Born in the Philippines and proud to be a Filipina and an Asian. Writing for the second time around and this article will focus to the character build up for your Filipino characters in your novels. From what I noticed, there are a lot of Filipino writers here on Wattpad and for their benefit and to everybody's benefit who are reading their stories, please refer to this article for further understanding. Again, hit me up in the comment section for discussions!
Little Brown Americans
Don't you ever dare to describe your Filipino characters as "little brown Americans", it's so racist and it is beyond an insult. Filipinos are not at all brown and little, we are composed of different races so when you go to my country, you'll often see Chinese looking people and heck some of us are a combination of Spanish look or American build, that's why people from other countries describe as exotic. As a writer, don't limit yourself by describing our skin tones as dark because some of us are fair skinned and whiter than you thought. A handful of us are also tall and we don't look like monkeys! Our facial features are mixed of Chinese, Spanish and American beauty.
Idiots?
True that we succumbed to Spain's colony for 333 years and the domination and slavery that they bestowed upon us made us a little like dumb beings. But I have to tell you that we are in the 21st century right now and as time passes, we also change. We are exceling in a lot of things right now especially in terms of showcasing our talents (watch X Factor & AGT) and Tourism (Foreigners love our beaches!). We are actually very clever and resourceful, so don't underestimate your character's ability, make them witty, strong, independent, loud because that is what we are.
Intersecting Cultures
Filipino culture is almost like a combination of all other cultures from Asia and Europe! True we preserve a lot of practices that came from the Chinese, Spanish and American culture. Like Chinese, parents are also strict when it comes to pushing our limits (that's why a lot of us have many talents and smart). The Chinese New Year and Ramadan are non-working holidays for us and we also celebrate it because a majority of us are Chinese and Muslims. We also highly respect our elders by saying "Po or Opo" and did you know that in the Philippines public transportations such as buses and MRTs have a special place for the elderly and pregnant. We also practice a lot of Chinese superstitions during New Year, Death, Weddings, Pregnancy and Christmas and even in our daily routines. So it's okay to say that your Filipino character has an amulet around his or her neck to knock away all the evil spirits.
Language
We don't speak Carabao English. Although our linguistic record is composed of almost 100+ dialects, Filipinos can speak English fluently. We use it every day in our daily routines, especially in school and work and there's no accent into it (maybe you can say some, but a lot of us can speak straight English). It is also the reason why a lot of Koreans, Japanese and Chinese go to the Philippines to learn English.
Religion, Christians & Muslims
Our religion is constituted of two main religions and that is Christianity and Islam. When it comes to Christianity, our Church is stronger than the State. Church rules are still highly implemented and exercised in my country. A lot of us has a very strong connection with God and it is our source of inspiration to overcome our problems. Filipinos recite a million different prayers a day, that's how strong our faith is. We always go to church on Sundays with our family and celebrate festivals as an offer to the different saints. For the Muslims, I'm not going to discuss much because I'm not a Muslim but we also appreciate their religion and practices and I can say these guys are also faithful to their Allah.
Education
Filipinos strive hard to finish their education. It's the most important thing that all of us wants to accomplish in life. But most of us don't stop there and sometimes after two to three years of work experience, we study again to attain a Master's Degree or a PHD Degree. It is also because the nature of the companies here in the Philippines require their employees to have more than just a College degree. Right now, Philippines is adjusting to its new school system: Preschool - Primary School - Junior High School - 2 Years Senior High School - College. We also have SATs and NATs and come before College a lot of students go to review centers during the summer to study for the entrance exams. A lot of also dreams to be part of the BIG 4 Universities (Like IVY League schools in the US): University of the Philippines, Ateneo De Manila University, De La Salle University and University of Santo Tomas as part of bragging rights (which is true). But getting into these universities are no joke, and I'm proud to say that my alma mater is part of the Big 4!
Courtship
We always preserve the traditional courtship ways because we always deem it as "proper" and "ethical" and since Philippines is a Catholic country, the boy will always ask the permission of the girl's parents before the get into a relationship. Courtship in the Philippines is not the usual chocolates and flowers tandem, you also have to bring gifts to the parents of the girl to please them. Usually the boys also help the parents with the house chores to get to know them more and win their hearts eventually by impressing them through their performance.
Cuisine
Talking about food, each provinces and ethnicity has its own cuisine. From what I noticed, Filipinos loves to eat rice. It's like they can never live without it. From breakfast to midnight snacks, we always eat rice. We are heavy eaters, and we can have 2 to 3 cups of rice in a meal. We also love eating fatty foods, which made most of our parents high blood and prone to heart attack (yikes!) and we also like eating sweets and rice cakes! We have a variety of dishes when it comes to desserts (halo-halo!)
24 Hour Social Media
Filipinos are very fond of the social media and we never put down our smart phones. We took advantage of its features by making it as an avenue to network, to market, to release a public service announcement, to bash one another, to make an online business and many more (part of being resourcefulness). Filipinos are active 24/7 on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. So you can say that your Filipino character is that one character who stays up to 2 am watching grumpy cut videos on YouTube.
Happy Virus
Filipinos always smile despite all the mishaps in life. We never look down but we always look at the bright side. No matter what happened we never lose hope and we always move on. And we always spread happiness to everybody to uplift our spirits every time. I think that one, is a very special trait that you can inflict in your Filipino characters because it is really 100% true.
I don't know if I missed something else but I hope you found this useful for your character build up. Mabuhay mga Pilipino!
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Writing POC 101
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