It's Easier to Talk about the Birds and the Bees by Carl Javier

I'm usually an articulate person. Sit me down and I could talk on and on for hours about movies, music,
books, video games, or the various geek kingdoms that my thoughts inhabit. I've delivered a few papers
at conferences and talks and though I still get butterflies in my stomach, I'm pretty comfortable with
public speaking. Lather up my tongue with enough alcohol and you've got a fat chance of getting me to
shut up. There's just one situation that I don't do too well.

Im no good at talking to girls.

In a formal or professional setting, I'm alright. I can handle that. And female friends that I've gotten
comfortable with, that's a cinch. It's just every other situation with girls or women that becomes
problematic. I get nervous, I get tongue-tied, and if I like the girl, my brain usually turns to soup and I
start mumbling or blathering about. It's like those funny characters in romantic comedies who get dumb
around the girls that they like, except that what's endearing in romantic comedies isn't exactly
endearing in real life.

This has posed a problem as I've grown up and my life has changed. Like all families, mine has its
problems, and recently I've had to become the positive male role model. Not a problem with my brother
and me. We've got a five-year age gap, but we get along alright. We'd hang out, play video games, throw
a football or frisbee around until he left for college studies in the United States.

What's been tougher has been making a connection with my sister. She's 11 and I'm 24; and however
little I knew about girls of that age when I was eleven myself isn't helping me. I'll tell you, it's been a lot
of work trying to understand the things that she's going through. I had my own problems during
adolescence in coping with things happening around me, (it was in my adolescent years that my family
moved back to the Philippines; I grew up in Los Angeles), and hers are a completely different set of
problems to face.

I've been worrying about the time when I'll have to talk to her about the birds and the bees. She's in the
fifth grade, and around that age, they started giving us Sex Education classes when I was in the States.
Also, there has been an alarming amount of phone activity at our house, not a few of those calls made
by boys who can't seem to wait until their voices start cracking.

It turns out though, that we've already started the time of tough talks. I can't help but feel that it's too
soon to be talking about the adult world, as if I'm the one shearing away at her childish innocence as I
have to answer the questions she has.

One day we were walking down the street of the apartment we just moved into. Just down the street is
a townhouse development called Flamingo Lane. It's a pretty place with quaint homes and those realtor
billboards that make it look like a piece of paradise. She and her friends talk about buying a place there
one day.

She asked me, "Kuya, why don't we live there?"

This line of inquiry continued to questions like, 'Why don't we have the money to buy a place like that?'
and on to, 'Why are there rich and poor people?'
Though I graduated with a writing degree, I do have training in the social sciences, and I've done a lot of
relevant writing and reading in those fields, especially political science. And yet, I could not explain the
issue of social divide properly. Should I talk about the capitalist system? How in that system there would
always be an exploited lower class? Should I tell her about the Ursula LeGuin short story, The Ones Who
Walk Away from Omelas," where there would always have to be someone who suffers for the greater
good? Could it be as easy as saying, "Ganyan ang buhay, may mayaman, may mahirap"? But I knew that
she deserved an answer. I just didn't know what the answer was.

I considered saying some people work hard and others don't. But that's not true, because there are a lot
of rich kids living fat off family money while there are factory workers busting their butts for minimum
wage.

How do you break down all the social factors, all the contexts which would explain to an 11-year-old
why there are poor people and rich people? And get her to appreciate all levels of that argument?
Before the attention span elapses and they want to talk about something else, that is.

I told her there were different kinds of wealth. Her rich classmates tease her when she can't afford the
things that they can, when she shows up with second-hand uniforms and school supplies from last year.

I give her books. I tell her there are other things besides money, other ways to be a rich person. She
does not understand this. But she wouldn't have understood a sociological explanation of our economic
situation either.

In either case she would have to work with something, decipher something which was beyond her realm
of understanding. But I'd rather that she figure out what I meant by other ways to be rich. To enrich
oneself. It'll take years for it to sink in. I can only hope it does.
My Crab Mentality by Jose Y. Dalisay, Jr.
I love crabs. That goes as well for shrimps, prawns, lobsters, clams, and nearly anything thats lived in
the ocean. May they find eternal repose in my guts.

My passion for seafood began, I suppose, in childhood when we had almost nothing but galunggong -the
old GG-morning, noon and night: daing na GG, piniritong GG, sinigang na GG, tinapang GG, inihaw na
GG, binurong GG, etc. It was cheap, it was available, and sometimes it was red-eyed. Now and then we
got some relief, in the form of canned sardines and cuttlefish, the latter pickled in brine that I always
understood to be sabaw. The sardines came in large oval tins that made great toy cars the minute you
licked them dry; you punched holes in the sides with a nail, drove a tingting through (leading your
mother to wonder about the progressive depilation of her walis ), and attached four tansans for wheels.

