My two boys,
now dads themselves, did not really know their grandparents,
paternal or maternal. When my parents stayed for sometime here in
the
States they lived with my other siblings and my children were merely
aware of them at occasional important reunions such as at weddings.
Sadly, our boys
did not develop deep emotional attachment to my parents.
My wife, Francisca,
was in high school when her father died. Her mother
also passed away in 1986 but our boys did see her, albeit just once,
when
we took them to the Philippines, the only time so far they had been
there. They were then very small and were not even aware of this thing
called martial law which was still in effect for two years.
I am a bit more
fortunate. Although I never knew my maternal grandparents
I remember lots of quality times with my father's parents before they
died. My mother was orphaned early and lived with her mother¹s
sister,
Aning, before she, my mother, was married off to my father when she
was
sixteen.
So I had my Bai Aning and her husband, my Laki Emong. "Laki"
(pronounced
lah-keeh) is the Pangasinan term for grandfather and "bai"
(pronounced
bah-eeh) means grandmother. They were really my granduncle and grandaunt.
But for the benefit of Americans of Philippine descent, third generation
descendants in the Philippines, at least in my home province, consider
all their first generation relatives as gramps and grannys.
I've read somewhere
about a study suggesting that the average Filipino
has roughly three hundred relatives considered "close."
In this context
non-Filipinos can understand the bewilderment of our two boys when
we
took them to the Philippines when they asked how many Grampas and
Grandmas they have whose hands they had to kiss in traditional "mano
po..."
Laki Emong was
a tailor. He didn't go beyond grade school and I never
knew how he became a tailor. One thing I am sure of is that he didn¹t
go
to a tailoring school like the kind we have in these modern times.
And as
a tailor he broke away from family tradition. In his village, even
today,
most people are born farmers and they die as farmers.
In addition, he
left his village with Bai Aning sometime in the late
1920's or early 1930's. They took off to a distant town called Trinidad,
up in the mountains just outside the limits of the resort city of
Baguio.
Laki Emong loved to boast that being then the only tailor in the then
sparsely populated town of Trinidad he introduced pants to males of
minority tribes who still respected centuries-old traditional use
of
loincloths. He was blissfully unaware that he helped erode a small
part
of native cultural heritage...
Trinidad was once a scenic valley of farms that raised cabbage and
potato and other produce that thrived in cool mountain climates. I
remember flowers that were considered exotic in the lowlands such
as dried
everlastings (called "straw flowers" at flower shops here
in America) and
calla lilies and nasturtiums...
Bai Aning and
Laki Emong are long gone but their house still stands.
There is a creek it behind where Laki used to take me and I remember
how
I assisted him use a net with which to catch a kind of fish called
"jojo"
(pronounced Joe-Joe). Jojos resemble the finger-sized smelts that
we
catch (a thousand years later in my life) at Lake Michigan in Chicago.
The creek bed was more of sand and bleached rocks rather than mud,
making
schools of jojo very visible in the crystal clear, knee deep waters.
Bai
Aning would deep-fry our catch for lunch.
First he had to cajole me. By the hot standards of weather in the
lowlands the water in mountain creeks were cold to plunge into but
Laki
Emong said that to be a man - and I was probably only five - I should
not
shrink away from mere stuff like cold water.
The creek is still there. It has, whew!, become a stinking open sewer!
Trinidad has become a heavily populated urban center.
I once had a present
from Laki Emong. I must be about five years old
then. He tailored a woolen outfit for me that resembled a tradesman's
overalls where the shirt and the pants are joined together at the
waist
as one piece. After putting them on me he rubbed his hands in glee
at the
nice fit. But I didn't have any underwear and the woolen fabric chafed
my
skin. In short order I shucked off my new clothes and ran away screaming
that I didn't like it! He had to bribe me with some candy or something
to
put the darn thing back on. I did. But only after I demanded - and
got -
some underwear.
Laki Emong loved
to drink. In the evenings he would down a bottle of a
Chinese drink called Siok Tong. In a short time he would become a
delightful clown whose sole purpose in life was to entertain his grandson
- me. He would ignore the scoldings of his daughters - my aunts -
for
being drunk. One time he told me stories of how he used to play the
violin as part of an ensemble that catered part time at funerals and
weddings in his village. Then he fell asleep.
When everything
was suddenly quiet one of my aunts got curious and wanted
to peek into the room. But Laki Emong locked the door! I don't know
how other elders opened that door but when they did I was surprised
at how
they were mad at Laki and me. They wanted to know why I didn't open
the
door. Why should I? I was busily counting the coins with which Laki
Emong, now blissfully snoring, bribed me for singing some silly song
he
taught me.
I had no concept
of it then but since he worked at home he was lucky that
he didn¹t have to commute to work in the mornings with a hangover.
Before Laki Emong
built this house that still stands (now occupied by one
of his younger grandsons) the family used to live in a building nearby.
It was a hotel! No, not a real one but it was like one. Young men
from
his lowland village came up looking for jobs in Baguio or in the mines
outside Baguio and their temporary stop is the free hotel that was
Laki
Emong's house!
My American sons
and their wives and my American grandchildren will
probably find it hard to understand this but this is what I meant
about a
Filipino having three hundred relatives considered "close."
My orphaned mother
called her aunt, Bai Aning, "mother" and Laki Emong "³father."
So emotionally my mother was their oldest child and I was the
oldest grandson. Thru the years Laki Emong's other three real daughters
got married and had children of their own. By blood these direct
grandchildren of Laki Emong and Bai Aning are my second cousins but
emotionally we consider ourselves first cousins even here in America.
Sadly, our American
children - mine and my cousins¹ thru Laki Emong -
will not have the same attachment like we, their parents do. America
is a
big country and it is not easy to foster kinship between three hundred
supposedly "close" relatives scattered from coast to coast
of these big,
wide United States.
© 2003 Fred
Natividad
Lorton, Virginia
Email address:
frednati@earthlink.net
