When Filipinos gather

Dateline, Fukuoka, Japan. One cannot miss them. The loud gay voices are there. The laughter, the banter. The stories never end. There is just so much to share and to enjoy together, until the next party comes around.

Every year, on the 3rd of November, Mr. and Mr. Nakamura of InterAsia Company prepare for a big gathering of former Filipino caregiving trainees. This year , the 5th batch of graduates came in almost full force. All in all, 80 Filipino long-term or permanent residents have enrolled and successfully completed the course for caregivers provided by Mr. Nakamura, in coordination with Fukuoka's YMCA and other support groups.

 For many days ahead, the very kind and generous Nakamura couple already prepare for the annual event. They inform friends and kin who come to help a day before or on the day of the party itself. They make a list of things to do and items to buy as well as food and drinks to prepare. Then they go around shops for the drinks for the adult visitors. They make sure the children among the guests get their fair share of their favorite drinks and food. Toys are made available as well. Even door prizes are prepared for anticipated bingo games.

 The Nakamura couple do not have to do this for their graduates. However, the Nakamura couple do not provide the training only so that our Filipino women can learn new skills of caregiving and get to read and write Nihongo. The Nakamura couple are doing their share to help foreign women, including our Filipino women, adjust and live dignified and protected lives in Japan. The couple are living out the dream of their son Kenichiro, who died of brain tumor, in his early 30s.

And their Filipino graduates do not disappoint them. They come with their warmth and their appreciation for the couple whom they treat as their parents. Mr. Nakamura is hugged warmly, gratefully by his Filipino graduates who call him Otoosan, the Japanese term for Father. Mrs. Nakamura is fondly referred to as Okaasan, their mother.

When the Filipinos gather together, expect a boisterous, happy party. They do not disappoint. They sing upon request and they come with their beautiful singing voices. After all, many of them were and are still entertainers by night.

They are called zainichi Filipinos, the long-term or permanent residents in Japan. They came as entertainers and got married, or some have divorced or separated from their Japanese partners but they are here to stay with their children. They dream of having dignified lives for themselves and their children. They want to change the course of their life by having permanent respectable jobs. Hence, they enrolled for the caregivers' course offered by Mr. Nakamura who offers it at a very reasonable price, almost half of the going rate of training fees throughout Japan.

 "Di maiwasan para sa ngayon , 'Te. We cannot help but work in the evening for now, Ate," they explain to me. They still send money back home to their parents, to their families back home. And entertainment work is what they do best until now. They sing, they entertain guests, Japanese, who like them, are advancing in age. They are entertainers by night. Some are also caregivers by day. There are not enough caregiving jobs yet open to Filipino caregivers.

 When the Filipinos gather, expect various languages to be spoken, many of them speaking Tagalog as many come from various parts of Luzon. Expect a number to speak Visayan, Cebuano and Ilongo, among those from Bacolod, Cebu and even distant Davao.

Expect fun and entertainment and stories when Filipinos gather. And expect the sad stories as well to be interspersed amidst the gaiety and smiles that some bravely put on for the party. "Te, please advise the Filipino women who will marry Japanese to expect a life of a maid here in Japan. The wives are expected to do everything in the house, aside from caring for their spouse and their children. They have work outside but they are expected to do housework as well. There is no time to rest, not even the time to get sick."

Despite the hard work, and often the solitude of being in Japan with their new family and new life, when Filipinos gather, they abandon their cares and problems to the autumn winds. They become the life of the party! They are after all, veteran entertainers. They dream of changing their careers as soon as a respectable, sustainable job comes along. Until then, they gather when they can and try to be as happy as they can be, where they are.

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