'Po'

"HELLO, may I speak to Mr. Arroyo please?"

Silence.

"Hello? Hello?" You're wondering what's happened and might even put down the phone, thinking you've been disconnected. If you're patient enough though, you'll eventually hear sounds in the background and Mr. Arroyo's footsteps as he approaches the phone and finally answers.

What I just described actually happens all the time in the Philippines. In Tagalog, we describe the silence as "ni ho ni ha." neither a "ho" nor a "ha" as the person who answered the phone goes off to get the person you're looking for, without a "Just a minute please" or the (incorrect) "For a while sir."

Until recently, I'd get quite upset whenever I got that "silent treatment," seeing it as rudeness on the part of the person who answered. The final straw came when I got that treatment from operators at a five-star hotel in Manila. I complained to management. They were shocked this was happening and ordered a retraining of their operators.

Yet, it took my Canadian brother-in-law, who was the person I was trying to contact at the hotel, to "defend" the operators. He said he'd seen the same behavior among the Inuit (Eskimos) in Canada. An Inuit food server, for example, will take your order and then just walk away in silence, coming back after some time with the food. That behavior might again be interpreted as rude, or leave you wondering if you did something wrong and had offended the waiter.

Sounds of silence

There are vast differences in etiquette across cultures, including the way we express politeness in language. These differences can create problems, especially as we become more globalized and have to deal directly with people of different cultures. Imagine a large firm in Europe calling your office and getting the silent treatment from your operators; you could actually lose business because the callers-Westerners or Filipinos like myself-might interpret the operators' "ni ho ni ha" as a lack, not just of etiquette, but of professionalism on the part of the entire company.

Silence has different meanings in different cultures. Filipinos lapse into silence when we're in a tense or uncertain situation. When there are conflicts in the office for example, the Western response is to call for a "dialogue," which can turn out to be a fiery match, with protagonists shouting at each other and then shaking hands at the end. In a Filipino setting, bringing protagonists together will only mean cold stony silence. A good manager has to understand the silence does not mean an inability to dialogue but is actually an act of politeness. The silence means both sides are too hurt, too angry, to communicate and they know this. They are unwilling to start a conversation that will only end up in "kabastusan," being rude to each other. The silence is a polite way of asking for more time.

In other instances, the silence may mean "Let's not discuss this anymore. Let's not have a Tupperware party." Tupperware? That's slang for saying "The other side is totally insincere so let's not try to be plastic, like Tupperware." That's a form of etiquette, too, not wanting to waste the precious time of the office.

Women are particularly effective with this silence, knowing that sometimes that silence can be a sign of strength, especially when jousting with men. On the surface, the silence may seem like acquiescence, but eventually the male realizes he has lost the battle, that the woman's silence means, "I will not stoop to your level and get insulted by more of your lies. I forgive you, but I will never, never forget."

Melodrama as etiquette

Paradoxically, we also swing to the other extreme of saying too much when we try to be polite. It was UP Prof. Jeena Rani Marquez who first alerted me to this phenomenon in a paper she presented in a conference two or three years ago. She introduced her paper by reading a letter from a student who wanted to return to the university after having taken a leave of absence for three semesters.

The letter had 154 words, with the student going into a long explanation of her leave, how she got pregnant, how she had a "wonderful baby boy," how she thought of returning to school but how financial difficulties prevented her from doing so and how they couldn't afford to get a yaya (nanny) for her son and nephew ("both are babies," she qualifies).
Marquez's point was that the long narrative was unnecessary and could have even become counter-productive, with a university official negatively reacting to all the melodrama. On the other hand, the letter is "correct" in terms of Filipino etiquette because it invokes our value of pakiramdam, "feeling the other person's feelings." To get to the point, seen as a virtue in the West, may seem rude so we tend to bring in some kind of introduction to conversations, letters, even casual encounters. That includes the rude (by Western standards), "Uy, you've put on weight" to people already in despair with their being overweight and "Uy, you're losing so much weight" to people already feeling emaciated.
Returning to the student, note that if her letter had been in Filipino, it would probably have elicited less negative reactions. The use of English sets the tone for the exchange: when we speak or write in English, we're expected to take on "American" or "Western" values, including being direct, with verbosity then becoming an affront ("What a waste of my time" or "Who's she trying to fool?").

Translating 'po'

Still another paradox: the student's letter might actually have been shorter if she had written it in Filipino. Marquez points out that Filipinos sometimes become more verbose when making a request in English because we suddenly find ourselves at a loss when we cannot use "po" from Tagalog and some Philippine languages.

"Po" is a powerful magical word that dispenses with the need to go into lengthy introductions. "Pahingi" (Give me) sounds almost aggressive but "pahingi po" is polite, even endearing. Yet "po" defies translation, which explains another dilemma in our now bilingual society: when we write in English, the absence of a "po" makes the letter-writing difficult. Note the difference between, "I would like to return to study this semester," which can sound almost demanding and which would therefore have required long rationalizations, and "Nais ko pong bumalik sa pag-aaral ngayong semester."

Different languages employ different "devices" for etiquette. Besides the "po" in Tagalog we have "paki-", somewhat like the English "please." Cebuano does not have "po," which can create problems when a Cebuano talks with Tagalogs. The Cebuanos do have "palihug," similar to the English "please" and Tagalog "paki" but also incorporating a sense of "only if you want to."

Learning to "switch" around the codes of etiquette in different languages can be daunting, but it is essential, palihug lang po please, we pick up this skill if we are to survive in our multicultural age.