"In Denmark"

Danes are proud. "In Denmark..." is probably the most common phrase begun with every sentence.


"In Denmark, we display hearts everywhere in honor of our Queen."



"In Denmark, we grow produce organically and drink water straight from the tap."



"In Denmark, we sometimes cut our own Christmas trees."



"In Denmark, it is cold and as a result so are the people."



"In Denmark, the average person has blue eyes and blonde hair."



"In Denmark, we have buildings older than America. This is the oldest building in Denmark." ...and this is a literal quote.



"In Denmark, 5% of the population are church-goers. We rely on logic, reasoning, and science and neglect emotion and diversity to make sense of the world."



In Denmark, the average Danish Christmas dinner takes a marathon to burn off. And during Christmas dinner and opening presents, we sit in a structural circle and are each given individual time to speak and open gifts, respectively."



"In Denmark, we light our Christmas tree with candles and only light them up for two days: on the 24th eve & 25th. We also hold hands walking around the tree singing Christmas songs on the 24th eve, and we only sing them in Danish even if there are English counterparts for guests to participate. It is, afterall, tradition."



"In Denmark, I had one person who could understand and see that Danes constantly promote Danish things."



"In Denmark, I learned Danish humor from Jeppe's brother, but I also learned that I am not Danish, will never be Danish, and have a long time before I stop questioning Danish customs, traditions, manners or lack of."


Denmark is indeed a great society and at the end of the day, of course I embrace the culture and its people because I appreciate its antagonistic qualities from my own. However, the most I can say is that it is a small country and appears to suffer from the small country inferiority complex.

Christmas in a Jiffy

I've been completely out of touch with my blog over the holidays! Just got back from a week in Copenhagen. As some of you know, I lived in the city for 3 months before and was hoping for a different, perhaps better experience. In ways I was satisfied and in others the question is questionable. The city itself had better spirit and I guess it explains that there are two seasons in which Danes are 'sociable' - the summer and Christmas. Tis true, though to American or Filipino standards they are by far far from it. Apparently it is because I don't get the humour, because meaning is lost in translation, because I am biased or what have you. The countryside and its mindset is another story. Nevertheless there is a mouthful of rave as well as criticism I find with the culture and so continues one of my most problematic dilemmas with a country I both admire and despise. Twas my first Christmas away from home and indeed it was an interesting one. For the sake of some of my Danish readership and in honor of obvious cross-cultural complexities, I will leave it at that. I am, however, quite bullheaded about the topic so if it ever comes up, more than a paragraph of words should surely arise. Just ask. Will be posting pictures soon from the trip, most of which will portray the more transparent backdrop of my experience.

Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

Just wanted to wish everyone Happy Holidays and share my little Christmas tree with you. Hope you are keeping sane with the Christmas crowds and watching thou favorite holiday movies. Seasons greetings, Arctic Puffins! xoxo

Pinoy Pride!

That's right. Our hero Manny Pacquiao, by technical knockout, painlessly defeated the Dress Wearing De La Hoya in the 8th round this past Saturday night. Thousands of miles away and about 15 hours later, I was able to watch the fight. We pledged not to open any news tabs the entire day to watch the fight with complete unpredictability and how sweet it was to see a national superman, or shall I say "Pacman", beat the crap out of the Golden Boy, who I thought looked all-show in the De La Hoya vs Pacquiao HBO pre-boxing special. Just because you can afford a lodge at Big Bear to prepare and have your training team wear matching branded t-shirts doesn't mean anything! Pacquiao, on the other hand, humbly trained in an old gym in LA with a head coach who has Parkinsons and bunked with something like 10+ of his friends.

Pacquaio deserves his triumph not only because of his undeniable talent but also because he is a national hero to the Filipinos. Even to Filipino-Americans who have prospered in life yet have seen the struggles of our moms and dads, Pacquiao manages to give us pride and hope for our titos, titas, ates, kuyas, and "boys" abroad.

