Maupay Nga Kulop!


In the Philippines (I love starting stories out this way) it is very common to be greeted, or to great random strangers in passing with one or more of the following:
Good morning/noon/afternoon/evening.
Where are you coming from?
Where are you going?
How are you?
It's hot out/raining.  Whey are you out?
Oy! Friend (followed by an above question)
My favorite: Hey Joe, kaon ka tae!

It's not that they really care how you are, or where you are going.  It's just a greeting.  A friendly aspect to their culture that I loved.

Coming home it felt so odd to walk down the street and have someone walk by with out even looking at me.  Now I have a teacher that is Armenian.  She said that she loves how friendly everyone is her in America, how we all greet each other as we pass on the street with a "hi" or "good morning" or what not.  This confused me.  Now I realize that America is not as friendly as some places, but more so than a lot of places.  

Today, as I was walking home for lunch, I passed a house just as an older women was walking out the door.  She immediately struck up a conversation with me as we walked a few house lengths to where her car was parked and I continued home.  I felt so uplifted from this encounter.  It was so nice to have a complete stranger greet me and care about me for that two minutes.  

I am not sure what the moral of the story is.  But I just thought it was a neat experience and who knows, maybe one of the few people who read my blog will think so to.

3 comments:

Toni Lynn said...

what's "kaon ka tae?"

Brandon P. Hansen said...

oh, that's just their frindly way of telling us to "eat crap!"

Spencer said...

I just found your blog Brandon! Yay! And for the record, I liked this story too. :o)