Hoy!
If any of the following sounds familiar to you, then you're probably Filipino. Admit it, some halo-halo sounds pretty good right about now.
• You answer to "Pssst!!"
• You point with your lips.
• You have relatives whose nicknames consist of repeated syllables like Ling-Ling, Bong-Bong, or Che-Che.
• You have uncles and aunts named Boy, Girlie or Baby.
• In your dining room there's a picture of "Last Supper" - and on either side of it are a giant wooden spoon and fork.
• The furniture in your house is wrapped in plastic or covered in blankets.
• You use shopping bags as garbage bags.
• You have a piano no one plays.
• You keep a tabo in your bathroom.
• You own a barrel man from Baguio.
• You can't resist buying items on sale even if you don't need them.
• You eat with your hands.
• and you cut your meat with a spoon and fork.
• You know a meal isn't a meal unless there's rice.
• There's Spam, Vienna sausage and corned beef in your pantry.
• You eat or have eaten fried spam and eggs with rice for breakfast.
• Whenever friends come over, they ask for "meat rolls" and you know they mean lumpia.
• You greet your elders by touching their hands to your forehead.
• You always kiss your relatives on the cheek whenever you enter or leave the room.
• Your relatives sing karaoke when they come over.
• A party isn't a party unless there's line dancing (who doesn't love the Todo Todo, Chilly Cha Cha and September???)
• You don't get grossed out by balut.
• Your mom puts sugar and hot dogs in her spaghetti.
• Your Lola taught you to gargle with warm salt and ginger water when you have a sore throat.
• You always take your shoes off when you enter a house.
• You know what the "chocolate sauce" in dinuguan is actually made of
• The tissues in your bathroom came from Holiday Inn.
• You "open" and "close" the lights.
• Your friends know what it means to be on Filipino Time.
• You think Christmas season begins in October and ends in January.
• Your second piece of luggage is a balikbayan box.
• You've mastered the art of packing a suitcase to double capacity.
• You've ridden in a tricycle that doesn't require peddling
• You hold your palms together in front of you and say "excuse, excuse" when you pass in between people or in front of the TV.
• Goldilocks is more than a fairy tale character to you.
• You say "prijider" instead of refrigerator
• Your Dad is/was in the Navy or your mom is a nurse or in many cases both.
• You leave a party with more food than you came with.
• You pronounce "v"s as "
• You're seen with a boy who's not Filipino and he's automatically your boyfriend and everyone knows about it
• You have Chinese furniture and walls screens in your house
• Your mom or dad came from a family with at least 10 children
• Your parents over exaggerate the time (ex:" hoy gising na ! its almost 12 o clock," when it is really 11:15am)
• You pronounce "f's" as "p's" and "p's" as "f's" eg. pliffing = flipping , pork = fork [or vise versa ]
• Finding relatives at the airport entails scouring the crowd for a bunch of people fussing with a balikbayan box.
• Anyone whose name you can't recall in conversation is referred to as "si ano".
• Somehow there is always room for one more on the motorcycle or tricycle!
• You take off your shoes in the house.
• Your mom tells you to wear your "chanelas" when you go outside.
• You ask your mom what your "ulam" is when shes cooking.
• Your mom likes oriental furniture.
• You can speak one or more: tagalog, illocano, kapangpangan or cebuano
• You can understand either: tagalog, illocana, kapangpangan or cebuano
• You always have sardines in your pantry.
• You've eaten the bird of the balut at least once was
• You know the "Otso-otso".
• If you're not the youngest in the family, you look like your mom.
• You like Kare-Kare.
• Church is a must on Sundays.
• The first thing you offer your guests is food.
• You like the "Black Eyed Peas" because one of the guys is Filipino.
• Taho is Deeeelish!
• You believe its bad to waste food.
• Your mom tells you that its bad luck to sleep with your hair wet.
• You own a "walis ting ting".
• You like ALL of the following: Sinigang, Nilaga, Tilapia, Dinuguan, Pansit, and Lumpia.
• Mango is a dessert.
• You get excited when you see a Filipino on an American channel.
• if you're living abroad, you have family in the philippines that expect you to bring pasalubong that's fancier than anything you even own yourself
• you know that the "white" version of "come here" is palm-up, fingers waving toward the body, but the pinoy version is palm-down, fingers moving toward body in sort of shoveling motion
• You nod backwards to say yes
• You raise your eyebrows to say yes
• You know that Adidas is more than just an athletic company
• You or your parents have a santo nino on the mante and a big wooden rosary hanging on the wall somewhere in the house
• When you know that "dat white one" means a CLEAR object and NOT white at all!
• You can measuring the water for cooking rice with two fingers
• The house you grew up in had a chandelier made of shell (capice)
• Your parents believed in various superstitions: like turning the plates at dinner if someone had to leave; saying "tabi tabi, po
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YOU MAY BE MARRIED TO A FILIPINA IF . . .
♥ your refrigerator is always full but you cannot find any food that you recognize.
♥ instead of a dowry, you got the whole bill for the wedding and honeymoon.
♥ most of the decorations in your house are made of wicker.
♥ you are expected to be able to read her mind just by watching her eyebrows move up and down and which way her lips are pointed.
♥ all her relatives think your name is Joe.
♥ the instant you are married you have 3000 new close relatives that you can't tell apart.
♥ your house isn't really on fire, but there is a very charred fish right on top of the stove burner.
