Pariah In The City
Where is home for a third culture kid today?
“We shape our homes and then our homes shape us” — Winston Churchill
Hello, there! Welcome to the first episode of The Pariah Peaks: Pariah in the City Part 1
As a third-generation Asian immigrant, the concept of “Home” is ever-evolving. Don’t get me wrong, the moves and places I’ve lived in have been good to me but it wasn’t always greener on the other side. When I was one year old, our family followed my Dad to Bahrain soon after he got a job there. My two older siblings had somewhat of an idea about growing up in the Philippines, I, on the other hand, saw Bahrain as a very big playground. In many ways, our stay in Bahrain was a heavy cultural influence growing up. Picture this — the early 90s, All for One’s song “I Swear” was the ultimate theme song of teenagers, the favorite basketball team was The Bulls because Michael Jordan, cool kids wore Doc Martens, Dairy Queen is a date spot and Filipino families would bring potluck dishes and play Bingo on weekends. Being Filipino or the token Asian Kid wasn’t a thing in my eyes because everyone around me came from different places too and found home in the Middle East. Heck, my first male friend was an Egyptian boy whose family served in our local parish, he knew how to say “Tito” and “Tita” to my parents which meant Uncle and Aunty in Tagalog. I studied in a Catholic school called Sacred Heart where our Indian teachers wore colorful saris and we would have bake sales where we could see the cooking skills of all moms come out — from cakes to samosas, sweet spaghetti, and hummus. Everyone seemed to be jiving well and life was simple. Until one day, we came home to a tall box in the living room. I didn’t think much of it, I thought maybe it was something for my newborn baby brother and I’m not sure how that makes sense or it’s just one of those Middle Eastern expat home decoration pieces. Hey, you’re not from the Middle East if you don’t have a big carpet in the living room with the 90s trend of the Encyclopedia set. It doesn’t match but somehow it works.
I don’t remember much of that day except for the part when Dad asked us to fill up the box with our most essential and favorite belongings. I was seven years old at that time; I just had a birthday party so I had no idea what essential means because there was a doctor’s set and a lot of stuff toys. But growing up in Bahrain kind of mimicked a kid's life in American shows and films, I say this because US and UK media were our only resources back then on TV. So I had a second-hand bicycle and a ball that I would consider as essential because that’s what you would use to play with your neighbors down the street, even if we lived in low-rise buildings.
I sized up the box whilst my siblings quickly filled it up with VHS tapes, cassettes, books, and toys. I didn’t understand their sense of urgency and excitement so I left them be. Around that same time, we would go to people’s houses, their houses looked similar to ours, the books were in piles and there were a lot of boxes. I didn’t realize they were going anywhere until we hugged them and said goodbye. They were going to places I’ve never heard such as Canada, Winnipeg, Ontario, and Mississauga. It seemed like many families were following suit.
The changes at our house started to become more evident but nothing hit me as hard as when I woke up one morning and heard people in the house. I heard my favorite ball bounce on our brown low pile carpeted floor, the sound was so distinct, I knew that was mine. Then I thought to myself; I’m not holding the ball so who is playing with my ball? My best friend walks into our bedroom waving hello as she held my ball, Dad followed her in and said he gave my ball to her, it's hers now. That was my first life lesson at seven years old. With my frozen smile, I focused on the thought “you’re sharing, this is how you share.”
I didn’t talk to anyone that day.
A few weeks later, we were at the airport and all our family friends were waving goodbye. My brother, Gingors, was weeping because he couldn’t bring all his toys, I have no words for that guy. I heard we were going to this place called Dubai, for Dad’s new job.
In the Summer of 1997, we landed in Dubai, United Arab Emirates that is also known as UAE.
Another desert with this infamous building in the making had an inverted letter D design called Burj Al Arab. For two months, we lived in a villa compound in Chicago Beach Village facing a now public beach called Jumeirah. I remember feeling like we lived in a bubble; my sister, Charley, our eldest was and is pretty much my role model in life. So after finishing talking to myself for hours in our house bored out of my mind, I’d go to our room and watch Charley furiously write letters to her friends and even put Kodak photos in the envelope before she sealed it. I thought this was a good idea so I found the paper at home and started writing about my day and what has happened in my life these last two months, I shared about Dad’s new chocolate mint candy discovery and he even bought us a whole pack to share. There were two supermarkets we would go to back then — Safestway Supermarket and Union Coop. The options in Safestway pretty much fueled our Western-influenced diet, as we tasted roll-ups for the first time. Union Coop would cater to our regular groceries where I would always try out every gum and candy sold near the cashier. I listed these new findings in my letter, sealed the envelope, and asked my sister if she could send this with her mail. To my dismay, Charley responded with, “Uh, Where’s the address?”
