by Gina Cariño
Home >> Postcard from Australia: Pasalubong Billabong
Gift-giving is a custom rooted in the Filipino’s tendency to be effusively hospitable, thoughtful, and generous. It is a time-honored tradition extended not only to family, the household, close friends, and guests and visitors, but also to friends of friends (even dogs of friends!), to acquaintances and colleagues… why not, teachers and students!
Only one thing gives a Filipino more pleasure than getting gifts for people, and that is getting gifts for people while traveling. The word in Filipino is pasalubong. A Filipina will hardly buy souvenirs for herself; she only thinks of her pasalubongs.
Tell people you are off to Australia and some will say “Bring me a kangaroo.” Do, especially if you really do have organic roo experiences while there. I did. I fed an ugly joey in a wildlife park, saw a male roo try to stimulate a female roo by fondling her tail, and ate kangaroo meat barbecued on one of the non-fire, electricity-run, totally pay-free grills that line the beaches of Hervey Bay. Marinated in honey, it was dark, tender, juicy, and delicious; reason enough to buy a kangaroo bookmark for my son’s tennis teacher, who had actually asked for a Crocodile Dundee.
Others will say “Get me a koala.” Again, do, especially if you really do have a koala experience. Otherwise your gift is “un-organic.” My koala experience was a lesson in zoology. That’s organic! Because people say “koala bear” the way they say “teddy bear,” I always thought koalas were eucalyptus-eating Australian bears the way pandas are bamboo-eating Chinese bears. Ignorant me, koalas are not bears! They’re marsupials, like kangaroos, with pockets to keep their babies in. I held a koala in my arms; reason enough to get the office some chocolate-coated macadamia nuts in a box decorated with a koala picture.
The chocolate was awful, so it’s a good thing I brought Tim Tams too. Tim Tam, a brand of chocolate biscuits, lies close to the heart of the Aussie household and is a staple in the Aussie diet. And my Tim Tam gift is authentic and “organic” because I munched on Tim Tams while being tossed about in an SUV as we struggled up and down dunes, in and out of rain forests, and among the bush of Fraser Island.
South on the Gold Coast, in surfing havens like Surfers Paradise, the logical or “organic” thing to buy the folks back home is a Billabong item. Though either is Made in China, a Billabong bought out there in Coolangatta is not the same as a Billabong bought at the mall near your home. You can bring thongs for the guys who like flip flops, the statement being simply that thongs in Australia are footwear, not underwear.
Or go aboriginal. A didgeridoo! My workmate Paul Batkins can imitate the obscene sound of this wonderful instrument, so an organic gift for him would have been a didge. But they are large, so I brought him Australian tea instead. He is an Englishman who takes tea. How organic.
But the best present from Oz is a boomerang because it goes back to you.
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Posted on http://www.weeklyletter.com at 2008-01-31 09:00:00 +0100
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Hi Gina,
good custom in Phillipines about the presents. I’m quite close to your customs, as I prefer buying things for people than for myself.
Interesting comments about Australia! It seems wild lands,as you can have contact with exotic animals (touch them, feed them), what a marvellous plan! Like the organic experiences you told.
I learnt some new vocabulary: staple, roo, didge, munch, pasalubongs, to fondle, to toss and thongs…
regards,
Begoña
Yes, we are all very happy with our pasalubongs here in the office. Thanks Gina. And we are also very grateful that you acted like a boomerang. You came back!!
I’ve just read that the new Australian government plans to make an official apology to the Aboriginal people for the horrendous policy of the Stolen Generations, when thousands of indigenous children were taken forcibly from their parents to be raised by white families and institutions between 1915 and 1969.
The healing begins.
Does anyone know what a billabong is? It’s an oxbow lake: a lake created because of the changing path of a river, when a meander is cut off. I remember learning about this geographical phenomenon when I was in first year high school. Only now do I know that it’s called ‘billabong’ in Australia.
Australia always makes me think of a song called The Band Played Waltzing Matilda . It tells the tale of an Australian soldier during the Battle of Gallipoli during the First World War. It is an anti-war song.
I haven’t used my pasalubong yet as I still have some tea bags from the last time my sister sent me some from England in a parcel with some other gifts for my daughter.
