If we’ve learned anything from this whole Chip Tsao incident, it’s that we Filipinos are quick to anger when the dignity of our nation is slighted. We have very thin skins when it comes to jokes at our expense, and we will not hesitate to meet racial slur with racial slur. And that’s understandable, since [...]
We at Indolent Indio are not fond of explaining jokes, on the principle that if you have to explain, or even give some sort of cue that you’re joking, it isn’t funny. But the amount of vitriol being sprayed around by people who were genuinely offended by Chip Tsao’s article perhaps merits this explanation from [...]
Legend has it that God (and/or Bathala) created man out of clay, baking the prototypes in his oven just because he could. Not yet having the hang of his omnipotence, Bathala fucked up and burnt the first man, hence the African race. He fucked up again, probably drunk on fermented rice wine, being primarily a [...]
Background: Unlike our other Asian neighbors, the Koreans do not have a long history of trading with our ancestors. This is probably because they spent their time being part of China and fending off Japanese invaders for so long. It’s sort of hard to think about trade when you’re facing armadas of samurai and such. [...]
Background: Some guy told me once that we’re lucky the Spanish came along otherwise we’d all be Muslims. While that is indeed some pretty narrow-minded thinking, it’s true that our islands were well on their way to being Islamic in the 1500s. Sultans ruled Mindanao and it is safe to say that “what would Jesus [...]
Background: Wikipedia scholars, when not watching YouPorn, speculate that our island of Luzon was once part of the Song Dynasty of China. While the factual basis of this is still debatable, records do show that the Chinese had contact with the island of May-i (supposedly our Mindoro) centuries ago. Records also show Chinese trade with [...]
Background: The Americans are what good Filipinos want to be when they grow up. What We Call Them: Joe- From Victory Joe, we suppose. By default, all Americans are Joes regardless of race, creed or gender. That’s democracy at work. Kano- An abbreviation of Amerikano. Puti- For the sake of convention, all white people are [...]
Background: The Indians are one of our nation’s oldest trading partners. Widespread contact with India in pre-Hispanic times is evidenced by a great number of sanskrit loan words in our national language. What We Call Them: Bumbay- From Bombay, which is a city in India. It is by no means the only city in India [...]