So you know that part when Dad said to take only your essentials? It struck me then that taking down your friends’ mailing address would’ve been handy. Second life lesson as an immigrant kid, addresses are important.
In our last month in the villa, Dad heard there was a sale in what was considered the local go-to tech shop — Jumbo Electronics. We went there one weekend and then came home with this very heavy box TV. I remember Dad and Gingors carried our prized possession from the car into the living room, this TV was our introduction to a nighttime routine which was watching four things in this order — Neighbors, Today in History, Bold and Beautiful, and then there will be a feature film at the end. It was the best night routine, it didn’t matter how crappy or interesting the film would be, our family would microwave some popcorn and gather together to cap off the night. Third life lesson — food and film are a good combo for bringing people together.
Dubai was a place our family stayed in the longest together, 18 years.
We moved to a community called Satwa which is now Filipino central. Asians would always find a house that has a supermarket nearby and to our luck, Dad and Mom chose an apartment opposite Lal’s supermarket. We spent five years in that place; the introduction to sausage rolls, shawarma, and chicken biryani will always be dear to me. Everything was within walking distance; there would be a string of clothing stores selling sportswear with the No Fear logo, which was very very cool. Bicycle shops in the other side and if I walk far enough, Baskin Robbins with the boujiee Haagen Dazs would be a treat in the evenings. I crossed the road by myself for the first time in this place, Mom watched me from the balcony after she briefed me twice on how to cross the road. I couldn’t blame her for her paranoia and carefulness, Mom was born and raised a Manila girl, any country would be foreign to her. Satwa was our first taste of Dubai in its early days.
Fast-forward to five years later, I remember this day so vividly; Dad came home and spoke to mom in the kitchen. They both called for a family meeting in the living room. In TV shows, this means there’s some serious news coming in.
Everything after that family meeting was a blur, the last snapshot of our place in Satwa mentally stored in my head was the one where my parents salvaged our best working A/C we had in the apartment to bring to our new place. I was walking to our borrowed car and turned around, my eleven-year-old self saw two things at this moment. 1.) If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. 2.) This is something people don’t talk about when they’re married a decade in, teamwork. I watched how my parents hold this heavy window A/C together; it would usually take two grown men to carry that thing. And there were my parents, one was tilting the A/C to get all the gunk and dirt to drip down the canal and the other was spraying water to clean it before bringing it in the car. To me, this moment was filed in the badass folder. There’s nothing wrong with the hustle and the hustle is real.
Living in a city that was once a desert is one for the books. It’s the only place I’ve heard about a government attempting to enforce a labor law based on heat, if there were three consecutive days of 50 degrees Celsius, work will stop. Suffice to say that our Summers were tremendously hot.
In the Summer of 2000, we emptied our house in Satwa and packed our things to move to one city away from our school, the housing was half the price of an apartment in Dubai. It’s the practical way forward, we moved to the city of Sharjah. A place we used to drive to on long weekends sometimes and would consider this as a day adventure with the family. I remember driving there before the move, the place had these two steep overpass bridges, whenever we drove on them, it was like a mini roller coaster. Sharjah was less party central / city life and more family-oriented, old school, and calm. Dubai kids may have seen this city as ghetto and we were well, from Dubai. I noticed the change immediately, the local convenience stores or commonly known as “Bakalas” along with furniture shops and salons populated the ground floors of residential buildings.
The contrast to our environment in Satwa and the first house in Sharjah was evident; we moved into this tall new building in a sandlot where used car showrooms were based. For half the price of our rent in Satwa, we got a brand new apartment for half the size of what we were used to living in. That meant sharing a bedroom with Charley and my older brother, Gingors in a smaller room.
So just for context, I started my first year of high school in Sharjah and my two other siblings were also in the same High School in St Mary’s. Basically saying, there were three teenagers in that room that were going through teenage angst, discovering themselves in music, style, friends, and the whole shebang! Georgie, the youngest, slept in my parents’ room. Lucky him.
That room housed three teenagers, three single beds, two wardrobes for the girls, a piano, Charley’s books, and Gingors’ lego. I didn’t have a thing so I may have had junk under my bed. That’s a lot of things but this house made our family.
A lot of the people we would consider friends weren’t there for the Summer and would be traveling for vacation. We lost our cable channels when we moved and made do with watching the Arabic version of Pokemon which was Digimon. We made new friends from the church community who happened to live a few streets away from us; I thank them until this day for lending us their DVD set of Friends’ TV shows to keep us entertained. And back then, there was a thing called a Corniche that was like a road on a ledge surrounding a man-made lake, Dad would take us there to walk. I learned how to walk long hours around that place to just think, I think that’s what all of us were doing. Thinking.