But as soon as the tea bags run out, I’ll use it. Spanish tea is terrrible! Austalian tea must be better.Though Spanish coffee’s lovely !
Hi guys.
Apart from all the souvenirs that are mentioned in the article, there is just one that I would like to receive from anyone who goes to Australia,this is jaw´s shark.I am fan of sharks since I was a Kid, so this gift would make me so happy.
But rather than receiving a gift from there I´d prefer going to Australia by my own to see what is round there.I would spend my time travelling from one island to another by boat taking as much pictures as I might from sea animals.
Also I´d take many pictures from aborigines to remind the way their live without many useful things for us.
Greetings
Hi, Gina,
I visited friends of my parents in the Hunter River Valley when I was about ten years old. They lived far away from towns on a small sheep station of about 40,000 acres. The man gave me a rifle one day and told me to go shoot something. I walked to the woods where I shot at and missed: a cockatoo, a fox, and a huge kangaroo. Happy to have missed all three items, I walked home. What an amazing place. Un abrazo,—peter
P.S. It would help us oldsters if this type were not a pale yellow. If my message is replete with typos,k it is because I can’t see what I’m typing.
I brought pasalubongs too: a kangaroo T-shirt and a mini-boomerang for my friend Dimas whose birthday party I missed because I was in Australia, and for my class, I pack of gummy sweets that are the Aussie equivalent of Haribos.
It seems I am not the only person in this office who thought that koalas were bears.
Hi Gina,
From Australia I would like a kangaroo, too.
My family has same tradition, when we go out we always buy a lot of souvenirs…. When I go out, I always buy these presents to my family:
for my sister a t-shirt, my father a bottle of wine, my mother cakes and a magnet to the fridge…
Bye,
Leticia.
Hi Gina,
did you bring pasalubongs for your students too?
No? What a pitty… But don’t worry. The next time you go to Australia don’t forget to bring me a real Angus Young pick. It’ll surely help me to play Highway to Hell better than I do now.
JC
Hi, Gina, and everyone,
When I travel I also like to buy souvenirs for my family and friends, and I also like more to buy thinks for other that for myself. Sometimes, the things that you can buy are not very valuable, but they mean that you have though about the people giving your present. I think it is a way to share your trip, and also it is a way to enjoy the country you are visiting.
Thanks for you weekly letter, it is like a souvenir from Australia for all us.
Bye.
Conchi Calvo
Oxbow, Billabong… I just thought they were brand names…
As for pasalubongs, sometimes I think it borders obsession in the Filipino world. I don’t think it’s always necessary to be giving gifts (though true, everyone likes a present). I personally get very stressed when I have to buy people things (birthdays, Christmas, house-visits, trips). Spontaneous gifts are nicer than the must-buy gifts. And if you come to my house to stay or have dinner, you don’t have to bring anything, really. Just return the favor someday.
A gift should be appreciated but never, ever expected.
Oooh!!! I give and get lots of spontaneous, just-because, non-trip, non-event surprise gifts too!!! And I appreciate gifts, any gifts…with a passion. I do nevertheless agree that they are not necessary. And I prefer the boomerangs to come back in other, non-material forms.
Hi,
I’ve been always surprised by the fact of so much people loving Australia. I think it can be exotic and that it has a lot of wonderful places but… why Australia and no any other country? I think that the extremely long distance you must cover to arrive makes it more inviting.
But, in the same way European people feel attracted by Australia, Aussies must love going abroad, as far as I know. Have anybody heard that there are continuously more than two million of Australian people OUT of the country? This number becomes really astonishing when you know that the population hardly exceed 20 million of inhabitants…
Hi, Elena, and thank you for your comment. I went to Australia to visit my daughter. There used to be an ad that went: “I’d walk a mile for a Camel.” Well, I’d fly a zillion miles to see my daughter.”
When I used to live in California and returned every now and then to the Philippines to visit my parents and brothers, the Filipinos on staff at my company would load me down with pasalubongs for THEIR families. I sometimes had to check in another whole bag. Finally I stopped this by saying that I would only carry a single #10 envelope. Whew. In this sense, Wesley is right; it can border on an obsession. Even nowadays when I reteurn from Manila to my favorite coffee shop here in Baguio (Philippines) all the girls (eight of them) want to know where are their pasalubongs. I tell them I brought tehm back some pollution from Manila.