Of cabbages and kings

I would like to start with a big congratulations to myself. I work on the 15th floor of my office and the lift situation here is ridiculous - the lift capacity is woefully inadequate for the number of staff in this building and it is not abnormal to wait for fifteen minutes for a lift. This morning, when I arrived at the office, the queue was out down the hall, out the door and down the street - in four directions! So after moving a meter in ten minutes, I climbed fifteen floors to my office.

I already feel more buff!

Anyway - my time here is rapidly drawing to a close - this is my last week in the office and I will be home in Australia just after Easter - gasp (in time for cheap Creme Eggs - yay!) Of course, this has the effect of imposing a certain melancholy upon me as I really don't want to leave - I just love it here and have had the best time. I can't imagine how I will feel when I actually get on that plane...

However, fear not - this is not going to be a moaning and wailing post (although I suspect there are a few of those in store)...

One of the things that has cracked us up endlessly through this year is the Filipino English. Now - this is not to be confused with Taglish (combination of Tagalog and English) which is what most Manila-ans speak in. This is incredibly useful to non-Tagalog speakers as the random English word thrown into the mix allows us to at least know the topic being discussed, if not what is being said about it. However, I am speaking of the way Filipinos speak English. English is incredibly common here. Functioning as a virtual American colony for about fifty years, plus having had huge American influence since then means that most Filipinos have pretty good English and just about everyone I know in Manila is totally fluent. As there are over 300 languages in the Philippines, Filipinos often use English to communicate with one another (for example, if one's mother tongue is Ilocano and one is speaking to someone whose native language is Cebuano, they may speak in English - or they may use Tagalog). Impressively, most Filipinos are trilingual - they speak their native language, Tagalog and English. Some may speak more than that - for example, if they are from a small village near a large city, they will speak that language, in addition to the language of the large city, plus Tagalog and English. Very impressive - like the Swiss really.

However - you will notice quite a few differences between the way we (Aussies) speak English, and the way Filipinos do.
First thing of course is to use American English (Bill Gates would be so proud) - so you ride an elevator (not a lift) and the car has a trunk (not a boot) etc. But then, there are special ways of using sentences:

Fall in line.
We would say form a queue. By the way - Filipinos are notoriously bad at this - I would rank them as the worst queue jumpers in the history of humanity. We have now gotten to the stage where we will rap the offenders on the shoulder and send them to the back of the line, if we are having a bad day and are somewhat grumpy. They also have what we perceive to be a strange situation when queueing for toilets. Instead of forming one line and the front person goes into the first stall to become available, they form individual lines out side each stall - probably not the most time efficient manner to wait, but who am I to say...

I'll be the one to...
As in - I'll be the one to carry the bag. Said with great emphasis upon I'll so that it almost sounds like you have offended them by suggesting that you would carry the bag (often not the case!) Basically instead of us saying "I'll carry the bag"

I'll go ahead now...
I'm leaving. Sometimes known as I'll be the one to go ahead now. So much easier to just say oo'roo

I am having coughs and colds
I have a cold. Always present tense and you don't have a cold, you have colds - or coughs and colds. Sadly, this is a frequent one for me here.

The ref
The fridge. Confused the life out of me at first as I thought they were keeping their food in a referee!!!

Wait a while
You here this all the bloody time here. "Ma'am - wait a while" - or just "Ma'am - a while." It essentially means "we don't know the answer so you sit there and do nothing for anything from a period of ten seconds to ten hours why we either; try to find the answer, try to find something to tell you that will make you go away and leave us alone or just never reappear and hope you eventually give up, go away and leave us alone.

Slippers
What they call thongs (flip flops) - I loved the look on my parents face when they were told to wear slippers into the caves in Sagada because you would get wet. I think they were imagining running around the streams in their sheepskin slippers from home.

Avail of...
This is the one that gets me the most. You see this everywhere..."Avail of your free offer", "Pay your taxes now to avail of discounts". I had a debate with some American friends yesterday as they think this is accurate, whereas I think you should say "avail yourself of". Barry suggested it was a difference in language - for example he said an Aussie would say you 'help me to do this' whereas an American would say you 'help me do this'. Anybody with superlative grammer out there able to assist with this one?

I may add some more as I think of them. I have gotten used to so many of them that they don't stand out in my mind now - I will go home and ask for the C.R. automatically (CR stands for Comfort Room - the word for the bathroom here!)

Also of note - a Barangay (council) in Manila has a mayor - the Honourable PeeWee Trinidad! I kid you not. There is a movie star Bambang Siligano (think I have the surname wrong), a model named Tweetie and a friend of mine works with a lady named Bo Peep. The names are incredible. Literally anything can be a name here...

Going to be so boring going back a land of Sue's and Bill's hey.