How you know you're at a Filipino party

Contrary to what you may think, there are countries and peoples that Walt likes. That would include the Philippines and Filipinos. They are some of the most hospitable people in the world, love to sing, dance and eat, and are always up for a party! Here's how you know you're at a "fiesta filipina".

You're an hour late and there's still nobody there! There’s enough food to feed the Philippines.

You can't even get through the door because there's a pile of 50 shoes blocking the way.

You see a huge fork and spoon on the wall, a framed picture of the Last Supper, a huge Santo Nino,and a barrel man.

They're singing "Peelings" on karaoke.

There's a piano in the living room for decoration.

You are greeted by a Tita Baby and/or a Tito Boy.

The older men are in the garage playing posoy-dos, or poker or 31.
The women are in the kitchen gossiping, or are playing mahjong.
The other people are in the entertainment room singing karaoke,
and the kids are outside the streets running around unsupervised.

There's goat 'pulutan' being cooked.
The lumpia is gone in 5 minutes and they are frying up another batch.
All the old aunties are already wrapping up food to take home.


The aunties & guests are showing off their "designer" Louis Vuitton and Coach bags that they secretly bought at a swap meet or garage sale.
There's a crazy woman with a camera going around the room snapping away yelling, "Uy peeeek-chuuur!"
Someone is always in the kitchen constantly cleaning up, and you're not sure if she's the maid or a relative, so you greet and kiss them on the cheek anyway.

You enter a family party and you "Mano" to half the old crowd
and when you leave you have to say goodbye to everyone that's related to you as a sign of respect.
You end up saying hello and goodbye for a total of 30-40 minutes.

There's at least one or more with the name: JP, JJ, JT, TJ, DJ, AJ, RJ, LJ, Ginging, Lingling, Bingbing, Tingting, Dingding, Wengweng, Bongbong, Dongdong etc.

Relatives/friends will ask you where you work and if it's a retail job or if you work at an amusement park, they'll ask if you can get them a discount.

The Manny Pacquiao fight is on the (illegal) cable boxes on the 70" LCD in the movie room,
the 10-year-old 50" CRT in the living room, the 15-year-old 30" tube in the breakfast nook,
the 20-year-old 15" tube in the kitchen, and the 30-year-old 13" tube in the garage,
and the little portable by the BBQ grill, because...

TVs are never retired in a Filipino household. They merely get demoted to whichever room doesn't have a TV yet. Next it ends up in the balikbayan box to be sent to a relative back home, where it ends up being the main TV at the house again.

And on the stereo, they play "Achy-breaky Heart" over and over and over again. Oh Filipino...!!!

Now that you're in the mood, how about a look at the famous Filipino dance, Tinikling, as performed by the Fiesta Filipina Dance Troupe.



For my money [dollars or pisos? Ed.], Fiesta Filipina is one of the best Filipino dance troupes in the world! They are based in... wait for it... Toronto, and appear every July at the Carabram multiculti festival in neighbouring Brampton ON. Agent 1 tells me Carabram isn't a patch on what it used to be, but there's always good food and a great show at the Philippines pabilion.