How would you know that you are in a Filipino party?
You’re an hour late and there’s still nobody there!
There’s enough food to feed the entire batallion or infantry.
You can not even get through the door because there’s a pile of 50 shoes blocking the way.
When you enter the house you see a piano, a huge fork and spoon on the wall, a framed picture of the Last Supper, a huge Santo Nino, and a barrel man (carved in Baguio).
You hear guests singing “Peelings” or “My Way” on karaoke.
You are greeted and hug by a Tita Baby and/or a Tito Boy.
There’s a goat or kambing ‘papait’ being warmed up and the men are already in their watering hole starting the ‘kilawen’ and ‘sisig’ pulutan with their favorite Blue Label or Hennesy XO drinks. Very cold San Mig Light or white wine is also served for those suffering from gout.
There’s a crazy fat woman with a camera going around the room snapping away and yelling, “Uy peeeek-chuuur for sobenir!”
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.
You will also hear an old male’s out-of-tune voice on the karaoke trying hard to imitate Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley’s voice.
Uncles and Aunties are now doing the line dance – ‘Electric Slide’, ‘todo- todo’, etc., and do other ballroom dancing feats as if they are still in their teenage years.
Among the younger guests, there’s at least one or more with the name: JP, JJ, JT,TJ, DJ, AJ, RJ, LJ, Lingling, Ningning, Bingbing,Tingting, Dingding, Wengweng, Bongbong, Dongdong, etc.
All the old aunties and guests are already wrapping up food to take home while more guests are still coming.
You have the Pacquiao fight on the illegal cable boxes on the 70″ LCD in the movie room, the 10 yr-old 50″ CRT in the living room, the 15 yr-old 30″ tube in the breakfast nook, the 20 yr-old 15″ tube in the kitchen, the 30 yr-old 13″ tube in the garage and the little portable by the BBQ grill or gazebo because TVs are NEVER retired in a Filipino household, they merely get demoted or moved to whichever room doesn’t have a TV yet(hahaha), then it ends up in the balikbayan box to be sent to a relative back home, and it ends up being the main TV at the house living room again.
The aunties and other female guests are showing off their “designer” Louis Vuitton and Coach bags that they secretly bought at Divisoria, Tiangge or in a local swap-meet.
Someone is always in the kitchen constantly cleaning up, and you’re not sure if she’s the hired part-time maid or a relative, but you greet and kiss her on the cheek anyway.
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 or special coupon.
The lumpia is gone in 5 minutes and they are frying up another batch while the large Litson didn’t last 15 minutes and it looks like it was swarmed by hungry piranhas, even the apple in the pig’s mouth is missing.
What starts as a religious gathering turns into an illegal gambling set up by the end of the night!
Elder 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 and dancing the night away, and the kids are outside playing.
