one trip down, another one to go

Just got back from a pilgrimage in China. For some reason, even if my family goes every year, I get amazed each time I land on that oriental piece of soil. As this province we went to is as rural as rural can possibly get, the city gal in me just can't help but get disoriented everytime.

I imagine, what if my grandpa didn't make it out of China? I would've grown up in that place, had grown up as unrefined and "in the rough" as all the other girls there.... I would think a clean comfort room is an impossibility and that releasing one's mucus onto the street is as normal as anything. I would think shaving under my arms is a strange thing to do and I would think screaming is the normal way of conversing with people.

It's strange-- I grew up being told that I'm Chinese-- who happens to be born in the Philippines. Granted, my Chinese upbringing has pretty much dictated the way I'm wired-- I find more comfort in Chinese medicine, prefer Chinese food to anything else, go pretty much with the Chinese way of thinking... Just like anyone who prefers to stick to the familiar, I spent my first 16 years of life being at ease with Chinese people and Chinese people only.

However, my college years adjusted that. I learned to associate with the non-Chinese, embrace other cultures apart from my own and find beauty in the unfamiliar. Someone once told me, don't you feel like you're really Filipino-- who just happens to be born into a Chinese family?

After some thought, I came to a conclusion. Why does it have to be one or the other? Why does one have to be the overall definition of who I am, and the other cast aside as a mere incidental, as a small coincidence? When, really, both cultures-- Filipino and Chinese-- make up the person I am today. It's these two parts that make up the whole that is me. Granted, there are times (most of the time, actually) that I feel more Chinese than Filipino, but if I were to be really honest, there are also times when the Filipino in me overrides the Chinese too. Who says these two things have to be mutually exclusive anyway? If they were, I'd be a very confused individual right now :P

Oh, on a small note: Seems like I have premature arthritis. It came as a shocker to me, because I always thought the big A was something that afflicted the elderly. But, oh well, the doc gave me some pills to take and told me to give a status report when I get back from Honolulu. Oh well.

OK, this oldie is signing off na! Time to cram in as much work as can possibly be done today, because I'm off to Hawaii tomorrow! :)