The Philippines enjoyed their liberation in 1946; this is an independence that has existed only 62 years! After 400 years of Spanish colonization, Japanese occupancy during much of WWII, and about 10 years of an American commonwealth, it was national heroes such as Jose Rizal and Andres Bonifacio who Filipinos adhered to. Unfortunately political turmoil led to a dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos and a declaration of martial law, which has resulted in a country suffering from violence, corruption, poverty, and diminishing economy.

Today, Manny Pacquiao is the new liberation. He is the answer to the depressions Filipinos face. He represents the strength of the people and their battles to be won. Pacquiao has helped bring attention back to the Philippines giving us a sense of pride aside from our infamous adobo, San Miguel, and expatriat/part-pinoy celebrities such as Enrique Iglesias, J-Lo's ex-hub Cris Judd, Dante Basco (Rufio from the movie Hook), Tia Carrere (sphincter says what?), Lou Diamond Philips, Phoebe Cates, Rob Schneider, and Nicole Scherzinger from the Pussycat Dolls. Pacquiao is the full Filipino monty, however, 100% straight from the PI Islands. You get this in his admirable tongue and the fact he prays and signals the Trinity every 5 minutes.

As Barack Obama does for African-Americans, Manny Pacquiao inspires hope to every citizen despite any negativity that surrounds them on a racial as well as national level. And like America, the Filipino people are not synonymous to their politics. Manny personifies the struggles in each one of us and exhibits that hard work pays off. Whether he is physically small (originally weighing in at 106), uneducated, or just a one-hit wonder, Manny continues to fight and achieve success - the same happy ending and dream Filipinos incessantly seek.



He's done this all without forgetting where he came from, a trait admirable to what I think is important to any minority or second generation immigrant. Like all Filipinos, he sings karaoke whenever he gets the chance and surrounds himself with his "pares". He also gives back to the people in monetary contributions, food donations, charities, community service, and has even personally appeared on the streets to hand out giveaways.

Pacquiao is the symbol of what has been lacking in sports for awhile. Someone who came from the bottom and rose to the top. Uncomparable but most definitely akin to Muhammad Ali, I'd also like to think of Pacquiao as a Thrilla in Manila as he's created such an impact to his country and other places in the world. In America his name is becoming, if not already, a common household name.

My dad emailed me with the simple text, "We should be proud of our kababayan. I did not expect the fight to go like that. Pacman out boxed and outsmarted the golden boy." ("kababayan" meaning to belong to the same bayan, town, or province; on a larger scale, it refers to the country, of being fellow countrymen.) This is coming from someone who has been living in the States almost more of his life than his native home.

We identify with Pacquiao. He gives us optimism and inspiration and shows we won't give up up a fight without that left jab. He is a fast and strong fighter yet smiles like a little boy who just found out dinner is at Jollibee.

I would LOVE to see him fight Hatton next. For all the frustrations I've tolerated in this toothless country, I fancy to see Pacman knock out the overly-confident, Manchesterian speech-impediment-stricken rumbler. Until then, I will enjoy Pacquiao's victory! Hip-hip-horrahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Bad Karma

Just when I said the park was the one place that hasn't disappointed me yet, I was proven wrong. Today a squirrel attacked me and jumped on my leg. I felt its nails dig into my leg as it curiously stared my plastic bag down. See what he or she is eating here? Yeah, that was mine.

You don't get what you pay for.

Forget travelling to underdeveloped countries to help the modesties of less 'fortunate' places. There is no hot water...again! This is the third time in the less than two months we've lived in this flat. How is it possible London landlords are able to ask for the same amount of rent - more actually - than what we were paying to live in a bigger and newer with additional amenities, high rise, 1 bedroom condo..on the Las Vegas Strip no less!? And to have the audacity to deny our offer of £20 less a week from what he was asking when he can't even guarantee essential hot water.

