My family and I went to a huge New Year's Eve celebration last night at the Performing Arts Center in Oxnard. All I have to say is that Filipino people really, really, really love line dancing. I'm not talking about spurs and cowboy boots; I'm talking about any fairly recent pop song cover done by some unknown woman, usually a Filipino woman, and dancing in a line. Watching my mother in her sky blue taffeta dress trying to do the steps for the dance was literally one of the funniest moments of 2009.
OMG! I can't believe another year has gone by! Of course, today doesn't feel that different from yesterday, although I did have more fun last night than I have had for a New Year's celebration in a long time. It was a dry party, if you can believe it, so my siblings and I brought some beer in a cooler, and left it in my car. A couple of times during the night, we would excuse ourselves and hang out in the parking lot to have some drinks, as any self-respecting American would do on New Year's Eve. Dianne and Brian also had their flasks with them, Dianne had tequila, Brian had whiskey. I didn't have to much to drink last night, didn't even get a buzz, but it was fun tailgating it out in the parking lot.
As I stood in the courtyard watching the Filipinos line dancing, I remembered once again how strange it is to be Filipino. Not just Filipino, but Chinappino. It is very strange being biracial. While it is strange enough to be privy to witness the oddities of Filipino culture, I'm always reminding myself that almost no matter where I go, I will never really fit in, and it has nothing to do with my sexuality. I'm not saying it was uncomfortable, just an awareness that I was in a very real way different from most of the people there. Most of them were 100% Filipino, or as close as you can be in this world because pretty much every Filipino you meet will have some Spanish blood in them. The members of my family were some of the very few Chinese people that were there. And, when we go to Chinatown, we are some of the very few Filipino people that are there. Of course, you have your requisite white military husbands there, but that is a blog for another day. For some reason, there were very few people there under 40. I guess most of these people's children had better parties to go to. I mean seriously, a dry New Year's Eve party???
At the end of the night, my siblings and I basically went crazy on the dance floor and took all kinds of crazy pictures. It was great! I love my family, XD
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