Filipino Mannerisms and Stuff

I'm going to state the obvious: Americans and Filipinos are very different from each other. It's not only the cultures and traditions that make us different though, it's the mannerisms and habits that magnify this difference. For me, it's the combination of these little things that make the biggest difference in every day life. Just to satisfy your curiosity (because I'm sure you're all sitting on the edges of your seats waiting to hear these differences like your lives depend on it), I'll tell you some of them, or at least the ones that are the first to come to mind. I'm not sure if “mannerisms and habits” necessarily describes all these things, but those are the best umbrella terms I can come up with.

First of all, Filipinos are very expressive with their faces. If they can get a message across without using words, they do it.

• The eyebrow hello. This is the simple raising of the eyebrows (or eyebrow bob as I'll refer to it) in greeting while looking at someone in passing, very similar to “the nod” in the States, but with no bobbing of the head, and therefore, requires less effort. I've become very used to this, and it's really nice because “when I walk in the spotlight, this is what I see, e'rybody stops and is staring at me” (little musical interlude there), and if I happen to make eye contact with them, I just do the eyebrow hello, they do it in return, and it defuses the awkwardness of me catching them staring at me. You have to be careful with this though because if your greeting becomes too enthusiastic and you do two eyebrow bobs instead of one it turns from a hello greeting to a come hither, sexy kind of thing. Definitely something to be cautious of.

• The eyebrow yes. Just like with using an eyebrow raise for a greeting, Filipinos also use one simple eyebrow bob to say “yes”. It took a while for me to actually catch on to this and for me to automatically catch this as an answer to my question. Imagine asking a Filipino a very simple yes/no question and have them just look at you in silence doing an eyebrow bob. For a while I'd think I was just getting my Cebuano words mixed up so I would try asking different ways: “Are you going to the store later?” [eyebrow bob]..... “Later, are you going to the store?” [eyebrow bob].... “To the store, going later, are you?”[eyebrow bob].... “Are you going to the...market?” [eyebrow bob].... You can imagine the frustration. Eventually I caught on and now I do the eyebrow bob myself sometimes.

• The mouth huh. If Filipinos don't hear you or understand what you're saying, they hang their mouth open until you repeat yourself and they understand. If they still don't understand you after you've repeated it, then their mouth gap gets even bigger to intensify the degree of non-understanding so you REALLY understand that they REALLY don't understand you. So it's like saying “huh” without actually saying anything. Like with the eyebrow yes, it took a while for me to pick up on the subtle movement (although some people open their mouth as wide as possible so that it's actually not that subtle). But now it's become second nature for me to also do this, and it's kind of fun. So I'll apologize in advance for the dumbfounded-mouth-hanging-open expressions I'll undoubtedly have once I come back.

• The lip point. Instead of pointing in the direction of something with their finger or doing a head nod in that direction (like some Americans do), Filipinos turn to the lip point. It's actually a combination of pursing their lips and pointing their chin in a certain direction (I'm gonna guess you're trying this right now as you're reading and looking like an idiot). They can respond this way to questions like “which direction is the bank?”, “where did you put the water?”, etc. It's interesting when a Filipino has to talk while doing this because then he has to talk with his lips pursed, which is just a whole other kind of funny.

For the rest of these I'm not sure what category to put these mannerisms/habits in, so we're just going to move to an uncategorized list.

• Shhhhht!!! Filipinos make this sound whenever they're trying to get someone's attention or scare a dog or cat away, kind of like when Americans use “hey!”. If executed correctly, this “shhhhht!” can carry a really long distance. For me it's a hit or miss if I can get the sound to carry a few feet. I have to really be feeling it for it to be heard. Apparently I still haven't embraced my inner-Filipina.

• Touching. Especially among females, Filipinos are very touchy. If two girls are walking together, chances are they are touching in some way, either linking arms, holding hands, or leaning an arm on the other. Many times if I'm walking with a woman from my office she'll grab my arm to escort me wherever we're going. Males are also touchier with each other than in the States; and by touchier, I mean they actually touch each other for more than just a high-five, a fish pump, or a quick bro hug. They'll put a hand on the others leg if they're sitting down or lean into each other, and these are straight guys. Like I said, this is a very touchy culture. Cross-gender touching only happens if people are dating and even then, it's just hand holding. But if people are the same gender, chances are they're touching, at least in the 20's and younger generation.

• Waving. When Americans wave people over, we do it with our palm facing the sky. Filipinos do it the opposite way with their palms facing the ground, kind of hanging their hand from their wrist. It looked weird this way when I first got here, but now the American way looks weird to me and I kind of laugh to myself whenever I see the American wave on TV. I've personally adopted a combination of the two waves, where if I'm waving with my right hand, my fingers are pointing at a 7 o'clock – 7:30 direction instead of the Filipino 6 o'clock and the American 12 o'clock. So I'm basically doing it Filipino style while still keeping some American in me (maybe this little bit of American is what's hindering me from getting the correct amplification of my “shhht” sound.

