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+05.2011+
5.04.2011
When I was little, I wanted what many Filipino children all over the
country wanted. I wanted to be blond, blue-eyed, and white. I thought-if I just wished hard enough and was good enough, I’d wake up on Christmas morning with snow outside my window and freckles across my nose!
More than four centuries under western domination does that to you. I
have sixteen cousins. In a couple of years, there will just be five of us left in the Philippines, the rest will have gone abroad in search of “greener pastures.” It’s not just an anomaly; it’s a trend; the Filipino diaspora. Today, about eight million Filipinos are scattered around the world.
There are those who disapprove of Filipinos who choose to leave. I used to. Maybe this is a natural reaction of someone who was left behind, smiling for family pictures that get emptier with each succeeding year. Desertion, I called it. My country is a land that has perpetually fought for the freedom to be itself. Our heroes offered their lives in the struggle against the Spanish, the Japanese, the Americans. To pack up and deny that identity is tantamount to spitting on that sacrifice.
Or is it? I don’t think so, not anymore. True, there is no denying this phenomenon, aided by the fact that what was once the other side of the world is now a twelve-hour plane ride away. But this is a borderless world, where no individual can claim to be purely from where he is now. My mother is of Chinese descent, my father is a quarter Spanish, and I call myself a pure Filipino-a hybrid of sorts resulting from a combination of cultures.
Each square mile anywhere in the world is made up of people of different ethnicities, with national identities and individual personalities. Because of this, each square mile is already a microcosm of the world. In as much as this blessed spot that is England is the world, so is my neighbourhood back home.
Seen this way, the Filipino Diaspora, or any sort of dispersal of
populations, is not as ominous as so many claim. It must be understood. I come from a Third World country, one that is still trying mightily to get back on its feet after many years of dictatorship. But we shall make it, given more time. Especially now, when we have thousands of eager young minds who graduate from college every year. They have skills. They need jobs. We cannot absorb them all.
A borderless world presents a bigger opportunity, yet one that is not so much abandonment but an extension of identity. Even as we take, we give back. We are the 40,000 skilled nurses who support the UK’s National Health Service. We are the quarter-of-a-million seafarers manning most of the world’s commercial ships. We are your software engineers in Ireland, your construction workers in the Middle East, your doctors and caregivers in North America, and, your musical artists in London’s West End.
Nationalism isn’t bound by time or place. People from other nations migrate to create new nations, yet still remain essentially who they are. British society is itself an example of a multi-cultural nation, a melting pot of races, religions, arts and cultures. We are, indeed, in a borderless world!
Leaving sometimes isn’t a matter of choice. It’s coming back that is.
The Hobbits of the shire traveled all over Middle-Earth, but they chose to come home, richer in every sense of the word. We call people like these balikbayans or the ‘returnees’-those who followed their dream, yet choose to return and share their mature talents and good fortune.
In a few years, I may take advantage of whatever opportunities come my way. But I will come home. A borderless world doesn’t preclude the idea of a home. I’m a Filipino, and I’ll always be one. It isn’t about just geography; it isn’t about boundaries. It’s about giving back to the country that shaped me.
And that’s going to be more important to me than seeing snow outside my windows on a bright Christmas morning.
Mabuhay. and Thank you.
It’s not meant for me.
Since I started the very first training I sensed that this is not really for me. I felt that I’m not meant to be here but still I fight for it. I did everything just to be here because I wanted it and because I need to be here. Oh well, not really that I need to be here but I thought it was for me.
So I fight and believe in myself. Even if there’s no point in really holding I still did coz I thought that I belong here.
I made friends. Until now they’re my friends. All of us believe that we can do it. Some are blessed enough to really prove it to themselves that they belong here, while others, like me, ended our path here. But I know that this is just the start of a new beginning. This maybe the end of my agony in Convergys but I will still OutThink and OutDo to survive.
Right now it’s all about moving on. And I know I can do that coz I’m good at it. ;)
But the best things about being in there for awhile, is the fact that I made friends and experienced how it is like to be there. Before I used to look down on them coz I thought it’s an easy job. I thought it’s just like you’re playing. But then again I was wrong. It made me realized that those people who are there are stronger and braver to still be there. I salute them now! Kudos to ya’ll.
But what haunts me now is that I don’t know what to do anymore. I am not required to wake up in the middle of the night to prepare for my shift. My timezone has changed again. Haha. Anyhow I can manage this. I know I can because I am. ^_^
p.s. just hoping I could find a new job so soon though…
5.01.2011
Labels: hope, inspiration, realizations, REFLECTIONS, sad
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