Happy August!
I’ve now been in the Philippines for just under a week. Since all of my interviews are scheduled for this upcoming week, I’ve taken the past few days to acquaint myself with my new surroundings, focus on my writing, and organize my ever-growing photo archive. Manila, so far, feels very different from most of the other cities I’ve visited over the past two months. It’s more of a place where people live and work than a city full of major sights or attractions. That’s especially interesting given Manila’s rich history as a port city and its role in global trade. Still, there’s a reason many travelers pass through quickly on their way to the islands, or forgo the city altogether; most travel guides only list a handful of things to do in Manila if you’re visiting as a tourist. I’ve noticed that the vast majority of people staying at my hostel – which feels more like a budget hotel – are only here on a very short-term basis. Most of the crowd actually consists of Filipinos from other areas of the country who need a place to stay in Manila for a few days, and the rest are foreigners who have an overnight layover before their flight to one of the islands.
I usually enjoy walking around as a way to get to know a place and pick up on its atmosphere, but I quickly realized that’s not really how Manila works. Between heavy traffic, long travel times, and wide areas with no sidewalks, the city isn’t particularly walkable. Adding to that, Metro Manila is actually made up of sixteen smaller cities, which makes it feel more fragmented. All of this has made it a bit challenging to just wander and explore, but I’ve still managed to check some things off of my list this week.
One place in Manila that is actually very walker-friendly is Bonifacio Global City, or BGC (see left). This area, in contrast to much of Manila, was developed as a sleek, modern, business and lifestyle district that invites dog-walkers and corporate professionals alike. I spent most of yesterday afternoon in BGC, starting with a visit to the Mind Museum and walking the length of Bonifacio High Street, with its malls, shops, and restaurants, before ending up at Market Market!, a collection of food and clothing stalls. BGC feels like a mix between Times Square and Chicago’s Magnificent Mile – modern high-rises and glamorous shopping areas set among neatly trimmed green spaces, curated cafés, and massive digital billboards. It had a completely different atmosphere to that of Makati – where I’m staying – and other, more “normal” parts of the Metro I’ve seen. One such part was the SM Mall of Asia, which, alongside BGC, is one of the suggestions often found on many a (limited) list of things to see in Manila. This mall in Pasay city is the largest shopping mall in the Philippines and the second-largest in Southeast Asia, complete with retail stores, restaurants, a bowling alley, an ice-skating rink, a movie theater, and more. It’s been interesting to see the different sides of Manila and to think about who each part of the city is built to serve. I also tried Jollibee, the Filipino fried chicken fast food chain, at the mall. I’ve had it in the US, but I’ve been told that trying it while here in the Philippines is a must – I will say, the chicken here seemed extra crispy.
One thing I’ve actually enjoyed in an unexpected way is how my social media feed has adapted to where I am. Lately, I’ve been seeing videos by Manila influencers, as well as local commentary on those videos, which gives me a sense of what people my age here are thinking about as they navigate daily life. It’s offered a glimpse into Filipino beauty standards, class divides, and how fashion, language, and habits reflect those divides. BGC, for instance, is definitely an affluent area. I saw one post where someone from Manila said that BGC is where the rich live and where everyone else goes to pretend to be rich – food for thought. I’ve also come across videos where people use a certain accent to imitate the types of people that might live in BGC; apparently, people of a particular socioeconomic class speak in a noticeably different way and code-switch between English and Tagalog in a very distinct pattern, which is unsurprising to me but noteworthy nonetheless.
A bilingual museum sign
As a native speaker of Spanish, it’s been really interesting to notice the Spanish influence on Tagalog and on the speech patterns of Filipinos. First of all, it’s worth noting that the Philippines has been colonized or occupied by the Spanish, the Americans, and the Japanese over the course of history. As such, many Filipinos speak both Tagalog (or another Philippine language, like Cebuano, which is more widely spoken in the south) and English – typically code-switching between the two in a pattern sometimes referred to as Taglish. However, roughly a third of Tagalog’s vocabulary has its origins in Spanish. What’s striking is that these Spanish words often appear almost unchanged – like mesa (table), trabaho (work), or lunes (Monday) – yet the grammar, structure, and surrounding words of the sentence remain entirely Tagalog. This stands out to me in contrast to Romance languages – say, Italian, for example. Both Italian and Tagalog “resemble” Spanish, but when I hear spoken Italian, it sort of resembles Spanish in the same way, as a whole. Tagalog, on the other hand, alternates between almost exactly matching Spanish and taking a completely different form altogether. The best analogy I can think of is that if Spanish is chocolate cake and not-Spanish is vanilla cake, Italian is like a marbled chocolate and vanilla loaf while Tagalog is like a layer cake that alternates between chocolate and vanilla. Spanish and Tagalog don’t share a language family like Spanish and Italian do (as Tagalog is an Austronesian language), and because Spanish was learned mostly as a prestigious or religious language during the time the Spanish occupied the Philippines, its influence didn’t really “creolize” Tagalog. It’s fascinating to see how people’s everyday speech reflects the historical contact between languages with very different roots.
A city definitely doesn’t have to be “tourist-friendly” to be interesting – in fact, what has made Manila interesting is that, for the most part, it caters to its own people. Tomorrow, I’ll be interviewing an artist who uses Baybayin, an ancient Filipino script used to write Tagalog in pre-colonial Philippines, in his work. More to come soon!
Maya