• Sleeping. This should actually be called “lack of sleeping” because I have no idea how Filipinos survive with their sleep schedules! They must be a breed of super human because the majority of them never get more than 3 hrs of sleep at a time. I've noticed this with the 2 different host families I've lived with where I've been able to observe their sleeping habits on a daily basis in order to collect data for my completely legitimate scientific study of Filipino sleeping habits (joke lang aka just kidding). But seriously, from what I've observed, the average Filipino goes to bed around 1am or 2am, wakes up between 4am and 6am, then they'll take a couple of naps throughout the day, never lasting more than an hour or two. I really don't understand how they can live their lives with this schedule.

• The Absence of Clapping. I didn't notice this until I left Western civilization, but we are very clap-happy. After concerts, performances, speeches, anything where someone stands out of a crowd to do something, we feel compelled to clap, sometimes for 5 or 10 minutes so the performer REALLY understands how much we appreciated their act. Filipinos aren't programmed this way; they barely clap, at least compared to Americans. Or they do clap, but only halfheartedly and just for a few seconds. I don't think it's to be rude or anything (even though Americans would find it very rude to have a performance met by the bare minimum amount of clapping) it's just not part of their culture. And to offset this, many times, the DJ of the performance will play a clapping track, which is always super loud and super overdone and drowns out the clapping done by the actual audience. But now that I think of it, maybe that's why Filipinos don't clap that much, because their clapping would be drowned out anyway so what's the use in wasting the energy and making your hands go raw? Huh, never thought of that. Maybe they're on to something...

• Music. I guess this is a good lead-in to music in general. The only music I've heard here are Filipino songs in Tagalog or Cebuano that all have a very 'Pop' music kind of feel and American Pop music. Nothing else. I'm going to be completely out of my Country music scene when I get back (sniff sniff). (I want to give a shout-out to my lovely friend Chelsea who's been trying to keep me somewhat up to date with the new songs coming out :) Anyone else is welcome to contribute and tell me good new stuff to look up on my internet days!). Anyway, back to this music stuff, Filipinos of all ages are into Pop music, old and young. And whenever music is playing, it's blaring! You can heard music playing at the gym 4 blocks away when they're having dances or concerts. My house is about 2 blocks away so I can still hear the music at 3 am even with my fan on. Then if there's a new song that's becoming popular, it's played ALL the time! When the song “Clarity” by Zedd came out a few months ago, the plaza outside my Municipal Hall played the song on repeat for a few days straight. And the song from Frozen “Let It Go” became an overnight sensation. So once songs get started here, they really take off.

• Introductory questions. Filipinos can be very straightforward with some things, especially when it comes to introducing yourself. For example, the first time I introduce my self to someone, the questions I usually get are “What's your name?” “Where are you from?” “How old are you?” “Are you single?” in that order. Male or female, these are the questions they ask. Then when I tell them I'm only 22 they respond with “So young! Where are your parents?”. It's very difficult for them to understand that we don't live with our parents until we're at least married. But anyway, this is the dialog I have almost every single time I'm introduced to someone else. Maybe they'll ask about why I'm here and what my job is, but that's only a secondary curiosity of theirs.

• Comments. Another thing Filipinos are very straightforward with are comments on appearance. There is one guy in my office that tells me every time he sees me that my face is looking very fat, then goes on to mimic a chipmunk cheek kind of expression. I really don't understand where he gets that because I look exactly the same as when I first got here and he just started doing this a couple months ago. There was also one day where my host family told me at breakfast that I was looking very skinny today, but then 10 minutes later in my office I was told I'm looking very fat today. Another time I had gone running in the morning, showered, then gone to work and the second I walked into the office someone asked me “What's wrong with your face?”. I guess my face was still a little red from running, but the way they asked it was just very blunt and straighforward. They don't say any of these things to be offensive, but just to make a comment and to say that they're noticing you, or to satisfy their curiosity. This is a really good culture for people who are sensitive about their weight or appearance to come to, because you learn really fast to brush it off and not take anything offensively because that's really not how they mean it.

• Long sleeves on hot days. The final thing I'll list here is how Filipinos wear long sleeves and long pants on hot days. The hotter the weather, the more they cover up. They do this because they don't want the heat of the sun on their skin and they don't want their skin to get darker, but I honestly don't know how they can stand to be covered head to toe (even with a shirt tied over their head so they only have a slit for their eyes) on days with 90% humidity and over 100 degree temperature and not die of heat stroke while working in the fields. I don't care how used to the heat they say they are, it's just not natural.

So once again, this is all for my list of weird Filipino things. I'll start posting about work soon but if there are any other cultural things you wanna hear about let me know and I'll see what I can do! Cultural differences is always a hot conversation topic among PCVs so there's always something to say about everything!