Going Home

by Isabelle H. Lacson

I often refer to a normal summer vacation as “going home.” As if my life were backwards, like going to college is a vacation and flying across the Pacific Ocean to a tropical country is returning to what I perceive as “normal.” But it is. Although I do have a physical house in Los Angeles County, “home” to me will always be this little condominium in Makati, the Downtown LA of Manila. What is it like for a native Manilan to return "home" after months of American exposure?

Albeit what I like to call the “LAX Struggle” that involves a long line of confused Filipinos, numerous boxes with addresses in bold letters (BARANGAY MAYTUNAS, LOT 7, BLOCK 3) and that completely violating security procedure that involves not only taking off your shoes and socks, but taking your laptop out of your overpacked bag and putting it back in; going home is always (and I did pull out a dictionary to find the perfect word) nice.

Besides the initial comments of “you’re so fat” (thanks Dad) or “marunong ka pa mag-Tagalog?” (thanks Tito), going home makes me realize how different I’ve become. The last time I left for LA from Manila, one of my best friends texted me minutes before I boarded the plane and said, “I can’t believe how much you’ve grown.” And I only pray that he was talking about vertical growth, not horizontal growth. Oh, you know what I mean. But for thirteen hours on the plane to LA, I contemplated on his little statement and rested in the fact that change is inevitable and my life’s locale contributed to my maturity.

Going home almost begs for endless comparison. One thing I never fail to compare is the American and Philippine legal system. Is there a legal drinking age in the Philippines? Can you buy cigarettes if you’re 15 years old? Are there road rules? Are all these things implicit? Well if there are binding laws for these things, then I, personally, would be doing time in jail. One of my favorite stories that involves the Philippines and its justice system is the case of one of my friends from high school, who was 13, crazy, and thirsty. She went to the neighborhood 7-11 and asked to purchase an entire case of beer, and the store owner did not think twice and sold the little girl in front of him in braces, glasses, and unbrushed hair the beer. Talk about trying to make a buck. Or peso.

Going home is almost like stepping into an unending party. There is no concept of time in Manila (perhaps this is why we’re always late?), it could be 10 at night and I’d be racing to Quezon City for a second dinner with my friends. Some malls will still be open, and we could stand in front of the movie theater line and pick which past-10 o’clock showing we would catch. I could drag myself to Greenbelt at 11 and pay PhP 99 to sing all night long in the Karaoke bars, and grab some Starbucks on the way out in the wee hours of the morning. Everything is open later, leaving much more room to just go out and have fun. My theory is: BECAUSE we are always late, establishments are forced to stay open late to accommodate and make some sort of profit.

But why do I go home? And why do I consider the Philippines my home? Is there something seductive about returning to traffic, poverty, retarded pop songs (see: Boom Tarat Tarat, Otso-Otso, and all their cousins), and unbelievable inefficiency?

Well, I think a home is defined by who lives in it. I set foot in NAIA Terminal 2 and I see my dad waving at me from the airport window. I drive to San Juan to see my lolo and lola, and the familiar baby photos of me and my cousins are perched on the piano, as if none of us ever left home. I go to the same silly children’s birthday parties that serve the customary (I swear, it is written in the Children’s Party Bible somewhere) spaghetti with hotdogs and barbecue to be with the cousins I see only once in a blue moon. I go out every night to the same restaurants to be with the friends who have known me since I had braces and poor taste in music. I go to the universities that I could have attended to see what my friends’ lives are like. I make it a point to visit my friends’ parents not only because food always happens to taste better outside your own home, but because in Manila (and I'm not just saying this), there are no boundaries as to who is your family.

The cliché answer to the question: “what do you love most about your home?” could easily be found in magazines and movies. I noticed that a popular answer is that at home, you could wear the ugliest clothes and watch TV, and no one will say anything (a lot of celebrities say this for some reason). But for me, going home to Manila is like stepping into another, more comfortable version of the world. Cars are slower, people aren’t rushing, there’s more freedom and the only thing you worry about is who you haven’t seen yet and how much more time you have before you have to go back to the U.S. Everything in that world is close to perfect because the ones who are dearest to me exist in it, and for a brief period -- maybe weeks or months -- I feel like I'm home.