Fish n’ Chips Meets Dinuguan at Puto

By Anna Urquiola-Green
INQUIRER.net and PROUDLY FILIPINA.com

WHEN I was invited to write an article about a Filipina’s life in the United Kingdom, I jumped at the opportunity. Mainly because I want to share the experiences I had in this country and quite a lot of these were eye-openers for me.

Moving here three years ago, I learned to adapt quickly especially with the climate. My family and I spent the previous 10 years in the Middle East and from a place where there is only one season — summer, and here in England when they have 4 seasons, it is a total shock to the system. After all, out here one can sometimes experience 4 seasons in one day! I did enjoy shopping for clothes and acquiring a few pairs of boots and not realising that after winter, you have to store the bulky clothes you’ve collected which has taken space in the closet. This is one of the few instances a Filipino’s inborn talent of maximizing the space of a cardboard box when sending pasalubong (presents) back home to the Philippines comes in handy.

Although we Filipinos have English as a second language in the Philippines, here in the UK, I have realized that I still have a lot to learn too, not with the accent but the ordinary words we know. When somebody offers you a fag, it doesn’t mean they’re fixing you up on a same sex blind date, it is an offer for a cigarette! I must have heard this line before I just can’t remember where but it does show that a single word can mean two different things and could land you in hot water.

There are no eggplants in England, they have aubergines. And no, it’s not a color, that’s what they call it here. When someone says chips, it’s not the chips you see at the casinos or the chips we eat as merienda/snack. Chips means French fries and crisps are chips i.e. potato chips or in England they call it potato crisps, are you confused yet?

Shop means the place where you go and buy things and store is a verb. For example, you store your shoes in the box. It’s no wonder that most Filipino nurses when they come to work here have to relearn English. After all, if his/her patient complains of a hammering headache, she might write down in the patient’s medical records that a hammer is responsible for the patient’s migraine! These are a few of the many English words one has to reprogram inside a Pinoy’s brain when coming to England. And most important too is the way you spell the words as you who’s reading this article might have noticed already.

What’s the food on my table? As a Filipina married to a British, I have incorporated Filipino foods in our menu but with a British twist. Such as when cooking nilaga or pochero, I don’t include saba (cooking banana) as my family considers it strange to include a fruit in cooking stew or in a casserole dish. I would substitute instead potatoes and/or cabbages instead of other ingredients that my family would find acceptable. Bagoong or shrimp paste (which one can buy in Chinese speciality shops) I have learned to forego in this household as the smell might offend my husband’s sensitive nose and the neighbors too!

Most important of all is when hosting parties. Filipino culture back in the Philippines dictates that when one hosts a party it’s always best to prepare more food than necessary as the host loses face if one runs out of food, Here in England, when you host a party, the number one rule is to never run out of drinks. It doesn’t matter if your guests starve a little as long as you keep the drinks flowing. After all, when your guests are inebriated, they would not probably remember that you didn’t serve enough food for the party!

Living here in the UK has made me appreciate more the life I had back in the Philippines. Doing household chores in this country makes me think of the household helpers we sometimes take for granted back home. When painting the interior of our house, I look back and wish I could beam up, as in Star Trek, that handyman we regularly hired to paint our bedrooms. But living here in England made me also become more self- sufficient and assertive. After all, that’s what life is about no matter where you live. To quote my favorite saying: If life deals you lemons, make lemonade, if tomatoes, make Bloody Marys. And that’s how I live my life here, some days are lemons, some days are tomatoes.

(About the author: Anna Green our ka-pinay correspondent from UK, is married to a british national and currently working part time in a primary school, with one child. They lived for a decade in the middle east till they finally decided to move to Chelmsford, England permanently).