On December 17, 2009, my ESOL class met for an hour before we all headed to the school’s Christmas party. I distributed old Christmas cards my family received through the years. I asked each one of them to read the language inside, in effect, teaching them vocabulary words like holiday, gift, joyous, joyful, message, carol, to name a few. A student proudly said that his card said “The massage of season is the birth of Heysoo.” (sic) I explained the difference between message and massage. As we all laughed and talked about the holidays, I asked each one of them what they were planning to do. I was sad about the answers they gave me. “I am not doing anything. I have no money.” “My family is not with me.” The only bright prospect was my student Leticia. She is a nanny. She drives a new car and she talked about her Christmas tree. It is artificial, with lots of ornaments and multi-color lights. They asked me if I have a Christmas tree and they were surprised that I did not. Yet. They all know I am waiting for my son to arrive from college. I would not have a tree until I have my son home.
As we talked about the holidays, I learned more about my students. Their circumstances may not be as different as mine 35 years ago when I experienced my first Christmas in the United States.
I worked on Christmas Eve and the office had a party. I was young and I did not cook so I was just basically a free loader. There were leftovers and I took home two fried chicken legs. I was by myself in the tiny apartment my sister and I shared. My friend came over with a fresh Christmas tree bought on sale. It looked tired and dry but we tried to revive it by putting it in a plastic bucket with water and all the pennies I had in a jar. Since I did not have any ornaments, we decided to hang Christmas cards on it. I named the tree “Teng-teng.” Filipinos love nicknames and this nickname was because the tree looked like a broomstick. It looked happy once we hung the Christmas cards but it was lacking some lights. So we were young and brilliant and decided to attach a cheap lampshade on top of the tree to light it up. The lamp was bought from a dime store, the shade was made of plastic and it was light enough to hang. It looked like an out-of-place Asian lantern hanging on a dry tree with Christmas cards all over it. As we sat to admire our work, we heard an explosion and then the tree was on fire!
My friend had the presence of mind to open the window, yes, for oxygen, no less, which of course made it worse. But at least he grabbed the burning tree, along with the lamp pulled in one second from the switch and shoved it out of the window. It landed with a loud thud on the sidewalk. It was late, it was cold, and we watched the burning tree in shock. Then we started laughing! We were proud that even though it caught fire, that it did not happen while I slept.
My friend left to be with his family and I went to sleep. I woke up at midnight with a feeling of intense homesickness. I have never spent Christmas by myself until this time. In Manila, there is a midnight dinner tradition. The terminology of this midnight dinner depends on who you are talking to. In my family, we call it “media noche,” literally meaning midnight. Others call it Noche Buena, “good night” but since Filipinos use “Buena” as “first” as in “Buena mano” (first hand), my family referred to New Year’s midnight dinner as Noche Buena. So today, every Filipino will refer to their Christmas dinner as Noche Buena.
My parents used to prepare the traditional “suman sa lihiya” (rice cake in lye water) for our media noche. There was always freshly grated coconut and ginger tea. I am not sure if my recollection is correct but I guess everything is big to a child so I will dare say that these sumans were as big as my forearm. The rice is soaked in water and lye water a day before they are wrapped in banana leaves wilted over open fire. My mom and dad would spend so much time wrapping each of these sumans lovingly and tying them with twine. The sumans resemble a tamale, only that these humble goodies, loved by the Filipinos, are made of sweet rice and wrapped in banana leaves. My mom owned a giant caldera, as big as the Ngoro-ngoro crater, and they would put the sumans in them, covered with water. My dad would build a fire and they would be boiled and simmered for a long, long time for the rice to have a gelatinous consistency.
My sisters and I would attend the misa de gallo, (mass at the crack of dawn) and on Christmas, after the midnight mass, my sisters and I would come home from church and we would all be singing merrily in front of our house waking up my parents in the process. Still, the sumans were cooking. My parents would take out a sample and spread the suman on the table. My mom would ceremoniously add sugar to the coconut, always, always, mentioning that that would prevent the coconut from getting rancid. Then she would cut the humungous suman in slices and we were in heaven. Nothing, nothing in my childhood memories of Christmas is more vivid than my Mom and Dad’s loving gesture of fixing these goodies for us to eat. Today, my sister Emma continues on with the tradition of making these goodies. She buys the sweet rice from the Filipino store, she buys the frozen grated coconut, she ties the sumans in silky thread and she puts them in the basket. And we love grabbing them and hiding them from each other because she does not make a lot. Sometimes she “hits the right note” but other times, they are off key and inedible. Regardless, I see and feel my parents through my sister’s efforts.
On my first Christmas media noche, I woke up to two stiff fried chicken legs, still wrapped in aluminum foil. I looked at them and my tears started. I was impossibly homesick, lonely, feeling sorry for myself.
As I told the story to my students, their expression was of disbelief. I told them that I did not come without an accent, without my own ignorance of the American idioms; certainly I had the whole immigrant experience. We learned the word “encourage” – I encouraged them to further their learning of the English language and of setting their sights onto bigger things; of educating themselves and their children. I told them a few “smart-aleck” remarks and explained what it meant. I had them practice “dramatic expressions,” like “shut up! For real?”, “Get out of town!” Then Armando had a question. What does “lol” meant? It meant “carcajar con fuerte” “Where did you see it?” “My friend in Internet.” So I taught them how to access the internet by drawing the PC screen on the blackboard. I came home that night and created Yahoo address for one of my students, Jose. I learned later he spoke Korean as he works in the kitchen of a huge Korean supermarket.
Then we all went to attend the school Christmas party and have some dinner. As I looked around me, I saw a lot of faces I did not know and others whom I knew from the past years that I taught. I realized that I was just like them, no more no less.
I was an immigrant like them; only I spoke my host country’s language and learned a few others along the way. I heard a conversation behind me and one of the students was saying something “…chicken, gallo o gallina” and he looked at me “what chicken es boy or girl?” I turned around and responded, “La gallina es la hembra, la “hen”. El gallo es el macho, lo que se llama “rooster.” El pollo es el producto, tal como la vaca es biftek o beef en ingles, el pollo es de carne de gallina, ok?” Their eyes bugged out. The “china” spoke Spanish. And I smiled and said, “I told you, watch TV and you will speak English fluently. Did you think I learned it by just wishing I did? I watch telenovelas!” They were inspired.
Then I excused myself to get more pollo con arroz Peruano. Feliz pascuas!
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