I really like one of the short stories from this week’s readings, the story “RICO” written by Peter Bacho. I think one of the reasons that I really like it is because it is strongly related to my own culture. I felt really excited to read the Filipino story in this class. My approach today is trying to dig further into Filipino culture and pointing out several traditional characteristics of Filipinos. I hope you can learn more about Filipino culture after reading this.
As a Filipino, I totally understand the writing style of the author and I really appreciate his patriotism. For most of readers, you probably think that “RICO” is just an American born Filipino with bad hobbies, right? And I will argue that this was not the focus of the story. I think the author is purposely using Rico to introduce to readers some of the traditional good traits of Filipino, the traits that makes us proud of.
The author first described Rico with a so-called “typical Filipino” traits. Amazingly, there are several traits and hobbies that he used to describe Rico were actually similar to majority of the Filipinos. For instance, he illustrated Rico as “short and wiry……fast, and clever” (p.18), he mentioned about “Rico’s show” (p.19) and his swift dance steps, he also said “he’d [Rico] hold the girl tight and softly sing the lyrics of lost or impossible love.” (p.19) Two of the most popular hobbies in Philippines are singing and dancing, and this is pretty much the reason that leads me to think the relationship between Rico’s traits and the Filipinos. Today, I would also like to use some Youtube videos to support my argument. First one is the “Philippine All-Stars 2008 World Hip Hop Champions”, I am proud to say that Filipinos have won several world class dance competitions over the past years. Please watch it if you are interesting.
The author also talked about Rico’s boxing skill and how it affected his life. Boxing is a sport that every single Filipino feels proud of himself/herself, because of Manny (PacMan) Pacquiao. Pacquiao had won several world champions in boxing, he makes boxing the hottest sport show in Philippines, and he is the so-called “Hero” to many Filipinos. Personally, rather saying the boxing part is coincidentally mentioned in this story, I would think the author intentionally put that because boxing makes us proud of ourselves. Besides Pacquiao, there are also many Filipinos who had stepped on those world boxing stages. The reason that I mentioned singing, dancing, and boxing is to emphasis that these traits are inside Filipinos’ blood, no matter where Rico is born, he still owns the Filipino blood and genes. Blow is a link from abcNEWS about Pacquiao, and another Youtube video of Manny Pacquiao, if you are interested.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/lord-boxing-ring-manny-pacquiao-10091875
Lastly, I wanted to clarify the lifestyle of Filipino which the author mentioned in the story. One of those is the food that the author mentioned “electricity and pan-fried pork chops”, Filipinos really like to eat pork chops. The spirit of “helping each other”, which is the brotherhood between Rico and the author. In Philippines, we have a word called “Bayanihan”, the meaning of this is “helping each other”. It came from the traditional culture, where long time ago the houses were built from coconut trees and bamboo sticks (we called it “Bahay Kubo” which means "Nipa Hut" in English, it looks exactly like the logo of “Pizza Hut”, type nipa hut in Google and you will see it right away), the four legs serve as foundation of the house and the interesting fact is, those houses are “moveable”. And here comes “Bayanihan”, when a family wanted to move their house from one end to the others, then the whole neighborhood would came over and help lifting the house, then the family who moved their house will provide a huge meal for the whole neighborhood, just like celebrating festival event (in fact, we do have tons of festival events). When I read the part that says “Filipino always hired black bands………this was black music” (p. 19), I think I can guess the reason why. Think about it, why other Asians like Chinese, Japanese, or Korean would hang out with Caucasians more; while Filipino will choose to hang out with African Americans? I would say because of same similar traits they have, like singing, dancing, and boxing, maybe also because Filipinos are darker in color.
Go Philippines! I really like the story of “Rico” because the author showed very typical Filipino traits with American cultures on Rico. People in the Philippines love to dance and listen to music. Like Anthony said, Filipinos love to sing karaoke. It is everywhere in the Philippines. Quite often, people will just gather around and starting singing. People may not know each other at first, but they will sometimes become friends afterwards. There are many festivals and celebrations in the Philippines. People prepared free food and bring to the festival to share to other people. It is not considered a complete celebration without dancing and singing programs. That is why I really like Anthony’s point that music and dances are in Filipinos blood.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Anthony that the reason why Filipinos hangout with African American due to the similarity of the traits that they have such as singing, dancing, boxing, and the color. I want to expand how people view boxing in the Philippines. Boxing is the hottest sport in the Philippines. There are many world class boxers from the Philippines. One of the best is Manny Pacquiao. He is very professional on the stage. He respected his opponents by giving out his best blows on the stage. I think this is one reason why Rico did not hold his hands and completely knocked the Mexican boxer down. Also, he probably intentionally did that so Tommy can kick him out. One reason why I think he choose to do that is because he may think that it is too “girly” to say goodbye to Tommy and people in the gym.
Hey Anthony,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you entirely that the focus of the story was not to make Rico look as though he is a bad guy, or as having negative traits. The story conveyed the boundaries set by our society, and how it excludes people such as Rico. Although Rico was not good at traditional things such as school, he had other talents not fit for college (dancing, boxing, etc) “He had other skills, other potentials, but by the time public school was through ignoring him, I’m sure he wasn’t’ sure what they were or even that they were” (p 20). I think it could be easy to misconstrue the point the author is making-one might read this short story and see the failings of a Pilipino who was inept. However, it was not that Rico was inept, he was simply looked over by the educational system, and not seen for his true talents “Rico could dance and he could woo white girls. And there was one other thing: the boy could box“ (p 20). The reason that Rico thought going to war was the only way he could ever become something is because that is what society told him. Society overlooked his strong suites and only saw that he was not cut out for college, deeming him worthless. Also, Rico struggles to live a life filled with cultural barriers in which only make striving to do better harder.
I, like you, enjoyed the character of Rico. I think he’s a deeper character than one might think. We can observer Rico’s layers while he speaks to the narrator just before he leaves for the army. The emotion Rico reveals the deeper character one might not pick up on in the short story.
I enjoyed your blog and discussing it in class because it really forced me to look at Rico in a different way. I was looking through an American lense at the glass half empty but you pointed out that while Rico may lack the traditional qualities of a "good American boy" he possesses many wonderful Phillipino qualities. Seeing Rico through your eyes makes the glass half full... and that ROCKS!!
ReplyDeleteAnthony,
ReplyDeleteI like this post about “Rico” a lot, a lot! Because first of all, by analyzing this story written by a Filipino, you expanded to tell many interesting things about Philippine. Since you are from Philippine, I feel very confident about every thing you introduced. Secondly, I was confused with some parts about this Rico, especially for those conversations between Rico and Buddy. Again after reading your post, I suddenly realized. For example, I didn’t what about pork chops when I was reading Rico. It was you letting me know that “Filipinos really like to eat pork chops, which represents the spirit of helping each other.” So I could afterwards easily understand what the author mean. Like you said, pork chops also mean of the brotherhood between Rico and the author. Great! Thirdly, I, of course, will make a comment on your video clips, which showing the very special skills of Filipinos. By adding those 2, you blog profile looks fantastic! I don’t know too much about boxing, but I do really like pop dancing. And as I watching your video clips, I just couldn’t sit here to post comments on it, but I would like to stand up and dance with them. It was a lot of fun!
Finally, I found interesting about one point of view from your post. Did you about why other Asians like Chinese, Japanese, or Korean would hang out with Caucasians more; while Filipino will choose to hand out with African Americans? Well, it was just really funny to notice this. It is true. And I at the same time found the answer that they just would like to share the same similar traits together. It was a very funny finding. I like it! Lol…