Siomai and Friends Fries

By Chris DeBrie

Kaon na? These are the impressions of an American visiting the Cebu region of the Philippines for the first time. An enlightening and hilarious account from writer Chris DeBrie.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris DeBrie
• Release date: Jun 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311269805

Chris DeBrie

Chris DeBrie is an American publisher, cartoonist, and musician.

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Siomai &

Friend Fries

Siomai &

Friends Fries

By Chris DeBrie

Copyright 2016

a Wash Your Hands/Panchoy Production.

meanpimento.com

No part of this work may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher except brief quotations for review purposes

AS-TOLD-TO [Merriam-Webster]: created by a process in which a person's spoken remarks are recorded (as during a series of interviews) and then edited and revised for publication by a professional writer

Negro! Negro!

[chapter 1]

I was (am) an American of African descent, a visitor to the Philippines, Cebu area, such as Toledo City. Even in the United States, where skin hue was somehow downplayed as an issue and in your face simultaneously, I tended to forget about that stuff from moment to moment. But in the Philippines, I immediately realized that it was impossible to pretend like this didn’t matter.

In rural and small-town areas, I was anything from a novelty to a freak. I could only assume most of them had never seen an actual black man before. Or maybe it had just been a while. Inductive reasoning? Call it what you will.... I’ll never forget seeing a motor biker nearly wreck as he stared at me. He looked as he approached, he looked as he passed, and he looked over his shoulder, still humming away at 30 mph. Didn’t turn around until the handlebars started getting wobbly.

I remembered a quote by the comedian Bob Newhart: Sometimes you forget you’re famous. You wonder, ‘Why is that person staring at me?’ This wasn’t the same thing but similar.

One travel writer said that, as a white foreigner, he was an instant celebrity. I did not read that until I had returned to the U.S., and even for me, that was true in the Pinas. Some people thought I was from Africa, perhaps. You are from Uganda? one teenage boy asked. Knowing no one would know where my Virginia city was, I simply told everyone who asked that I was from Washington, D.C. Everybody had heard of that place.

But for me, it wasn’t quite the same as being a celebrity, as we normally define one. There was a calculating, hackle-raising spirit to some of the stares. Not every friendly face was so friendly—I could understand more of the Cebuano words than they knew. There were some cultural differences to be learned on the fly. In part, maybe it was similar to a stranger coming into a small town in America—everyone is going to be a bit wary at the same time they give the stranger lots of attention, no matter what he looks like.

In busy Cebu City, the people seemed more connected and maybe had been watching the NBA or Will Smith movies. Lots of glances, not as many gawks. In both cases, I got more than a few (by American standards) of