'Ngek!'

WHEN students ask for guidelines on their research papers, I reply by saying that they should use as many primary sources as they can. Then, they should give me something new, preferably something I don't know.

The last requirement always elicits an audible groan, forcing me to explain that, contrary to popular belief, I am not Ernie Baron. I'm not a walking encyclopedia and, modesty aside, I definitely look better. (My mother will back me on this anytime.)

One bit of humbling advice I learned from postgraduate school is that we should never be smug about knowing anything and everything about our area of expertise because there will always be an obscure German academic who has written on the topic long before we even stepped into a classroom. For this reason, we are left with a limited number of options for dissertation topics.

How specialized can one get than "Timber cutting in colonial Burma" or "The significance of names of Russian horses in 18th-century St. Peterburg"?
The academic world is so small it is quite a challenge to find a topic nobody has tackled before. At one point, I actually considered the following only to be told they have been done already: "A history of early Hungarian cabinet-making," "Chronology of the Pharaohs of Lower Egypt," and, would you believe, "Leg-jiggling ["kuyakoy"] among Quezon City youths in 1965."

To survey the range of topics studied, all you have to do is scan the academic journals in university libraries. Then you realize that very little seems to be unknown in the world today and yet we have not reached utopia. At best, academic journals will affirm the unfair stereotype about those who know more and more about less and less.

I remember seeing an article on "Yaya English" in a journal years ago. Although I thought it was an original piece of work, I did not read it at the time. Now decades later, I realize that what started as a purely intellectual exercise is now relevant in the light of the thousands of Filipono nannies we have exported worldwide. I even asked Bencab to do me a painting based on a photograph of a "yaya" [nanny] in the early 20th century carrying a cute Caucasian baby. I already had a title for the painting that is yet to come: "Contemporary History" because it seems that a century after that photograph was taken many Filipinas are still yayas. Bencab has finished a drawing, but when that will be developed into his famous "Larawan" paintings, one cannot tell.

A friend recently sent me a copy of a dictionary of "Filipino English," part of a series that acknowledges that the English spoken around the world differs from that in England or the United States, which is slowly being referred to as "American." Foreigners say we speak a peculiar brand of "American." A Malaysian journalist told me that the way a child speaks is an indicator not just of the nanny but also socio-economic class.

Filipina nannies are the best and the most expensive in Kuala Lumpur, thus, upper-class Malaysian children speak English with a Filipino accent, while middle-class ones speak with an Indonesian accent.

It is only when we are abroad or when foreigners hear us that we stop to notice the kind of English we speak. A friend who owns a school in Laguna prides herself on their speak-English-only policy that led to some amusing situations. Walking by a noisy classroom one day, she overheard one of the students say, "Shhh ... 'lola' [grandmother] has just passed away." Ngek!

Another time a student raised his hand and said, "Father, Mother, Me." The teacher asked, "What?" The student repeated more emphatically "Father, Mother, Me!" Puzzled the teacher asked again," What? I don't understand." The student now desperate shouted, "Father, Mother, Me!!" Translation: Tatay, Ina, Ako. Read that quickly and you will definitely exclaim, "Ngek!"

This true story comes from my favorite aunt in Pampanga who overheard the following telephone exchange one morning:

Caller: "Hello, nandiyan ba si Mr. Ocampo?" [Hello, is Mr. Ocampo there?]

Maid: "Opo" [Yes, sir].

Caller: "Puede ko ba makausap?" [May I speak with him?]

Maid: "Opo, pero sino pong Mr. Ocampo ang gusto nyong makausap, ang babae o ang lalake? [Yes, sir, but which Mr. Ocampo would you like to speak with, the woman or the man?]

Ngek!

The same aunt related a time when they gave the maid money one Sunday to buy three newspapers (in the order of importance): Inquirer, Star and Bulletin.

The maid returned with the papers and said, "Ate, wala pong Inquirer at Star, kaya eto bumili ako ng tatlong Bulletin." [Ma'am, there were no Inquirer and Star, so I bought three copies of the Bulletin.] Ngek!

Surely there are more stories of this kind waiting to be told and compiled, but of late a list of Filipino expressions has been making the rounds of e-mail and is called, "Mga sablay na hirit..." Although I have overheard a number in everyday conversation, some sound like they were lifted from Nestor Torre's long-running "Boob tube boo boos" or seem to be quotable quotes from Melanie Marquez. I share some of them here, knowing that these will one day be elevated to full academic scrutiny. For the moment just read and exclaim, "Ngek!"

"Drink your own dose."

"Eat your chicken pride."

"Been there, been that."

"Burn the bridge when you get there."

"Annulled and void."

"Mute and academic."

"Right there and right then."

"You can never can tell."

"What's your next class before this?"

"Give him the benefit of the daw."

At a McDonald's outlet, "How much is the kidney meal?"

"You're barking at the wrong dog."

"In the wink of an eye."

Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.