Now, I want to clarify that I am not being a demanding American. If we weren't paying for it or if we were in a place that would excuse such deficiencies (and I have experienced living with a lack of plumbing in the Philippines without complaint), I would have no reason to throw a fit or bitch about the Brits. The problem is, this wouldn't happen anywhere else. And if it did, it wouldn't take 5 days to fix which is how long it took last time this happened. And(!!) perhaps the freaking rent wouldn't be as expensive.

I never have hateful feelings towards specific individuals but when I think abstractly of London as a civil whole, I think they are incompetent and benefit from a prosperous stereotype that they undeservingly possess.

PS In regards to my previous post on incompetent and lazy people, I went to Boots yesterday, was curious about this eye cream (because this city is advancing my ageing!), and asked the young lady behind the counter how much it costs. She walks to the open shelving, at which any customer could look him/herself, to look for the product and price. After about 20 seconds, she walks back to me and says she can't find it but there's a woman who might know how much it costs but she doesn't know when she'll be back. Then....a moment of silence. Hmmm how very helpful, as I was thinking in my head what an idiot she was. I'm glad we get what we pay for here.

Oh, and don't get me started on the Internet, its service and its speed. Seriously, it the worse I've ever experienced.

Incompetent Brits

Last week when my sister was here, on two consecutive days, we went to a trendy young women's store called Warehouse found on most UK high streets. It's somewhere in between Contempo and BeBe but way more on the former lean with prices closer to the latter. On day one, one of the employees was organizing some clothes and a massive glass shelf shattered on her right before all our eyes. Luckily no one was hurt. This is not the incompetency I am speaking of however. This same employee, quite a pretty Asian - or as they call "Oriental" here (yes, like a rug or the type of food) - rung up our purchases. This was after the other employee stood behind the till for like 5 minutes without looking up, said we had to wait, and straight walked away! So the oriental brit chick rings us up after my sister's request of two separate transactions since each would be paid with different payments. The first transaction had my bag, priced at £39. When she disclosed our total price, I thought there was some sort of discount I didn't know about because it was really cheap. To keep the long story short, when we got outside Alyssa checked the receipt. The girl from the orient forgot or mistakenly rung it up. My bag was free.

Watched Changeling a few days ago and was in one of the two lines available. There was one person in front of me and as the last one in the other line walked away, I waited where I was for the ticket handler to give me a nod. But like many other instances where I'm learning about a 5 minutes of nothingness, another patron walked straight to his window where he then assisted in the person's ticket purchase. He blatantly looked at me but didn't offer to help which was, by golly, his job. So, I continued to wait in my original line where I was eventually helped.

On the contrary, there have been times I've encountered complete competency. It's mostly occurred when I haven't had to interact with anyone (then again we were at Sainsbury's tonight at a defective self-service machine and a shop assistant had to come over for some fixing, nay, it wasn't us). I've tried running a bit again at Hyde Park. It's been really nice with all the moisture in the cold air. My joints pop and crack for every vertical movement I make now, but the runs have made all the poor experiences in London go away, perhaps even well worth it. There's something special about a park in the middle of a bustling metropolis. It's big with lakes and endless walking, running, and cycling paths. It's spotted with greenery from head to toe and, touched on before, is currently the site for Winter Wonderland. The park offers opportunity for quiet time with a brush of nature, squirrels, swans, birds, and ducks. Lately it's been some of the best alone times I've had in London. And it's the one place where no one could possibly exhibit multiple examples of ineptitude or laziness I've experienced.

When we walked into Sainsbury's earlier there was a security guard catechizing this little girl for a Christmas stuffed animal he thought was stolen. The little girl was with her younger sister and mom, who was explaining to the guard that this was hers from the forefront. Now, Christmas items at Sainsbury's are currently marked half-off. I haven't seen anything above £10 since the holiday price cut. You would think the security guard had better things to do with his time than bother this family. But there's a briton for ya and yet another example of lacking intuition.

At least I got a free bag out of it...

(note to localites-i'm completely taking the piss ok!)