What to say when you land in the Philippines

During the five landings I’ve experienced at Ninoy Aquino International Airport, I’ve noticed a lot of small rituals. Passengers always tend to mark their safe arrival back in the Philippines with some gesture of gratitude. They’ve come from months of overseas work in demanding countries, after all. Or it’s their first time back after years and years of making a life elsewhere. Or they simply felt called back home by family, by crisis, or by some equally precious feeling more difficult to explain than family or crisis. Or they’re like me in 1997 at age 12: touching down on the NAIA tarmac for the first time, unsure whether to call this foreign but strangely familiar place home, looking for cues from the Pinay parent clutching her red passport next to my blue one. For their own very personal reasons, Pinoys are nearly always grateful to be on the ground of the archipelago, and they make their gratitude public as soon as the plane’s wheels touch the ground. It’s a holy thing to witness. Each time I land, I quietly observe everyone’s rituals. I hear small prayers. I see quick signs of the cross. I hear a lot of clapping, no matter how smooth or rough the landing. I hear, “Mabuhay!” I hear, “Yehey!” I hear, “Thanks God!” I see overseas workers gather up their Duty Free bags filled with chocolate, sneakers, new clothes, electronics, preparing to distribute them. I see open weeping. I see open laughing. I hear Fil-Am siblings chatting with each other in American English, and I see them crane their necks, trying to catch their first glimpse of the country that crafted so much of their upbringing in the States. I see Pinay mothers gently shake their small children awake and whisper to them, for the first time, “Wake up, anak. We’re home.” I see the children look through heavy eyelids out the window, at the tarmac. I see the children fall promptly back to sleep. I understand all of these gestures. I’m always moved by them. But nothing I observed felt quite right for me to do as a Fil-Am, moving back and forth between here and the States whenever my scholarships allow. I’ve felt too shy to clap or pray, my feelings have never been quite so intense for weeping or laughing, and I always put my pasalubong in my check-in baggage. But my most recent flight finally offered me something that felt right for me to do upon landing. When I stood in the aisle of my budget flight from Singapore a few weeks ago, waiting to exit the plane, I heard a small chant begin between two Pinays. The women wore matching baseball caps and fanny packs, so they looked like they were on the same cheerful arriving team. They began quietly, and then grew louder, so I could hear what they were saying. “Hooray, tuyo!” “Hooray suka!” “Hooray, calamansi!” “Hooray lengua estofado!” They stopped and looked at each other, their happy, wordless hunger momentarily overtaking their capacity to speak, before they continued. “Hooray bagoong!” “Hooray, bangus!” “Hooray bawang!” And so on, until the airline employees opened the doors and sent us to our arrivals’ gate. As I waited for my pasalubong-filled bag to move toward me on the carousel, the memory of the women’s cheering kept making me smile. You cannot possibly get more Filipino than cheering for certain foods you’re homesick for. If you love the cuisine—and I hope you do—it is impossible to avoid the intense, bodily longing for the inimitable, boldly sour and salty flavors you can find only here. Vinegars too numbered to name in one essay, calamansi fruits with a citrus not quite like lime or lemon, tender stewed meats, the green mango, the tamarind, the pomelo. Weeks later, I’m still smiling at the womens’ cheering. I hear the cheer in my head as I spend my two-month stay here doing my best, during every meal, to follow the tagline at buffets: EAT ALL YOU CAN! That Filipino exhortation is distinct from the politely less celebratory, American phrase: “All you can eat.” “Hooray!” can be a kind of prayer upon landing too. It’s not a sign of the cross; no official, governing, sacramental body issued instructions with it, and I doubt it has a Latin translation. But as I maneuver Manila again, I keep hearing it. “Hooray!” Hooray! as prayer of gratitude, of recognition. Hooray, open-air carinderias! Hooray, tapsilog! Hooray for the universe of Filipino pork! Bagnet! Sisig! Liempo! Lechón kawali! Lechón paksiw! Any lechón at all! Hooray vegetarian eggplant sisig! Hooray kangkong! Hooray for the brand new milk tea shops that seem to appear daily on every corner of Diliman! Hooray for Assam! Hooray for sinkers! Hooray for sipping chocolate cheese foam for the first time, and discovering that it’s actually the smoothest, richest iced milk chocolate I’ve ever had, the sugar cut through with just the right dusting of rock salt! Hooray for eating five times a day! Hooray for the concept of merienda! Hooray for spaghetti and lasagna as merienda! Hooray for waking up with diesel engines, the call of the taho vendor, and roosters as my alarm clocks! Hooray for late weeknights with friends! Hooray for karaoke! Hooray for their forcing me to sing Eraserhead songs so I can practice Tagalog! Hooray for my friends who tip up their heads, touch their nostrils, and joke “Naks, nosebleed,” when I speak too much English! Hooray for learning the words “Tampo,” “Umay,” and “Torpe!” Hooray for walking my bicycle, with its mysteriously flat tire, to the nearest vulcanizer! Hooray for the vulcanizer, who, shirtless, sweaty, one cigarette dangling hazardously from the right side of his mouth, diagnoses the wounded inner tube with some rising bubbles in a puddle of murky water, examines the tire, grasps a pair of pliers, and picks, with the keen caution and care of a surgeon, a sharp, tiny bit of metal from the rubber! Hooray for the vulcanizer’s victorious grin as he says, “Nail, ma’am!” and closes the tire’s gash with a hot metal press! Hooray for asking for directions from local vendors and security guards—still the finest Filipino GPS! Hooray for finally realizing that a dishonest air-con cab driver is circling my neighborhood just to run up his meter at night! Hooray for getting out and finding an honest non-air-con tricycle driver to finish my journey! Hooray for safe passage! Hooray for landing sa Pilipinas! -- HS, GMA News