Part of my paper will include food and body image.

tw: fatphobia, mentions of classism

Back in yonder days when I was a wee Finn, my mother and rest of my family would praise me for how often I would eat. I was so fat – mataba. I wasn’t physically incapable. I was just a pudgy yet strong three/four-year-old. It meant I was healthy and upper-class (for the Philippines). It’s a good sign. She was so proud of me.

But then we moved to Germany. I don’t know when it shifted but I remember when it caught me off guard.

“You’re so fat.”

That was fine and all but this time it was negative. Why? My mom was looking at me after I had just eaten breakfast – the breakfast she prepared for me. I’m five, I can’t fix my plate. I’m too short to reach the counter.

“You’re pretty…”

“You’re smart…”

“You’re funny…”

… but you’re fat.

When did it become such a bad thing? I thought that was what I was supposed to do. Am I not going to live a long, healthy life anymore? Was I going to die and it was all my fault? Yeah probably.

It was very blunt. I’m going to die of a heart attack, a stroke, choke on rice, whatever. Why couldn’t I be my like my brother? We were both similar – academically excellent, extracurricular activities, never got into trouble, sociable, played at the playground, etc. But god damn, he was infinitely better because he was skinny. The same skinniness that made you afraid he was going to die.

And so my formative years were centered on “If I can become smart and rich, I can afford liposuction and then people will like me.” Thanks ma.

So the research I conducted was to study three people – myself, my son, and my partner. My son, Jesse, is adopted and the embodiment of a saltine cracker. My partner, Brent, is Pinoy but 100% American yet still very in touch with his roots.

My son knows I care very deeply about my country – even the president who will shoot you for maybe smoking some weed. As much as I dislike Duterte, Marcos, and the rest of my family for inviting in the Japanese like the dirty, dirty sell-outs they were and still are, they’re still a part of me and rejecting them does nothing. I’m not as in touch as I or my mother would like me to be but I will not lose my culture until I die. Jesse and Brent know this well.

They know I like the ramen shop in downtown Olympia, Kizuki’s. What is it about that place that reminds me of home?

The thick noodles.

I don’t even know what they’re called. I can’t remember where I had them before. They taste like gentrification. But something about them reminds me of… something. So I keep coming back over and over and over.

Jesse likes it because his gay dad(s) like it and it has some nifty food. But Brent and I go there just to flex on him that he’s white and we’re not. But most of all, we’re homesick. I have to load it up because my metaphorical Pinoy card will be taken by the valid police. I guess.

There are studies on deja vu and what it is and why we have it. The conclusive answer is: It reminds you of something or you think it reminds you of something.

That’s something to ponder about.