A Pinoy Paddy's Day

Having your birthday on St. Patrick's Day is great, especially if you're partly Irish and your middle name is Patrick. (Total coincidence, by the way.) In the US, it's a big enough holiday that people get a little excited, but not so big that it overshadows your birthday, the way Christmas might. It compliments things well. However, the Irish have not made too many cultural inroads to my town. Despite the heavily rooted Catholicism in the Philippines, the patron saint of Ireland and engineers is not well known.

What's more, Filipinos celebrate birthdays in a different way. Instead of the birthday-haver's meals, drinks, and everything else being bought for them, and harsh refusals of any suggestion on the part of the birthday haver's offer to pay for anything, here, the one with the birthday is expected to pay for all. In other words, if you don't shell out, you have no party. So you can pretty much decide what kind of a party you want by how much you want to pay. I opted for a low-key office celebration, rather than a huge party fueled by multiple suckling pigs (maybe next year).

Here's the snacks I purchased: pretty standard stuff. A liter of Coke (with real sugar, by the way, I hear that these "Mexican Cokes" are all the rage among hipsters in the US), a liter of Sprite, my two favorite kinds of Pinoy chips, some fresh baked goods, and a trio of kasava cakes I was somewhat coerced into buying earlier in the day from a door-to-door salesman.
The snacks

My birthday ended up turning into a two-day celebration when I brought back the snacks on the 17th and my neighbor/host brother/co-worker expressed great surprise. It turned out he had ordered a cake for me, but thought it was for the 18th. So, on the 18th here, when it was still the 17th in my true birthday-time zone, I continued to receive birthday greetings from home, got a couple packages in the mail, and got to eat a cake inscribed "Happy Birthday Craig Bossman" (I'm the boss, man!). It was a pretty low-key birthday but ended up being a lot of fun. I think for next year, I'll probably go a little more all-out, and also inject a little green food-coloring into the situation. Thanks to everybody who wished me a happy birthday, it's nice to know that so many people are thinking of me while I'm over here (and that Facebook's birthday reminder is a remarkably effective tool).

Speaking of Ireland, I just finished Dubliners by James Joyce. I think the cover of this edition, which my dad sent to me, is remarkably cool (I also highly enjoyed the writing, and recommend that you read it).