On Sundays, after attending Church mass, by hook or by crook, our parents will always make it a point to have dinner as a family wherever they could. One time, we had dinner where we ordered a family meal but we were honestly there for the free starter soup. The bill came and there was this stark look in Dad’s eyes, Mom looked at the amount and looked in her purse. We didn’t have enough; I remember we planned on having half the family drive back home to get more money to pay for the bill, we were all in a quiet panic. The parent that stayed back asked the waitress to check the bill and to our luck, there was a miscalculation. I swear to you, I think my siblings and I were ready to wash the dishes in the kitchen. It wasn’t a profound amount but knowing that we were a few bucks short to pay that bill, I told myself that I have to learn how to budget too when I get to grow up.
9/11 happened, Dad was applying for work all through that year with little luck. Charley got accepted in one of the Ivy League schools of the Philippines and also had to give it up at the same time because we couldn’t afford to send her there. We realized that the show must go on. Our parents both got a job in a local printing press whilst Charley got a gig at a tech convention selling laptops, she always found a way to hustle in her gap year.
This house taught my siblings and me to work as a team to keep us entertained; I mean it when the infamous film about a boy with a scar on his forehead goes to a school for wizards came out, we all wanted to watch it. Going to the cinemas back in the day was a privilege and we’d need a car to go to the theaters. So, I heard one of my classmates had a ripped copy from her VCD lady (not even DVD then), I asked her to hook me up with a copy. Charley dominated the ownership of the computer, I actually think she built that rig herself. Gingors found a way to hook up the computer to the TV and Georgie came with the snacks. We all huddled together to watch the film that was split into two VCDs, good times! When we had extra pocket money, we later built a process to make things more efficient — Charley and Gingors would research in advance on the list of shows and films to get. Charley said we had to stay in the budget. Gingors would test the deliverables in our DVD player. I’d check the CDs for any scratches and Georgie would put the CDs back into the plastic packets to finalize the purchase. We were really proud of that process!
Gingors and I were left in High School; it was hard navigating through this life stage, we couldn’t go to parties because we weren’t allowed or didn’t have a ride. If you wanted to look good, you’d have to get a cool wardrobe that I didn’t have except for hand-me-downs. What was less than an hour to get to school from Satwa was two and a half hours from Sharjah on a normal day. This was the early 2000s where Nokia phones were a thing everyone owned while Gingors and I shared an old phone called Siemens which was the size of my palm. So there goes our social life.
I don’t think I consider myself a devout person but living in this house taught us all how to pray really hard. Be specific. Be honest. In this house, we learned that not everybody is a friend and whoever you trust, keep them close.
For two to three years, life went on quietly and simply. Every single person in that house had something burning in them — Charley wanted to go to university. Gingors was learning to navigate his teenage self. Bills and debt had to be paid. Georgie and I had to stay in school.
I think life has a way of pushing you to uncertain and uncomfortable places to teach you how to adapt and build resilience. And just when you are about to give up and on your last thread, something comes along to give you hope. Something that calls you back to yourself with everything you learned under your belt to start anew.
From all the places Dad applied to a few years back, a British gentleman held on to his CV as part of his retirement plan. That interview changed our life for the better.
After managing to save a little, our parents moved to a new apartment in Sharjah that was within walking distance to the Corniche. That same one we walked around so many evenings to clear our minds. I remember when we moved to this third house, there were three bedrooms now — the girls' and the boys' room. Charley got sponsored to go to the best university in the Gulf and so did Gingors after he graduated. I finished high school and decided to go to prom with my two best friends, Ban and Dil in that house. Georgie eventually completed his studies from elementary all the way to the fifth year in the same school. In our last years together in UAE, I remember Dad said in the car once, as we drove around the Corniche, he chose this job because it was a chance to spend more quality time with his family together rather than us being apart during our university years.
For some context, a local Saudi company came at the same time with triple the offer and was persistent to take Dad in. We’d have to pack up again and move to a new country. Acclimate to new deserts and the family would have to split apart for studies. Dad threw the guy a curveball, a line we’ve actually heard in our household. He said, “Call my wife. And then call my kids.” He eventually turned the offer down.
It was then I realized that he chose us.
The choices made in my story may not have been options for other Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) families nor was it the right or wrong path. In some ways, the choices were a privilege and other ways a real journey in the desert on your own. You choose what kind of hardship you’re willing to go through, right? Before you hear about this Pariah’s homecoming to the Philippines, I think it would only be fair to know where she came from first.
Our family downsized to two more houses after that when Charley and I moved out on our own before my parents retired back to the Philippines. Each home housed many beginnings and endings with my family in the Middle East. If Dubai was known as the City of Gold, Sharjah was the City of Knowledge — in many ways, this was a metaphor for our family. Our homes in these desert cities shaped us; we saw the glitz and glamour, we saw how it was like to be in a position to take only the essentials with you and then build a life with what you have.