But we were talking about food values, werent we? Oh, yes, sardines. Ligo should rate right up there
with xerox for generic excellence (hmm, is that an oxymoron or what?). It was the only sardine brand
we knew, aside from the occasional Tome, which we had on special days. On truly special days, there
was Libbys Corned Beef and Campbells Chicken Noodle Soup. Everything great and wonderful came in
cans.

I know Im digressing, but bear with me for a while, because I intend to build up dramatically towards
my real subject, which is crabs. Back to cans: do you know what Ligo means? Have a little respect for
what you eat, folks, and read the label. It means Liberty Gold-at least it did, originally.

Ligo retained its special place in my undergraduate heart. In the early 70s, when there was always
some rally or other to go to in the afternoon-which meant we had to fortify ourselves with a decent
lunch-my fellow Maoists and I repaired to the rear of Vinzons Hall in Diliman, climbed over the wall, and
crossed the street to what everyone called the Balara Hilton. It was a ramshackle carinderia with wire-
mesh windows, and its blue-plate special was a can of Ligo, opened by the chef and sauted right before
your very eyes in the finest traditions of Hong Kongs seafood restaurants. All this was dumped into a
bowl to go with a plate of steaming rice, for P2.50. Sorry, no Visa or Master Card.

During my first visit to the US in 1980, I walked a mile across cornfields, past white picket fences, to find
an Asian food store in the middle of the freezing Midwest, there to load myself up with-you guessed it-
Ligo. I had a small cache of the same in my luggage when I flew to Scotland last September (I was
through with walking and foraging, I said to myself). Am I glad that 747 didnt blow up; the whole cabin
wouldve smelled like anchovies.

Those of you who dont understand this Pinoy passion for canned sardines have to know that, in many
corners of this archipelago, Ligos as good as gold. Dont be miffed when a farmer or fisherman in the
boonies opens a can for you, his special guest from the Big City, instead of broiling you some of that
luscious tuna hes feeding his dogs. Hes offering you the most highly-prized item on the rural menu,
short of corned beef: thats right, canned sardines.

You and I would prefer fresh seafood, of course-if we could afford it. Sometimes, I think that my whole
working lifes been a struggle to finally afford fresh seafood-GG, biya and tulya excluded, thank you.
Seafoods one of the great blessings of this country, as any trip to the fish market will tell you. Coupled
with penury, it also makes for one of our lousiest ironies.
Now, I wont be cute and say Im still that poor. Thanks to the credit card, Im indentured to Citibank for
life. But much of that debts gone to living out my fantasies, such as dining out at places which take
credit cards. You know, of course, that youre getting ripped off twice over, by the meal and by the
interest rate. I always think, "Hell, I couldve cooked that at home at a fifth of the cost! (Details of my
shady past as a onetime Chinese fast-food cook will have to wait for another Barfly.) So why didnt I?

Because, aside from the thrill of eating at someone elses place and then paying with a stroke of a
ballpen, the old GG mindset hasnt really left me, I guess. Whenever Beng and I cruise the seafood stalls
at Farmers Market, I drool all over the slabs of marlin and the mounds of giant prawn, and-yes!-the tubs
of big, fat and mean-eyed crabs. And then I look at the prices-about P210/kilo these days for those
sumptuous Shivas, about two of them to the kilo, vs. about P48/kilo for GG -and I freeze in guilt and
shame. A hundred-peso crab? Thats criminal!

Well, crime finally got the better of me the other day. I saved a hundred bucks by successfully evading
one inaanak over Christmas, marched down to Farmers with Beng, and, after exercising all the delicacy
and restrained lechery of a beauty-contest judge, I picked out my hapless victim. He was all of 600
grams, and he looked like he was a baby when Admiral Dewey's Olympia steamed over his head. I paid
the vendor, who stuffed him in a plastic bag, and I drove home with my dinner on the floor, wondering if
I had a pot large enough for murder. I was hoping, meanwhile, that he would die with a quiet little crab-
groan; our apartment has a no-pet policy.

As it turned out, I had a deep frying pan. I set the crab on the kitchen counter while I went about my
preparations, lacing the boiling water with salt and with such condiments as I thought would penetrate
his skull. Dinner for two coming up, I announced to Beng.

I think Ill have a problem with this one, she said. Its alive.

Yegads, indeed it was. Its massive claws were tied with string, but its eyes twitched and stared like
daggers into my soul. Well, Beng, I reasoned, looking away, so were hotdogs, at some point.
Besides, I seriously doubted if crabs had pain receptors in their brains-sort of read that in some National
Geographic, I thought.

Enjoy yourself, she said, chopping up some dead mushrooms.

So what was I to do? Fortunately, I remembered what the Indian hunters did before spearing buffalo:
they prayed to its spirit and begged its forgiveness.

So I prayed to the crab. Be assured, I said, that no one loves you more than I do. And I dropped it
into the pan and shut the lid. Sic transit.