  I kept calling, the tally marks kept going up.  Toward the 2-month mark I was outselling the rest of the French team combined.  I won telemarketer of the month and finished the summer off on a high.

Risks, it turned out, were a lot less scary if you plunged into them.  I try to think back to that summer when I face big challenges. I remind myself to push fear aside and take action.

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Bjorn Karlman

Could the principles of this post apply to any romantic relationship?  Of course.  But I am especially writing it for my friends in international dating relationships.  If you are dating someone of a different nationality or a different culture there are some things that are sure-fire fight starters.  I’m going to outline four of the biggies.  They aren’t complicated or that hard to avoid necessarily but they DO make a difference and if you indulge in them too much you can expect a lot of drama and some lonely nights at the every least.  The upside is that, if you avoid these international relationship faux pas, you can navigate some exceptionally delicate territory and enjoy the diversity and fun that can especially be found in love of the borderless variety…

Think that just because your beau/belle jokes about her culture, you can too

Just like with jokes about family members, you have to leave this kind of humor to “insiders”.  If your boyfriend jokes about his mom’s quirky conversational style for example, common sense dictates that while he can do that because he is her son, you should shut your mouth the moment you are tempted to fire off some cracks about the woman.  You aren’t a bloodline family member and thus you don’t have the right to comment.  That’s exactly how it works with cultures and countries.   She may think that her exaggerated imitation of her country peoples’ handling of the English Language is hilarious but beware of coming up with your own version.  This may sound like common sense but in the moment, when everyone is laughing with your hilarious girlfriend, it may be tempting to strut your stuff with a few of your own choice lines at the family New Year’s get together.  DON’T.

Get too complacent about leaving all the “cultural” stuff to your significant other

This one is also tempting.  Your boyfriend’s culture has so many complicated rules and nuances that you decide to leave all that complicated “cultural stuff” to him.  Why learn all the rules when you can just copy him, right?  WRONG.  Family members (ESPECIALLY those in the 55+ age category) are great at sniffing out this kind of complacency.  They can tell if you are bluffing.  They know if you haven’t done your homework.  They know what you think of their culture and are better judges than you of your own efforts to discover their culture.  If you slack off, be prepared for a very unimpressed reception at family gatherings.  You will quickly be relegated to the “girl he’s seeing now” category and will have to work twice as hard to win their approval.

A quick word about the positive flip side:  If you make an effort to learn some customs and some of the native tongue they will think you are ADORABLE.  Instead of being obstacles family members will often fall over themselves advocating for you.  All kinds of goodwill is generated by a little effort.  So be smart.

Be a cultural crusader

There is something weird about culture, language and tradition.  It is so close to our hearts and our natural rhythms that we often overreact to the slightest disruptions.  Is your Brazilian girlfriend getting a little too boisterous around your elderly anglo relatives?  Has your Asian boyfriend said something about “giving kids a good spanking” as your over-sensitive Scandinavian family collectively prays that you will never have children?  Has your All-American girlfriend just turned up in jeggings to your ultra-conservative church service?  Stuff like this can flip the switch and, under enough pressure, very regrettable things can be said.  You may be tempted to launch into a hysterical lecture:  “What were you thinking?  Are you really that clueless?  How do you EVER expect to be accepted if you behave like a total moron?!”

Patience goes a long way in times like these.  Decide AHEAD of time that when these things happen (because they for sure will), you will calmly work to resolve the situation.  Often some humor and and subtle maneuvering defuses the tension.  Explain that your anglo grandparents only understand “library voices”, that talk of spanking kids gives Swedes ulcers or that, it’s your fault for not prepping her and that its OK to change and come a little late to church today instead of having to endure angry looks from elderly parishioners whose pacemakers have been sent into overdrive by your girl’s wardrobe.

Get a big head about your progress

As soon as you make a little progress it is easy to pat yourself on the back.  Beware of doing this to excess.  There’s a fine balance between gaining the respect of your girlfriend’s fellow nationals by being culturally sensitive and acting like the know-it-all.  Everyone likes someone that shows some effort but you can definitely go too far.  I think of this German guy that I once heard speak to a large crowd.  He had married a West Indian girl and somehow now felt that he was a black preacher.   MAN it backfired.  Don’t get me wrong.  People enjoyed it.  But for all the wrong reasons.  Something about Wolfgang trying to be the Jamaican Jesse Jackson had everyone smiling a little too broadly.

