I haven't been successful in starting a healthcare reform movement here at home, but I was certainly able to get half of the house to sit through the entire length of Sicko, and on their own accord! Ha! And they did get the message, despite Moore's awfully exaggerated and/or oversimplified statements. And I'm glad. Because what matters more than the turkey we had today (Wait, we didn't have turkey at all!) is the fact that they've snapped out of their America-is-so-perfect haze... for now. Ah well, there will be more films to show them in the future, yes?

During the movie, my dad told me that back home one of his ex-coworkers had gotten an inner ear operation kind of thing. He didn't go much into the details, I guess because he didn't know them. But the whole point is that my dad's former employer, a fairly competitive bank, paid for the entire thing, THE ENTIRE THING, meds included. He then asked me, "Ibig sabihin mas maganda pa sa Pilipinas?"

I wanted to slap him, laugh at his face then say "Took you this long to realize it?" But then I would have been thrown out in the cold, which is not exactly ideal since temps are dropping below freezing tonight, plus it's Thanksgiving, and we're supposed to be thankful about all the wonderful things that have happened to us in the past year. None of us should be wearing our grudge-badges tonight, even if it's tempting to do so at these family things.

I digress, though. The fact is that the Philippines is still paradise. I still think about our house, with our three coconut trees (Yeah, we had coconut trees. Isn't that great?), with the ivy, with our enormous rocking chairs, with the birds to wake you up in the morning and the crickets to lull you to sleep at night. The racially homogenous communities and the faces that smile through all the hardship life has managed to throw at us have become elements of my wet dreams. *sigh*

There are only two differences between living here in America and living in the Philippines. First, food is cheap here. Almost nobody is hungry. [But don't think that America is poverty-free, because that would be a gross lie. Oh, they have poor people here, and like all poor people they too worry about housing and healthcare and steady employment.] And secondly, nobody is happy here. I think it's because of all the working they do. Nobody has time to enjoy the money they make, that's provded they make enough that they have some left off after taxes and all their expenses.

People wonder why I don't want to be an American, as if the answer wasn't obvious.

So, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, if there's one thing I'm thankful for:

I am thankful that I am a Filipino.

Labels: thoughts

kitten posted @ 11:23 PM