In praise of small-town life in Phl

Actor/model/director Travis Kraft is back in the Philippines and many are enjoying his videos on YouTube, and are happy to see that he is producing a lot of positive content from the Philippines.

He spent the past two months in Calbayog City, Samar where he experienced small town life in the Philippines. He decided to immerse himself in the culture by doing what the average Filipinos do.

He went to fiestas, snacked on buchi, ube, and pig’s ears, attended a cockfight, rode on the backs of carabaos, learned to catch fish with his bare hands, and rode a pedicab to get around just like everyone else even though he barely fits in one. He even fought a pro boxer at a local event. The match had a comedic ending because just as they got in there and started throwing blows, a brownout happened. Even though the fight barely got going, Travis felt the event was one of the best experiences of his life. Travis explains, “In these small towns, there is not always a lot to do so for fun they hold beauty pageants and boxing matches and the whole town shows up to watch these events. The crowd for the fight was huge and even though I am an American fighting the hometown guy, the crowd was cheering for me and was very happy to have me there.”

One of the things Travis enjoyed while in Calbayog City was everyone calling him by his name. “When I walk down the street in Manila, some people call me by my name but a lot of people say, ‘Hey, adobong manok!’ (because of his famous viral video teaching how to cook chicken adobo). When I walk down the streets in Calbayog, people say, ‘Hello, Travis!’ It is nice to hear my real name and it is great to meet people.”

He shot videos while in Samar documenting many of his experiences and he also took some time to interview the bands Kamikazee and Parokya ni Edgar when they went to Calbayog for a concert. These videos have been getting lots of hits on YouTube and people keep sharing them on Facebook. People enjoy Travis’ unique style of interviewing and they wish Travis would work for a music TV channel so they could see him doing funny, edgy interviews with musicians on a regular basis.

Travis says, “I had seen a few of their videos (Kamikaze and Parokya ni Edgar) but I did not know a whole lot about these groups. Interviewing them was really fun because of their sense of humor and it made for some very interesting videos. It was also nice to hear that they were familiar with my videos before I interviewed them. After doing these interviews, I started watching their videos on YouTube and I liked what I heard, so I went out and bought some of their CDs, not the pirated ones though.”

Perhaps Travis’ most interesting new videos about himself are his Officer Kraft series. In these videos, Travis is a Philippine National Police officer. Officer Kraft is a man of action but he is reluctant to use force and he never uses more than what is necessary. Officer Kraft is a role model and helps educate the people by showing that you should help people and take care of your health.

Travis points out, “It is not so far-fetched to have a white guy as a Filipino cop, there are Filipino cops in America.”

While Travis is in Manila, he will be doing videos focusing on what’s unique and special in the city and the Filipino culture. He also shot and released a new video about Binondo. In this video, Travis speaks Fookien and does wushu. It is an educational and spiritual video, but more than anything, it is a lot of fun.

Travis explains, “When I was here in 2010, I shot a video about Quiapo that became popular. I ate the local halal cuisine and showed some Muslim life. Now in the new Binondo video, we profile another interesting neighborhood and another interesting group of Filipinos. These groups are just as Filipino as anyone else, yet you don’t often see them on TV and they don’t necessarily fit what people think of when they think of Filipinos. My videos are showing a different side of Filipino life that not everyone knows about and it is great to be able to present other types of people and have their way of life shown not only to other Filipinos, but to people from all over the world.”

Travis also states, “It is great to be back in the Philippines. And I really appreciate the support the Filipinos are giving me.”

Travis will be having many more adventures in the Philippines that he will be documenting and he will be directing a music video for Lance Raymundo.

Be sure to check Travis out on YouTube and his official site, www.traviskraft.com, www.youtube.com/poolboyinla.