pieces of me: photo voice on my culture.

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i am a hodgepodge of all sorts of things. one of the most important parts of my culture, is my beliefs. and a big part of my beliefs. i am one of Jehovah's Witnesses. a lot of people get the wrong idea about Jehovah's Witnesses saying that we're super holy and pushy. when in reality all we want to do is teach about the bible. i mean if you had something that you were so excited about, wouldn't you want to tell everyone you met about it? its sort of the same thing. and a lot people just don't understand our beliefs. and no one ever asks.

my religion has given me values. always putting first the kingdom. treating people the way i want to be treated. being humble. having a self sacrificing spirit. and learning to love one another. its taught me that it doesn't matter what your background is, what you look like, what your past was...we're all friends. and this sort of family is very important to have for me.

something else that has shaped my culture is my cultural background. my parents both came from the Philippines. I, however, was born here in New York. So i'm very much so Americanized. But i still have some parts that are considered the norm for Filipinos. For example, the standard of beauty for Filipinos (for all Asians really)  I grew up believing that to be beautiful i needed to have flawless pale skin, silky long black hair, i needed to be petite and a size 6 or under. which is funny now that i think about it because the only thing i have out of there is black hair and short height. and its even funnier to think that, only 1 in 20 Filipinas i know have all of that. The Philippines is an island country, and almost everyone there gets very very tan. so i grew up thinking that i had to be all of that. now? i'm just sort of whatever about that norm. so in that sense, my norm has morphed into a more americanized thinking, where differences and unique qualities are to be celebrated. 

i've been to the Philippines once, in 2005/2006. i was 14 years old, a born and raised american landing on this small island. and let me tell you, the culture shock was about as drastic as the heat. air conditioning was a luxury most couldn't afford, the shower didn't work so you had to boil water and use a "tabo" to take a bath.  girls there were very girly, and very skinny. boys tried being cool. picture taking was done in front of every single iconic landmark. i knew some tagalog, but my first language has always been english. i was in the Philippines for almost a month. i spent that first week trying to understand what everyone was saying. my tagalog did eventually get good enough to get by. the material culture was so ridiculously important, my cousins were always asking me to buy them the latest game or clothing. to them, it was important to have brand names, where as for me, i never really cared before. the non material culture was so different as well. the biggest behavior that weirded me out was how Filipinos are usually very quiet when it comes to things that bother them, but they gossip like there is no tomorrow! thats a big part of Filipino culture, and any Filipino who says otherwise, is lying. 

Filipinos are also a very traditional country. Our objects and artifacts are very important to witholding our ethnic culture. During fancy/formal events guys would wear "barongs" and women would wear "maria claras" . Both clothing are very European based, due to the fact that the Philippines have been occupied by so many different countries (i.e. Spain and America) The more intricate the details on your dress, or barong, the better. Clothes really do make the man in the Philippines. 

With all of these different aspects and all of this knowledge about my culture shapes me into the person that i am, and the person i am growing to be. And as i keep learning, i'll keep growing. 

pushed over the edge: "teenage wasteland"

i read an article called "teenage wasteland". the article itself talks about teenage suicide and what pushes one to take their own lives. 

this article really hit close to home for me. when i was in middle school, one of my closest friends (lets call her Jane) had revealed to me and our group of frinds that she was cutting herself. oddly enough none of our group of friends (including myself) thought much about it. in fact, it was almost glorified. we would all talk about how and where we cut ourselves, or tried to commit suicide. i myself never cut myself, but i felt the urge to lie about it so that i wouldn't be so left out of the group. in a way, it made us closer. we used to have xanga accounts and we'd write about heartbreak and other reasons why life sucked. one day, me and another friend were in class. the guidance counselor opened the door and had called me and her out of the class. she told us that my friend Jane had just been taken to the hospital. Jane had come to school that day with a fresh cut which she was hiding in her sleeve. but my teacher noticed something was wrong and they found the cut. "she was bleeding so much that we had to call the ambulance." I was told that she had just missed her vein and that she would be held in the hospital under surveillance. she was missing from school for over a month. she wrote to me once, telling me how much she wanted me to visit but that they wouldn't let her put my name down for the list because i was too young. we all worried about her so much, and suddenly cutting and suicide became more of a reality to me. i had regular appointments with the guidance counselor so that they could keep an eye on me too, since i was the closest to Jane. Jane came back to school when me and my friends were on our lunch break one day, me and my friends heard about the news and ran back to school and up 4 flights of stairs to welcome her back. Jane had a few relapses over the years, she was in and out of the hospital a lot during middle school. me and Jane went to high school together afterwards, and one day i had the guts to talk to her about it. to ask why. because even though i was also depressed, i was never pushed that close to the edge. she told me that it was because she wanted some attention, she was jealous of her brother who was in the army and loved by her whole family. basically, she couldn't be perfect. 

reading this article reminded me of that part of my life. and it reminded me that we as humans are "our own worst enemy". we constantly try to be perfect in one way or another. when in reality, "perfection" is relative and there isn't really a set standard for perfection. its only the standard that we put for ourselves. and when we are putting that much pressure on ourselves we are going to hurt ourselves. we might say that we like being "average" or even try to glorify being "weirdos". but in reality, very few of the "weirdos" actually like being "weird". 

it also reminded me that suicide is a hard thing to understand. in the end of the article Donna Gaines mentions about how some would always ask "why?" "why did they do it?"  "why didn't they just leave?" some people blame depression, and a "chemical imbalance" for the root of suicides. but me? i blame people for it. there are so many "standards" that are being set, and unless you meet such standards you're deemed "below average". what is average when it comes to types of people that we ought to be really? i can't understand how people can be called average in that sense. and for some people (including myself) when you hear "below average" in this sense, i hear "worthless" instead. and i've been told to correct my thinking because i think that way. but its not something i can really change.