It’s crossed my mind as I’ve crossed the yellow line at Immigration that, as an airport official examines me, my own scrutinizing frown can deny me entry due to disdain. Or that, as I pass through one of those virus-spotting scanners, the dark material within me known as an inferiority complex could trigger harsh bleeping from the machinery.
I’m not a very good sport when it comes to visiting foreign countries; my international insecurity should warrant its own box on a Customs declaration card: “Are you bringing a great deal of emotional baggage in due to how low your country ranks on the global competitiveness list?” Check.
This complex becomes more severe when entering countries nearer mine. Given such close proximity to the Philippines, the contrast of national wealth is more striking, which sometimes elicits very Filipino self-pity with a candy coating of amusement. Example: “Tignan mo, budget terminal lang ng (insert name of thriving Asian country), mas-maganda pa sa international airport natin!” (“This is just [insert thriving Asian country]’s budget terminal but it looks way better than our international airport!”)
Fear and Loathing in Singapore
It gets pretty bad in Singapore, where my rashes multiply in proportion to the breakout of new architectural and recreational marvels around the city. The Marina Bay Sands, the two-month-old hotel and casino I stayed at recently, was one of these. It was especially monumental to my dad, an eternal student of the world and how it markets itself, not to mention quite the devout craps enthusiast, as well.
What our haute hotel boasted more than anything was a view. On the 57th floor, the infinity pool made the skyscrapers in the distance seem like a footrest to your recliner. It was as if the hotel’s amenities extended far beyond, exhibiting a city seamless and unwavering with progression. But even as this visitor surveyed Singapore’s turbo-tourism from up high, its distance from where I stood made it easier to regard it disinterestedly, like a piece of well-designed furniture still suffocated by its plastic wrap. Here was a robotic city that was efficient but cold — populated by rigid and overworked robots with jagged, robotic accents.
This convoluted sort of Pinoy pride becomes a great defense when I think about the upped cred Singapore’s got on the global playground. Always with the cool new toys — Hollywood-themed amusement park (Universal Studios), beach bar from Ibiza (Café del Mar), restaurants by celebrity chefs (Batali) — while our country’s got its head buried in a sandbox somewhere.
And then my dad goes and suggests lowering ourselves further.
We had taken to the hotel’s elevated lobby restaurant, which afforded him the opportunity to observe the international influx of guests and visitors paying their touristy respects. “We should bow more,” he said suddenly, beginning his own State of the Nation Address. “In other Asian countries, people greet and show respect by lowering their heads. Tourists feel more at ease when they witness it. In Japan and Thailand, it’s a beautiful thing to look at. And it doesn’t look plastic.” Filipinos, he continued, “respond like this,” flicking his chin upwards in the way most Filipino males express overconfident affirmation. “It’s a sign that we lack humility.”
I agreed that in the hospitality industry, servility is important. But maybe the nod rather than the bow was employed to remind whoever you encountered that you were equals, even with vast socioeconomic differences. The Spaniards taught us to aspire and from the Americans, we learned to communicate. It’s led to our flaunting what call center accents and American sitcom humor we’ve acquired when we deal with foreigners.
My dad slowly nodded. “Take into consideration what a simple gesture can do,” he reasoned. President Aquino’s addressing us citizens as his “bosses,” for instance, was, to my dad, a powerful message that change could be imminent, wrought even from such an infinitesimal start.
A Slice of Humble P.I.
To the group of young white expats I was to meet at a bar on Club St. later that night, I wasn’t about to surrender my nerve. More so when the new French acquaintance I’d made suggested a lack of things to do in Manila based on his brief stay in Quezon City. “You’re wrong,” I protested, in denial of our static social calendar and fueled by the stereotype that Frenchmen can be pricks. “In Manila, you can do everything,” I declared, images of crooked cops, cocaine-peddling public officials, and underage drinkers aplenty flashing in my head. The good-natured Canadian beside me didn’t take to any of it, in awe as he was by ever-streamlined Singapore. Sure, the guy was Canadian but my arguments had begun to sound deluded.
I could mock the accent, liken Singapore’s clubs to stage sets, and wag my finger at the city’s sexual awkwardness but it didn’t change the fact that we were Asia’s sore loser, both defensive about others nations’ opinions of us and self-congratulatory with every D-Lister who claims the slightest drop of Filipino blood.
Maybe there was wisdom in bowing. You could look at it as a stoop of subordination, an embrace of the Filipino’s physical and figurative smallness. Or it could be a lean forward in acceptance of the forward progression we all need to make; a token of our willingness to listen and learn from other nations, as welcoming a country as we’re touted as.
With open minds that can make room for small gestures, big changes could follow in the future. And with that, a bow might also express appreciation — as a gracious stage actor does, bending in reception of an audience’s applause.
That night, I decided to relinquish my angry ambassadorship for ease and enjoyment. Over a bottle of wine, quips were exchanged with the mini-European Union I was with, leading to jokes about my hairy German friend and resulting in a gibe about how I hadn’t experienced puberty yet. “That’s a good one,” I admitted, laughing.
“You see, that’s great that you can do that,” an Aussie friend remarked. “In Malaysia, you joke around like that with a couple of guys and they’ll be at your throat.”
I cast a warm smile. And in acknowledgment of his observation, tipped my head in the process.