Are you a Filipina mom? You might want to join an essay contest (minimum of 800 words). The deadline is May 31, 2008 which gives you lots of time to write an essay that answers the question:
As a Filipina Mom, what part of your own Filipino upbringing is most important to pass on to your own children and why?
You may write in either Filipino/Tagalog or English.
For more details, please visit FilipinaMoms.com
What? Are you worried about writing? Here are some writing tips you can use:
1. Talk. That’s it. Record yourself talking about the topic. Then listen to your recording and scribble down the random ideas that you said.
2. Scribble brainstorm. Sit down, get a pen and paper, and write anything that comes to mind after reading the question above. Just write. It could be a word. Or even a phrase. Or perhaps a grammatically incorrect sentence.
It doesn’t matter! Just write. Without criticizing. Without judging.
Editing can happen later. The important thing is to just write.
3. Edit. Try this basic outline:
- Introduction
- Three Main Points
- Conclusion
In the Introduction, explain what you are going to do or share in the coming paragraphs. Then go ahead and do exactly that in paragraphs 2 to 4. Then in conclusion, summarize what you’ve written.
That’s it!
To make your writing more exciting, don’t just go off and type a boring lecture of an essay. Spice it up… with stories! People love stories. No, people luuuurve tales about this person or that person’s relative. Add stories, okay? 🙂
Hmmm… let’s try it. I’ll assume I’m a Filipina mom, just for the sake of the writing exercise. 😉
I am a Filipina mother of two coconut children. That’s how I sometimes see them: brown on the outside, white on the inside. And so I struggle each day to somehow instill in Nico and Nica (not their real names) a sense of what it is to be Pinoy. Yet in this Cartoon Network world, my children’s attention is quite limited. And so I must carefully choose which part of my Filipino upbringing to share with them.
There are so many things Pinoy about me: my love for food, my attraction to stories, the way I treat my parents, and even the unique mannerisms that make other people in different parts of the world do a double-take and say: “Pinoy ka, ano?” Will all these, I feel the most important part of my upbringing which I would want to share with Nico and Nica is my love for food.
Even before the cooking starts, we gather the ingredients. That, in itself, is already quite a treat! I remember those mornings when I would accompany Nanay to the palengke to pick out the best ingredients for the day.
“We’re going to have soup, so it has to be fresh,” Nanay would explain to me.
In today’s groceried frozen drumsticks, we’d probably be stuck with just fried chicken. But for the occasional tinola, it’s off to Farmer’s Market. And as I bring my children to Cubao, I introduce them to my fave vendors.
We chat. We tell stories. We connect.
See? We haven’t started cooking yet, but my children are already steeped in what it means to be a Filipino. There’s this unslakeable thirst for connection. We reach out to one another, in so many ways.
(Then we add other stories here about the cleaning of the ingredients, the cooking, the sharing of the meal, and the chatting after the meal is over…)
(Afterwards, we conclude and quickly explain why I chose the food angle. Perhaps I’ll even add another quote from Nanay about food, palengkes, or even dessert. Then I’ll finally end something like: “So, when was the last time you cooked with your children? Eh ano pang hinihintay nyo? Kain na!”)
Or something like that.
O, ano pang hinihintay ninyo? Sali Na!
(Did you know that the above post is already 672 words?)