♥ all the desserts are sticky and all the snacks are salty.
she eats her fruit with giant salt crystals and her fried chicken with ketchup.
♥ even the ketchup tastes weird . . . very weird.
♥ you throw a party and everyone is fighting to chop the leathery skin off a dead pig.
♥ all your kids have 4-5 middle names.*
♥ your in-laws take 10 years to acknowledge your existence and to call you by something other than "that white guy."
♥ you try to call her up on the phone and someone tells you "for a while" and you want to know "for a while, what??"
♥ you are trying to go to sleep and she keeps asking for the comFORT'r, and you ain't got a clue what she's talking about . . .
♥ your first Christmas present is some funny looking baggy see-thru shirt made out of leftover lace doilies.
♥ your phone bills are all international and average 3 hours per call.
♥ she sweeps with something that witches usually fly around on.
♥ her idea of classy, expensive champagne is Asti Spumante
♥ the rice cooker is on 24 hours a day and uses up 50% of your electric and food budget.
♥ on your first trip to the Philippines, you have 18 giant boxes that weigh 1000 pounds each and your "carry on" luggage requires a small forklift truck.
♥ the same luggage is over filled with things that cost an average of 15 cents each like old magazines and M&Ms -- the worst part is when you get off the plane, the same stuff you've been hauling around half way around the world is available in every store in the airport for half the price!
♥ all her pajamas look like they were worn by the Dalai Lama until they got too faded.
♥ the first time she's pregnant you have to go out at 4:00 in the morning looking for some weird type of greasy sausages, green mangoes and bagoong.
♥ You buy a new $500 freezer so she can store 200 pounds of SPAM and CORNED BEEF that was on sale.
♥ everything in your house was bought on sale, even if you don't need it .. as long as it was a "bargain" is all that matters.
♥ she gets really excited by sucking the fat out of pig knees.
♥ your daughter gets her ears pierced when she's 2 minutes old but your sons are not circumcised until they turn 21.
♥ all your postage bills instantly double.
♥ you hire a yaya because your wife thinks you clean mirrors with soap and a sponge and the yaya seems cheaper than a divorce.
♥ the only "white meat" she likes is You, and that's if you're lucky . . .
♥ her favorite sauce is called patis, Americans call it turpentine.
♥ she actually thinks that bowling and golf and billiards are real sports and are more important than baseball and football.
♥ you were married 5 years before she explained to you that "ARAY!" doesn't mean "ooh, baby!"
♥ she prefers bistek to beef steak.
♥ her idea of new upholstery is rinsing the bagoong stains out of the slip covers.
♥ she can eat and talk at the same time, in fact that's her especialty!
♥ her favorite meal is leftovers, her favorite fancy dessert is Jello mold and for something REALLY romantic, she'll offer you a halo-halo with 2 straws.
♥ you still don't know what's the difference between manong and manok.
♥ she and the kids are always saying "Daddy made utot" and you still don't know what it means but they think it's pretty funny.
♥ other than eyebrow raising and lip puckering, her next most expressive form of communication is grunts and pssst's
♥ she goes to the movies just for the AC.
♥ her homeland has more Megamalls than islands.
♥ before every holiday and visit, her sisters fax you a 10 page "bilin" list which says "suggestion only."
♥ your kitchen table has a merry-go-round in the middle.
♥ all the vegetables she buys at the Filipino store look like they were grown at Chernobyl.
♥ your in-law's first visit lasted 5 years.
♥ her friends are named Chinky, Girlie, Boy and Bimbo and you are not allowed to smirk.
♥ her home economics course only taught shopping, eating and siesta; cooking, cleaning and sewing were not electives.
♥ her idea of edifying reading is gossip magazines.
♥ all your place settings has the silverware backwards and there are no knives.
♥ she washes her hair with a bucket and her car with a broom.
♥ she uses an umbrella even if its not raining.
♥ her favorite book (she has 3 copies) is "1001 New Recipes for Pig Parts You Were Gonna Throw Out"
♥ you are the only family in a 200 mile radius with 6 DVD player, 5 televisions.
♥ she's done her best job planning a surprise party for you if she manages not to tell you about it until a week or two before.
♥ she "cleans" her closet by throwing all the crap into your closet.
♥ you are pretty proud of yourself because you think you snagged up for yourself some unique, rare, tropical goddess type until you go to the Philippines and can't tell her apart from anyone else in the whole country (unless she's taller than 5'1", then it's a bit easier).
♥ there's always singing in your house, even when the radio's off.
♥ your own mom, who was lukewarm about your marriage originally, now calls you long distance...to talk to your wife, not to you.
♥ your family announces that in the unlikely event of a divorce between you and your wife, she will always have a place to stay, but you better find a new family.
♥ your wife asks to get a job so that you will both have a little extra money, then thanks you for not complaining about having to drive her to work.
♥ your wife has a contagious smile.
♥ you both decide to divide your spare income, and you spend yours on a computer game or a power tool, only to learn that she spent her money buying clothes for you
♥ she might not have had a second pair of shoes growing up, but she's rapidly making up for lost time.
♥ everything in your house is "namebrand".
♥ you have a Western Union "Preferred Customer" card. Really.
♥ you complain when your wife tells you that longaniza is only for breakfast.
♥ you learn to like rice, even plain.
♥ you have a budget.
♥ she may only tell you she loves you once in awhile. But, she shows you that she loves you in everything she does and says.
♥ you go to sleep each night knowing you're the luckiest man in the world.
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