Summing it up

Everyone screws up while dating.  There’s no avoiding it.  ESPECIALLY not when different cultures are a factor.  But being self-aware and cognizant of some of the more common traps gives us a good head start.  Good luck everyone.

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Bjorn Karlman

I seriously wanted to throw something at him.  He was my age, beyond pompous and spoke in the most affected, patronizing tone imaginable.  Worse yet, he was the keynote speaker for the seminar. I was stuck where I was sitting and could not get up.   I could not believe how irritated I was becoming.  It was something about his totally artificial, urban style and the way it came across in the mountain town in which I work (and attend conferences).  The two simply did not mesh.

The yuppie finally sat down and up stood the next speaker – same thing… urban condescension cloaked in sugary garble for another 10 minutes.  I was beside myself.  The abuse continued for most of the evening with one or two exceptions in the lineup of speakers.  I was seething.  The whiplash from the reverse culture shock (I am a former city-dweller who moved to the country) was intense.  Three years ago I had been that first speaker.

It’s amazing how environment changes you.  You notice the externals first.  When I moved from Los Angeles to rural Northern California there were a few things I picked up right away.  In LA you wanted to look richer than you were – you drove a nicer car than you should and dressed to the hilt.  Norcal (Butte County, to be specific) was a whole different story.  If you had money, you hid it by driving beat up trucks and dressing Kmart.  More than that was different.  People talked more slowly, never honked and invited you to go shooting in the woods.  I got invited to NRA events.  My wife and I went to a Professional Bull Riding (PBR) show and THOUSANDS of people turned up.  We’d never heard of it before.  All of this gradually changes you I guess.

Back to the presenters pissing me off.  The next morning I burst into the office, ranting about how those Sacramento and Reno presenters were clueless and didn’t know their audience.  My colleagues were amused.  One finally offered, “Yeah Bjorn, you’ve gotten a lot better over the years.”  They were really enjoying the irony of this former urbanite ranting about his own.  What goes around comes around.

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Bjorn Karlman

I don’t believe in being driven by guilt.  Yet so often I am. The question of how much of my income I should be giving to charity makes me feel uncomfortable. I often feel like I should somehow be giving more. That what I am doing is not enough.

I work in hospital fundraising so I understand how the fundraising machine works.  The charity identifies a pressing need and decides how best to get the word out to potential donors.  They use the most powerful images and stories available to convey the need.  They send the right people to talk to you.  If they can tug at your heartstrings, they will.  It is a science.

I don’t say the above to make any of us cynical.  Any worthy cause needs to be persuasively presented.  If you cannot engage the emotions of your donor base, its “game over” in fundraising.  People don’t give from the head, they give from the heart.

But even if I understand the mechanics and persuasion behind major fundraising, I am still stuck with the dilemma of deciding just how much to give to each cause.  I tend to be a big supporter of one or two causes and then to give token gifts to everything else.  Is this living generously?  Is this being a savvy do-gooder?

Some look to the traditional tithing system in churches as their saving grace -  10% of their income goes to one religious entity and, voilà, they are all done.  I’m not saying 10% is bad… it’s a lot more than most people do.  But it doesn’t answer my questions about how discerning giving should work.  Should you go for the extremes?  There are the next level giving types that practically (or literally) take vows of poverty and then there are those that give to causes as though they were fashion statements.

I’ve gone through phases where I have felt guilty for spending money on some of life’s luxuries that I enjoy and there have been other times when I have barely cared at all.  What I am more and more convinced of is that it is possible to live a generous life either as a rich or as a poor person.  Being wealthy does not make you greedy just as being poor does not make you unselfish. Surely it is the mentality that you have towards others, towards giving, that matters in each case.  Is the intent positive?  Have your researched the cause?  Is your gift generous without being financially reckless?  How do you feel having given?

