Cetera

No one says "I am plowed", but in the third person it is "the land is plowed"; bibo "I drink", bibitur uinum "the wine is drunk"; manduco "I eat", manducatur panis "the bread is eaten"; laboro "I work", laboratur uestis "the clothing is worn out", et cetera.

I say now amo “I love”, then you say quem amas? “Whom do you love?” I say te amo “I love you” then my love falls on you, and you can say amor a te “I am loved by you”; doceo te “I teach you”, and you say: doceor a te “I am taught by you”, et cetera.

Back in 2002 and several years thereafter, I regularly attended meditation sessions at Wat Yanviriya Buddhist Temple in East Vancouver, BC. I came to know the Thai culture more because of it. Pāli chanting, moon festivals, relics viewing, et cetera were part of my life then. I remember a spacious hall with hardwood floors and a Buddha altar in front. In summers, the doors would be open to the sunny green outside. In the wetter seasons at night, candles would be lit in the silent darkness inside. (I wore a black Australian Outback jacket then.) Omnipresent was the Ajahn Bhoontam in orange robe, he conducting the rituals. Our saṅgha or congregation was medium-sized and multiethnic. A real saṅgha full of Thais allowed us to share the rustic building. The two groups met at different times.

As a Filipino, I know that English is not very pronounceable to many Filipinos. Anglophones think that English is easy to pronounce, which is not true. It is full of twisted consonantal clusters, shady vowels, and unsimple diphthongizations. Their unsimple tongue makes them incapable of pronouncing Spanish "jalapeño" and Japanese "karaoke" et cetera.

In other words, the risk of losing a home to hurricanes, floods, et cetera, is four times greater today.

In Buddhism, one tests ideas for oneself, unlike other religions wherein leaders oblige adherents to believe everything the religion tells them. There are Buddhist ideas like The Four Noble Truths, rebirth cycles, special cosmology, metaphysical concepts, et cetera which one tests for oneself whether they are true to oneself.

In a way, in the Philippines, people already speak Spanish and English, as these languages, or really their words, are integrated or imbedded in native languages, not just Tagalog. Spanish is chocolate or coffee, whilst English is a fizzy pink lemonade soda. The Philippine society is mostly an amalgam of Malay, Chinese, and Spanish elements, with unmentioned various more minor ones. There is Philippine Creole Spanish, Chabacano or Chavacano, spoken scatteringly in the magical archipelago. The feature of the Philippines is more like the Caribbean, the crossroads of different peoples. I can categorize the people of the Philippines in several desserts: Many are like "ube halaya" or the dark mash of sweet purple yam. Some are more like "halo-halo" or ice dessert with leche flan, ube yam, kaong, nata de coco, young coconut strips, agar-agar jelly, sago, beans, fruits like jackfruit, et cetera. Some are more like "maíz con hielo" or ice dessert with corn kernels, sugar, and milk. A striking difference of Filipinos from Mainland Asia is their love of the creative purple colour, maybe because of the ube yam delicacy. In Okinawa in Japan, people call it "beniimo." They use it also in Okinawan desserts and other cooking.