cultural differences

Yesterday, while I was riding on the Sotetsu line to Ryokuentoshi station where our school was located, I sat across this woman, half-slumped in her seat, sleeping soundly and tuned out of the world. I wouldn`t have noticed her at all since I see people sleeping on the train countless of times before. But what made me look twice was her hair.

Speaking from a completely aesthetic view, her hair was all scrimped and colored reddish brown. That might seem normal enough but what left me literally staring was her bangs. They were hair-sprayed stiff and combed out to form a wave, a big bouffant of a hair, like a wave cresting where the inner tube was big enough to insert a bottle of water.

I sat there rooted in front of her sleeping form, and I thought, “How different are our cultures that I as a Filipino can make fun of her hair in my mind, and feel incredulous while her hairstyle didn`t even get any reaction from her seatmates.”

Those spiffed up long bangs left me wondering why her children didn`t tell her anything about how her hair looked like that day. I honestly struggled to put into words these descriptions all the way from Futamatagawa to Ryokuentoshi.

When it comes to Filipinos, I can pretty much spot them immediately by the way they dress. Being in a foreign country is like being at home. You put on what clothes are comfortable, and you don`t have to conform to current fashion. Just wear the clothes you crammed into your suitcase, shop around for sales (clothes are incredibly expensive here), and there it is – wardrobe a la improvisé. Who knows, maybe the Japanese girl beside me is staring at me too, wondering how in the world could I get out of the house with no false eyelashes on or stiletto boots like the one she`s wearing.

The truth is, I am simply amazed at the difference between Japanese and Filipinos, how sophisticated both of us as a people think we have become, our urbanity, our refinement. People now have the right to be who they are, and I salute anyone who is proud of every little thing that constitutes their character and outlook.

One such person is my fellow Sillimanian here in Japan. Claudio Ramos, who is studying at the International Christian University in Tokyo, won the Yoshiko Ishi Award and the Ethnic Color Race Award in the 11th Foreign Students Music Contest last 9 January 2005.
It was a not-so-cold day in the middle of winter when we went to Tokyo to support Claudio. We got there to see him all dressed up in a costume he fashioned himself: a headpiece, a camiso de chino-like shirt with beads sewed on, thin, brown pants with a malong and a sarong wrapped around his waist. On his face were little white dots which turned out to be Nivea cream designed to look like the original face paint of the tribe where his dance came from. He was the only barefoot one onstage. Some sang; some danced; some played instruments; Chinese, Koreans, Uzbeks, Irish, Americans, what have you. They performed their best but none as unique as Claudio whose dance was ethnic and colorful with lots of movement, an authentic manifestation of his talents and his country.

As various cultures were experienced albeit only for three minutes or so, I admire idea of the Japan International Cultural Exchange Foundation “to establish world peace through cultural exchange, to enhance the humanity and aim for co-existence and co-prosperity.”

And it could be doable, right? Make people think humanistic not materialistic. Make people realize there are others who exist with their own identities, who can teach and nourish their lives, who can expand one`s mind to involve not only the self, but fellow human beings as well.

I am grateful I watched that contest. Not only because I was entertained and I got to cheer for a friend, but also because I learned not to be so amazed the next time I see people who are different from me. They are just who they are being brought up in a country so different from my country in terms of religion and culture.

Claudio didn`t win the grand prize but he was happy all the same with his two awards. “I still feel like I won,” he said. And to us seven Filipino friends who watched and cheered for him that day, we rediscovered the values of friendship and national pride. Mabuhay tayong lahat.