Centuries ago, even before there was Facebook, I started this blog to
sort of serve as my journal and confidant. I have read blogs where the
bloggers say that they blog because they live for comments. Not me. I
blog because writing whatever comes to mind is therapeutic and having
readers is secondary. I do not care if I am read or not because what I
really like is to reread whatever I have written in the past and compare
what areas in my life have I experienced growth and where I have not,
based on the thoughts I have put down and the thoughts that are
currently running through my head. But then real life hit me between
the eyes, and I seldom blog anymore. Well, actually, the real reason is
that Facebook happened. I only need a short sentence or quotes here and
there everyday on my status message and that does it for me. But then I
miss writing something that is longer than saying what is going on at
one moment of daily life.
Now, I am thinking that it is
not entirely true when I said I do not really care whether people read
my ramblings or not, because if that is 100% true, I would be writing
this in Kalanguya where only a few can understand and I would be free to
be as creative or bad as I want since no one would really read it
except if I bring it to the attention of the few Kalanguuya friends and
relatives who have access to internet. But here I am struggling to write
in my fourth language and trying to avoid too much unnaturalness and
wrong grammar. I don't know, I myself am confused.
Even
in Facebook, some of my friends think that I do not reply to comments
enough. I was told I should reply to show my appreciation of their
taking time to read what I have written. But I guessed when you write to
unload and not to be read or appreciated, then I am justified if I do
not reply. I am just lazy that way but I appreciate the corrections and
comments I get, and I am working on it by starting to click "Like" at
least to let the commenters know that I did read their comments. You
see, I am not one of those people who can easily make friends or chat up
anyone to have a conversation, so I am glad there are avenues such as
blogging where I can talk about or share my thoughts on subjects that
I'm interested
in.
One of the subjects that turn the wheels in my
brain is anything that has to do with cultural differences. At
breakfast this morning, while gobbling on some scrambled eggs and
pickled papaya, I overheard some colleagues talking about how it is such
an important thing to let people pay for something rather than giving
it to them for free or for a fraction of the price. The rationale is
that people tend to keep and value what they have paid for or worked for
more than the things that were freely given to them. Like an
automaton, I butt in and vehemently said that that statement is not
entirely true, in fact in my case, it is almost never true. Obviously, we usually butt in into other people's conversation when we
hear something about which we have a strong opinion (or at least when
we think so). They were startled by my mini-outburst but they listened to what I had to say anyway. I
don't go around thinking that I'll keep this or that thing because I
paid for it with my own money. I let go of a lot of books that I bought
but the ones I received from friends and other people as gifts, I never
could find the strength to give away even if I do not find them as good
reads.
When I was a little girl, my uncle whom my mom
and dad were sending to university at the time bought me a dress.
Years later, my mom who is very practical gave the dress to a cousin
because the dress no longer fits me, but I cried until the dress was
returned to me, I kept wearing it until it looked like a shirt rather
than a dress in its shortness whenever I wear it. I also remember buying
a branded bag with my first paycheck ever, and after a few months,
a relative commented that it's cute and that she likes it and wants
it. There was no hesitation, I gave the handbag away even though for
months, my conscience kept bothering me about the price tag. The price
tag that says I should have kept and used it for as long as I can. In
my closet is an old shirt. It is so old I can no longer wear it and
appear respectable. I wash it every now and then when it gets moldy. I
treasure it because it was given to me by a mother-figure a decade and a
half ago. In high school, I owned three Bibles, one that I bought
myself and one that I won at a Youth Camp one summer, and another
one that was given to me at church as a gift. I no longer have the
Bible I first bought with money that I saved after skipping lunches and
snacks for months to pay for that Tagalog Bible, nor the Bible that I
won answering Bible trivia questions. I am pretty sure I gave those
away, or I might not have cared enough to make sure I packed them up
with my other belongings after I left the city. But I still have the
one that I received as a gift. I still use it even though at my
fingertips are all the Bible versions I could ever need. Call me
sentimental but that is the truth and I am relatively sure
that this is how a large percentage of Filipinos feel about things given
to them compared to what they themselves paid for.
One
colleague also told me that years ago, she donated some things to a
church and recently, she went there after so many years. And when she
saw her donations, she exclaimed, "Wow! Buhay pa pala ang mga ito!"
(Wow, so these are still being used until now!) "Of course it is. It is
because it was given to us therefore we took good care of it," was the
reply she got. Perhaps this has something to do with the shame and
'utang-na-loob' culture among Filipinos. It is not good manners to pass
on to someone something that was given to you. Doing that is short of
saying that you do not value the person who gave you that particular
gift. The opposite is also correct--that as much as possible, when you
give a gift, make sure that you at least spend for it either with money
or effort. Everyone has his or her own experience with different cultures, and I am
sure, there are also other form of cultures in the Philippines that are opposite to the examples I have given above.
This
of course is not to say that we have to give everything freely at every
opportunity but only to say that in my humble opinion, the belief that
anything someone did not spend for is usually underused or undervalued
is not true across the board. In fact, it seems to me that it is purely
cultural. In my limited cross-cultural dealings, I observed that the
people who grew up in individualistic cultures are usually the ones with
this belief. I am not also claiming that what is true for me personally
is true for all Filipinos but I can testify that ever since I was old
enough to have the capacity for observation, I have not observed or met
any Filipino who, if given the choice to give something received as a
gift and something bought, would choose to keep the one bought over
the gift.
So where do we draw the line? I do not in any way advocate dole out
giving, but I also do not believe that the particular belief that
something will not be cherished because it was not personally paid for
by the recipient is a good enough reason to withhold gifts when we do have the
capacity to give and the other party is hard up on contributing a counterpart. Just a thought.
mY Synapses...
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