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 [...]