08/03/2023
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐢𝐧𝐨𝐲 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐠𝐞 𝐄𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞
by Jiro Simbulan
When does one actually mark his first encounter with adulthood, is it on one's first sip of beer? The first time a day out became a night out? The first kiss with someone you used to play toys with or probably a schoolmate? Or maybe the first time you went home on your own past the curfew? My tendency to be sentimental led me to reflect on this question from time to time. Looking back, I have never really experienced something romantic or rebellious as a teenager like what they have portrayed and romanticized a million times in Western television and film. So, what does it mean to actually become of age for a native—not a Fil-Am or international school kid—a quintessential 𝑷𝒊𝒏𝒐𝒚?
Turning 18 was nothing out of the ordinary for me, probably because I spent that time busy with organizational work and preparing for my university midterms. However, it is different for a girl with Filipino roots; they have their grand debuts which take great inspiration from debutante balls and the Latins’ quinceañeras. Well, I guess that is the answer to my question. If you are Filpina, you get your debut, a reminder that you are supposed to make decisions that should align with what you want for the rest of your life. But what about Filipinos, is it when they ensnared their first girlfriend? For some reason, the heteronormativity of what marks one as a grown-up affected my perspective on life as a member of the q***r community; there is nothing I am more scared of than being an adult with responsibilities and alone. Unfortunately, unlike the heteros*xuals—the straight demographic—I do not have a pillar of knowledge regarding how I should navigate such a taxing period of my life, and my extensive exposure to Western media as an adolescent did not help a single bit, if anything, it made me more confused.
In the age of booming technology and social media, eight-year-old me already had his Facebook account filled with photos of my beloved family. Five years later, I was running a fan account with over thousands of followers. I spent a good portion of my high school being more in touch with Western music and media; I was not outside trying to look cute for my first girlfriend or a boyfriend, I was on my phone doing a supposed Musically duet with Selena Gomez. Moreover, I stopped playing local games such as patintero, langit-lupa, tumbang-preso, and the like because I was busy watching the then-new Netflix show, Stranger Things. By the time I turned 14, I found my love for film, especially the coming-of-age genre. It is defined as a sub-genre of slice of life and usually involves a little bit of everything: drama, comedy, romance, or even horror; the scary reality of growing up is that you are bound to experience all of these genres in some ways. Unfortunately, I did not realize that the majority of these films I have seen portray the teenage life of the U.S.A and U.K. culture which also remarkably affected my perspective as a Filipino teen. The life of a coming-of-age movie protagonist revolves around making bad decisions, having fights with their mother, longing for the absent father, or embarrassing oneself with their own digital footprint; I resonated with them on an unhealthy level. The other side of it says otherwise, though; the getting-a-car-for-a-birthday, the excessive drinking, the smoking of w**d, the making out at a party, and other rebellious acts. Although in the past couple of years, I have realized that these are actually not exclusive to western culture but have also become a norm for the upperclassmen of the Philippines. And surprise, it messed me up—a teen from a lower middle-class family—for quite some time. Dare I say maybe even till now, it creeps from within when I browse through social media because why is my life not like those beautiful movies?
There are a myriad of things going through my head as I travel from my university to Clark to SM Pampanga. For the past eight months, I have ridden jeepneys, tricycles, and motorcycles repeatedly to get to my university which takes me four to five hours on average. As someone facing the realities of life, I cannot help but find solitude in the bustling cities I travel through. Often, I feel lost between the two cultures I have learned to love; how do I come into terms with my dilemma? Maybe when I arrive at a consensus with the versions of myself. It is true that I have not had my first sip of alcohol yet nor my first kiss, but I have been commuting on my own for quite some time now; in a way, I guess I could say this is my encounter with coming of age or even adulthood. Or maybe it was when I decided on which universities I should apply to. Probably when I fell at the edge of seventeen. Perhaps when I cried over the first adult rejection I received which is now synonymous in my head with not getting into my dream school. This is my daily reality as someone who is considered of age now, someone who should know how to be practical and realistic but still dreams from time to time because hard work gets you to places. But growing up in this country and witnessing its realities every passing minute, I cannot help but doubt that it is solely hard work because those things I have seen in films cost a great fortune which is rather challenging to earn in this economy. On nights I cannot sleep, I sometimes pity myself for not experiencing things that a western teenage archetype has. It makes me feel broken even. But on some days, I do feel at peace with my reality without losing a vision of the future I want to establish for myself. And maybe, just maybe, that is enough to keep me going for now.
In hindsight, I still long for my childhood and the life of western teens I have seen in movies. I feel like I should have been more adventurous and less reserved. However, as I get older, I have also learned to love the life my culture has taught me because no matter how much we crave the simple life we had back then or how much we miss an old and younger version of ourselves, we should not let it hinder us from realizing the sparks that the present and future hold for oneself. Comparison and jealousy could be destructive; growing up having contradicting beliefs and ideologies with the community you were raised in could be exhausting because you cannot seem to see yourself feeling satisfied with anything. And that is probably the challenge: to stop and look at things from a different light. Perhaps the effervescence of the Pinoy coming of age does not lie in excessive drinking, smoking of w**d, or rebelling but in the times you have ridden a jam-packed jeepney, eaten from the local junk food stalls with cleanliness issues, filled yourself up in the nearby karinderya to save your tight weekly baon, woken up to the smell of laurel leaves from your mom’s adobo that you miss because of your new dorm life, or stayed up all night to pass your college entrance exams.
What about you? When did you realized you are not going to light up the room the same way you did as a kid? Or when you flipped through your doodles and none of them were a picture of your family?
