Filipina

Years of living an immigrant's life in North America has corrupted her once genteel Filipina demeanour.

It was Valentine's Day on the 14th of February of 2022, on Lulu Island. In the morning, I had pizza slices at the pizzeria, where Rose the Filipina was the regular vendor. In the afternoon, I drank black iced tea at the cafe, where I talked to my Anglo-Saxon neighbours Barb and Ken about travelling around this world, Mayan and Aztec pyramids in Mexico, the creole languages in the Caribbean, the otherworldly buildings in the Greek Islands, our common knowledge of prestigious French, and our experiences of the Pandemic, and then talked to Hans the Netherlander about the months-long adjustment phase of the new James Webb Space Telescope, the Jovian atmosphere with lightnings, artifacts of Ancient Egypt, lightning-made glass, and dinosaur bones. At the cafe, I noticed two different round-headed stocky men, who came in and out.

On the 7th of March of 2022, I left my Lulu Island house around 10:10 in the morning to walk to the pizzeria, where I ate two pizza slices and drank cold black diet cola. The big screen television was blank. The place was silent. The vendor was an East Indian from Mumbai, not the usual Rose the Filipina, as it was the case on Mondays and Saturdays. As I was homebound, a mesomorphic man in black outpaced me, as he mumbled a song, of which language I was not certain.

On the sunny morning of the 9th of March of 2022, I found myself in the Lulu Island pizzeria, as Tharsan, the Sri Lankan owner, served me a pesto cheese slice. I took a cold black diet cola from the dispensing machine. Rose the Filipina and Tharsan were preparing many orders, some for schools. A loquacious, neat-looking head-shaven delivery man in a blue jacket and black track pants was loading the pizzas into his vehicle. The big screen was showing news from Seattle, but the sound was turned off, as usual.

On the 11th of March of 2022, a grey morning, I was at the Lulu Island pizzeria, as three vendors, two South Asians and the Filipina, Rose, were busy making orders behind the counter. I had a Hawaiian slice and iced tea. Then, I went to the grocery store looking for dried anchovies, but there was none, according to the two Filipina workers there, so I bought instead five packets of frozen crab-flavoured wild pollock, or kamaboko, and a bag of frozen sole fillets. Then, I went to the cafe, where there was a long line. In front of me was a big boy in shorts, his meaty legs showing. A stocky man in a grey T-shirt and black track pants came in and out. An old man was reading an old book about the ice-hockey player Wayne Gretzky. Drinking my black iced tea, I sat near a table of a Bosnian couple, speaking Bosnian. The cafe music was multilingual, and I could hear Mexican lyrics,"Llorando, llorando, llorando": "Crying, crying, crying." An old man who was a regular before and had moved to White Rock gave me a little KitKat chocolate bar, wrapped in red paper. In the afternoon, I returned to the packed pizzeria to enjoy a pesto cheese slice and iced black diet cola. I could not sit in my usual corner. There were multiracial girl students, with expensive bubble teas. Outside near the greengrocery, white students walked by, saying, "We rather have salvation from suffering." It was drizzling.

In the morning of the 12th of March of 2022, I took a long route going to the cafe. I saw Eurasian children with brownish hair in the Lulu Island neighbourhood. I saw that the cherry blossoms had not yet bloomed in the school yard. I sat in the gazebo to gaze at the grey-sky landscape. I saw my big neighbour in a grey jacket and black pants, as he looked like promenading fat Maitreya Buddha. At the cafe, drinking my iced black tea, I chatted with the brunette barista Sarah from Montreal about how the cherry blossoms seemed late this year. I went to the quiet pizzeria, and Rose the Filipina was unusually there on a Saturday. Eating pizza, her son John-Paul was there, who did not want to go to martial-arts class today, because of feeling too lazy. I ate a slice and drank cold diet cola.

On the 25th of March of 2022, I was eating at the Lulu Island pizzeria, whilst Rose the Filipina vendor and a white lady customer, who was sitting at a corner table, talked about mortgages and vacations to the Philippines. They were yelling across the room. I went to the cafe, and on the way, I said hello to my Ukrainian friend Joanne. At the cafe, Karina the Russian made my iced black tea, which I drank. At home, on my Social Media, I watched Patrick Stewart's videos on Shakespeare sonnet readings, as I had been doing for some days. The videos were done in Southern California.

In the early morning of the 27th of March of 2022, I was not the usual pizza junkie. I drank iced black tea and ate barbecued potato chips at the Lulu Island cafe. Two noisy Cantonese men were present. Outside, near the park, I saw a large orange thermos in a shopping cart. Some were promoting the Orange Dream, the fantasy of an Oriental conlang. Walking on, I encountered the French-Canadian Alex with his friendly Chocolate Labrador, Ellie. I reminded myself that there was also the Chocolate Dream of a fantasy conlang. In the late morning, I went to the pizzeria to eat two slices and drink a cold diet cola. I found out that Rose, the Filipina vendor, was about 9 or 10 years younger than me, so she alerted me that I should not use the Tagalog "po" reverential grammatical particle to her. My third walk took me to the pizzeria in the evening. I was drinking just cold diet cola, as I was watching the 94th Oscars on the big screen with sound off. Three young Filipinas came in to order. Later, I peeked into the new Japanesque SunTea Bakery, and the Purple Yam Mochi Soft Bread, selling at "9.5" Canadian dollars each, intrigued me. I might try it someday. The vendors spoke Mandarin.

R'Bonney Gabriel is the first Filipina American to wear the Miss Universe crown in the pageant's seven-decade history and, at 28, the oldest entrant ever crowned.

In the morning of the 26th of March of 2023, Greg and I, both Filipinos, were talking in the teahouse, as I had my nth order of Strawberry Oat Matcha Latte and Greg, having already finished his coffee, attended to his newspapers and magazines. The barista at the cashier was Stefania, a beautiful black-haired Italian with an accent. Marlin, my Filipina friend, was sitting at a corner near the window. Near the counter stood a handsome head-shaven Japanese-looking man who was fluent in English. Greg and I discussed martial arts. There were the karate, judo, aikido, and kendo in Japan. There was the kung fu in China. There was the capoeira in Brazil. There was the arnis de mano in the Philippines. We mentioned Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, famous martial artists in the movie industry.