#10 Hospitality

Image linked from Flickr user permanently scatterbrained

Often with no regard to their own financial solvency, Filipinos happily go the extra mile when hosting long-lost friends, vacationing relatives, or the occasional White Person. This extreme sense of hospitality may include slaughtering prized livestock, and giving up the master bedroom or building extra rooms to comfortably house, feed, and otherwise entertain visitors.

#9 Pictures

Image linked from Flickr user [Terence]

Image linked from Flickr user junsjazz

Arguably more prolific in the area of taking and posing for pictures than other snap-happy Asians, Filipinos are innately attuned to react to or effect the click of a camera shutter. From merry family gatherings, rambunctious nights with barkada (“close circle of friends”), benign stand-in-front-of-tourist-landmark opportunities presented by leisure travel, to horrendous privacy-invading moments at places of work that involve the usually unsuspecting but increasingly informed general public, Filipinos are Scout-ready with their cameras to memorialize good times and bad.

#8 Titles of Respect

Image linked from Flickr user Josedeluna

A corollary to the practice of respecting elders, the use of endearing titles to address family members abounds in Filipino culture–Lolo (“grandpa”), Lola (“grandma”), Tito (“uncle”), Tita (“aunt”), Kuya (“older brother”), and Ate (“older sister”).

#7 Filipino Food

Image linked from Flickr user Flipped Out

Supposedly possessing a predisposition to heart disease, high blood pressure, and other similarly terminal maladies, the fully aware Filipino forges ahead, particulary in special-occasion family gatherings, with his consumption of Asia’s unhealthiest cuisine– Filipino food.

Over three hundred years of Spanish colonial rule and the Filipino’s culinary ingenuity under these tough times have created the perfect storm of deadly cookery:

• Lechon (“whole roast pig”) and its derivative, Paksiw (“leftover Lechon in sweet/sour sauce”)
• Dinuguan (“general pig parts including tripe in pig’s blood”)
• Tocino (“pork slices marinated in sugar and red dye”)
• Crispy Pata (“fried pork leg”)
• Kare Kare (“oxtail / beef / tripe stew in peanut sauce with bagoong“)
• Bagoong (“shrimp paste preserved with salt”)
• Chicharon (“fried pork skin”)
• Lumpia (“fried egg rolls”)
• Turon (“fried plantain in egg roll wrapper with brown sugar”)
• Halo-Halo (“mixed fruit and ice cream in shaved ice and milk”)