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We Tried To Call You
January 14, 2005
I get into this problem every Christmas and every New Year of every year. Well, since I moved to the U.S. anyway. Busy phone signals to the Philippines. You would think after 8 years I would have figured it out. Filipinos and Filipino-Americans in the U.S., as if on cue, pick up their phones almost at the same time, call their relatives in the Philippines to greet them a Merry Christmas or a Happy New Year, whatever the case may be.
My relatives as well as my wife's are all back in the homeland. For a few Filipinos and most Americans, that's one reason to rejoice and celebrate, to finally taste that 3-dollar champagne they've been keeping for months. They consider spending Christmas with relatives a nightmare, like being in a room alone with a bunch of Al Gore clones. If you're one of those stuck in an airport last December on your way to a family reunion, your relatives may have secretly wished for it.
Hey, sweetheart, Frank and his family are stuck at the airport. I guess the offering of 2 dozen eggs actually worked.
But it's not the case for most of us. Especially transplanted Filipinos who moved to the U.S. in recent years. We are so used to celebrating Christmas in our own little way, with relatives and close friends, that sometimes it's just not the same. My wife and I are a little bit lucky. At least, we have each other. And with our 7-year old daughter, we celebrate Christmas and New Year the best way we could. Still, we always wish to celebrate in the Philippines one of these years. For the moment, all we could do is make phone calls. My parents, her parents, my brothers and sisters-in-law, her brother and sister, my friends, her friends. Okay, forget the last two, if we have to call all of them, we would be making more phone calls than a telemarketer selling pest control.
The Philippines is 14 hours ahead of Chicago, so our routine goes like this - around mid-morning of Christmas eve, we start dialing. I always tell myself, if I get a ring sound in my very first call, I'll buy a lottery ticket. You don't want the luck to run out on you, you know. But that's never happened so forget about me winning the Big Game jackpot. Busy tone, more busy tones, and then more busy tones. One morning, my alarm clock went off. I totally ignored it. I thought I was just dreaming of hearing more busy tones. Once in a while, instead of the busy tone, you get the dreaded message, "all circuits are busy now, please try again later". Which actually translates to, "why don't you get lost and try again in a week?"
I sometimes get my fits. Hey, honey, this is worse than you were trying to vote for Jasmine Trias on American Idol!.
(One time, I got through after 2 tries. I actually thought I dialed the wrong number. I hung up and tried again.)
Wait, what has too many people calling the Pearl of the Orient on Christmas eve got something to do with me getting busy signals? They are not calling my father, are they? Well, this is how it is supposed to work - there's a set of lines between the U.S. and the Philippines used by all long-distance phone companies and all calling card companies (which, incidentally, use those same long-distance companies). Once you dial a phone number, you take a piece in that set of lines. If the lines are all used up, you wait in line, well, sort of. It's actually not that different from the old days where you used to stand in line waiting for your turn outside a PLDT phone booth.
So why don't you call earlier in the day?. Or why not the 23rd, or the 22nd? Heck, call in February and tell them advance Merry Christmas.
You see, it's just not the same. You want to call them close to midnight of Christmas eve where you can hear children playing and adults talking in the background. You want to call them at a time when your mother just finished cooking for "noche buena" and hear her brag about her "ibos" (glutinous rice wrapped in coconut leaves) and "suman" (glutinous rice cooked in brown sugar and coconut milk) and the taste hasn't changed since you started eating solid foods. And if you're extremely lucky, you can hear children carolling and singing "Ang Pasko ay Sumapit" off-tune to an accompaniment by a makeshift instrument made of "tansan" (bottle caps) and empty milk cans. So who's dreaming of a White Christmas now?
Sometimes you just miss those days. Where Christmas trees were made with dead tree branches and dangled with "ice candy" wrappers filled with liquid in all sorts of color. Where snow was imagined or sometimes represented by bits of cotton, or, bubbles of "Perla" soap. Where the only people who could afford cellphones were those who own an island or two. But it didn't matter. You didn't need to make a phone call anyway.
Last Christmas, I finally got through to my parents on Christmas eve after countless tries, after my redial button has been pushed more times than the Pillsbury Dough Boy. My mother mentioned all the food that she has prepared (incidentally, I learned to cook from her but you guessed that already) and my father kind of bragged about it. He likes to do that in every phone conversation, aside from asking what time is it here, talking about the Lakers and reminding me to send him black hair dyes because the local ones make his head itch. I don't understand why he has to dye his hair black. With gray hair, he closely resembles James Woods.
I have to mention my father, Robert Sr., because it's his birthday on the 27th of this month. He will be 60-plus at that time and it's even more significant because he'll be retiring from government service after 40-plus years. I hope he and my mother fulfill their promise of going on vacation here after my father retires. My wife and I cannot promise a traditional Christmas of "ibos" and "suman" but I can provide nightly NBA games and afternoon re-runs of Hawaii Five-O. And not to mention, a regular supply of black hair dye.
I'll definitely call Tatay on his birthday. I have no worries. I won't get busy signals by then.
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We celebrated Christmas last year the same way we always do. We had dinner on the 24th at home and opened gifts early morning of the 25th then went to church at noon. Actually, gifts from friends were all for our little girl so she gets to open all her gifts and provide all the drama. My wife and I just had little gifts for each other. We have this little agreement that if we have to buy gifts for ourselves we should buy them after Christmas. And why not? If you have to splurge by giving gifts to yourself, buy them when they're on sale.
Which brings me to the idea on how you can save by shopping in advance all your Christmas decorations and necessities, like gift wraps, cards and ribbons. Actually, way, way in advance. By December 26, all Christmas-related stuff are 50% off, by December 27, 75% off, by December 28, 90% off. And maybe if there's anything left by December 29, stores will probably give it for free or maybe even pay you to take it home.
Needless to say, we are set for Christmas 2005.
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I am complaining about busy tones and not celebrating the traditional Filipino Christmas and maybe I shouldn't. Some of the people I know actually celebrated Christmas alone. Those whose husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, fiancees, are still in the Philippines. Those who content themselves by hearing their children say "I love you" and "Merry Christmas" on the phone. Believe me, I sympathize with you. I have been in your shoes before.
My classmate in medical school, Irene Mosqueda-Benliro is one of them. Irene's in Las Vegas and her husband is still in the Philippines. I got a call from Irene on the night of the 24th last month. We talked and shared "tsismis" (actually, it was one-way sharing because I had all the "tsismis", most of them I can't write here). She was at work, working the hospital night shift. Most of my nurse-acquaintances usually work during holidays. Not too many, especially Americans, like to work on holidays and nurses are usually paid time-and-a-half (that's over $35 per hour before taxes in most cases). And you'd rather work than stare at the TV alone in your apartment on Christmas eve watching the millionth re-run of "It's a Wonderful Life".
Don't worry, my dear classmate, your hard work will pay off. In a few months, you'll have enough money to buy your own island in the Philippines and enough spare change to give every Ilonggo a free subscription to Home and Garden magazine. And when your husband gets here, Las Vegas will not be enough.
Oh, I can only imagine :).
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Views expressed on this column and any other by-lined articles on this site are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organization or its members.
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