Shoot me a line in the comments explaining your approach to giving…

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Bjorn Karlman

One of my new year’s resolutions is to make this demand of myself every morning:  “Decide How Best to be Generous Today”.  I have been reasonably consistent about asking myself the question but I am not sure how much is coming of it so far.  “What does being generous even mean?” I’ve asked myself.  I talked to a former clergyman about this once.  He had been burned by organized religion but seemed to hold on to some good memories of the humanitarian work that he and his flock had done while he was still actively involved.

“Bjorn, we loved even when it hurt, especially when it hurt.”  He described difficult situations when it was hard to be generous but people had still stepped forward with a show of altruism.  I was impressed.  I liked the idea of loving the next person and being generous even when it was difficult.

Displays of almost unnecessary generosity are obviously not the exclusive domain of a particular religion or culture.  It is universal.  I feel like I have witnessed it everywhere that I have traveled and in every faith community that I have visited (I’m a bit of a religious tourist and enjoy seeing different belief systems in action).  I wonder what triggers it.  I wonder why I so often hold back from showing it to others.

I have heard political arguments against generosity, against helping others.  “If you help them you are enabling their dependency issues,” I’ve been told.  I remember one mentor who listened to my frustrations with the complications I was experiencing mentoring a troubled teenager.  “You’ve got to let people fail,” she said.  On a purely intellectual level I understood what she meant.  My own failures in life have often been some of my most teachable moments.  If I had never been allowed them I don’t think I would have experienced some of the growth and successes that I am grateful for.  But at the same time my mentor’s approach seemed callous and impersonal.  She had no idea about the circumstance of this kid, how he’d grown up and what he needed.  And yet there she sat pontificating on his need to fail.  What if failure was all he knew so far in life?  Did he really need another miracle boost of failure or did he need some bootstraps with which to pull himself up?

There are not easy answers – not on a personal level and not on a policy level.  I’ll keep asking myself the question though.  I’ll keep you in the loop on any epiphanies…

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Bjorn Karlman

I can never let too many posts go by before re-declaring my Tim Ferriss über fan status.  I devoured his two books, the 4-Hour Workweek and the 4-Hour Body and I love his blog.  So imagine my state of fanboy amazement as, while innocently scanning my Twitter “Must Reads” list, I came across a tweet from Kevin Rose (Founder of Digg and this awesome new ratings app, Oink among other things) announcing the latest in a series of monthly interviews with tech superstars, called Foundation.  I clicked on his link and, instead of watching his latest interview, I went straight to the one with his bud Tim Ferriss.  I’d never seen such a quality interview with Tim.  There were several excellent parts but it started to get VERY interesting towards 48:00.

Kevin Rose:  “How do you find that balance between wanting to be really driven and an entrepreneur… at the same time remembering that you have an awesome family that you should be spending time with that isn’t getting any younger?”

Tim Ferriss:  “I set Saturday very strictly for me… I try to regain perspective on Saturdays.. I really try to open no computers on a Saturday.. I don’t have email set up on my iPhone, I don’t want to see the notifications.. I try to make a point of calling my family every Saturday.. it’s tough man… I mean time is really fleeting.. it is really, really staggeringly terrifying how time accelerates as you get older.. it’s really terrifying.”

Don’t worry, this is not me trying to proselytize as a Seventh-day Adventist.  Religious belief aside, I was fascinated that someone that is as famously productive as Tim Ferriss, is a quasi fundamentalist about setting aside 24 hours for rejuvenation.  Nobody I’ve come across has quite the same reverence for time and the proper use of it, as Tim Ferriss.  That is one of the main reasons I am so fascinated with his work.  I know that I’ve got a very finite span of time in which to make my impact on society and I listen to those who help me maximize my stabs at savvy, global do-gooding.  Check out the interview and hit me up with your thoughts in the comments.

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Bjorn Karlman

One of the most universally admired traits of the movers and shakers in society has to be the lack of inhibitions that the more dynamic types exude in spades.  Of course, cultural realities dictate what is appropriate and classy but despite these often arbitrary stipulations, there is room in each culture for some coloring outside the lines.  As the weekend approaches I start to think more of play than work and I am reminded that letting go is often half the battle as we try to do our best in today’s rat race to make a meaningful dent in the universe.  Savvy, global do-gooding is often hard work but it can also result from the grace that comes from some balance.

So let go a little this weekend.  Dance like nobody’s watching.

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Bjorn Karlman