Room for rent in recently refurbished flat. Ideal for busy young professional: conveniently located near River Thames with gym, supermarket, parks, cafes and restaurants within walking distance. Nearest tube Parsons Green and Fulham Broadway. Bus routes C3, 28, 44, 295, 391 & 424.
A TV production company is looking for young people with a South East Asian background to take part in a series revolving around food. The programme will take people on a cultural journey to South East Asia to give them a chance to see where and how our favourite foods are made.
They’ve asked us to post this press release:
Are you of South East Asian origin? A brand new BBC TV show is looking for Brits with a South East Asian background to go on a journey of discovery to find out here our food comes from.
Does food play a major role in your life?
Ever wondered where your food comes from?
Have you never had the chance to visit Asia?
We want to give you the chance to travel to South East Asia to find out how the food we eat is made.
If you are aged between 18 and 26 and interested in finding out more,
Please call one of the team on 01273 224 819
Or email [email protected]
Tasmin Poynton, one of our visitors, wanted to let us know about her place in the Miss Fresh Photographic competition.
Tasmin: "I’m 18 and live in Wiltshire, my mum is from Philippines (wooo) and my dad is English. To my knowledge, I am the only Filipino girl in the heat, and would love to become the first Filo-English Miss England! I am a black belt in kickboxing, I have been doing the Filipino martial art kali illustrisimo for about 3 years now, and I also have a keen interest in music: having a grade 2 in clarinet, grade 4 in violin, and grade 6 in piano. After I finish college, I would love to stay with my family for a year in the Philippines and do some sort of charity work, including help street families and children. By becoming Miss England I feel that I will have the ability to achieve this, as well as various other voluntary work all over."
Here’s the text from her promo poster:
Tasmin Poynton has been selected as one of the 20 finalists for the Miss Fresh Photographic competition which is being held by the Miss England organisers. Tasmin is a student at Chippenham College and is hoping to win the title of ‘Miss Fresh Photographic’ and a place in the Miss England semi final next June. Every year, Miss England is selected for the finals of Miss World. During 2008, the Miss England contestants have raised over £100,000 for various charities around the country including £30,000 for the Institute of Cancer Walk with Cancer Campaign. In 2007 Georgia Horsley held the title of Miss Photographic and WON the national final!
Tasmin needs your support to help win in the quarter finals for the Miss Fresh Photographic title. You can vote for Tasmin by texting TASMIN POYNTON TO 84205 or vote from a landline which is 0901 6561500, and enter the unique number 18 when requested (votes costs 60p plus standard network charge)
Over the past few days, the Filipino community has been brewing a storm over Episode 4 of the ‘Harry and Paul’ show. It contained a short sketch featuring a Filipina maid which some people found offensive enough to start a petition.
I don’t watch the show but caught the clip via the BBC iPlayer service. Personally, I think that the those complaining missed the real butt of the joke and that the issue was being blown out of proportion.
It was not the Filipina maid who was being mocked. The target was the British class system and culture. The skit ridicules stereotypes of the dim-witted Northerner and the pompous upper middle-class Englishman. What you see in the ‘Harry and Paul’ comedy series are typical examples of British self-deprecating and satirical humour.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines satire as:
“the use of humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticise people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.”
You will find that this explains the comedy series perfectly. The same episode similarly pokes fun at Americans, South Africans and Russians, but above all, it mocks the latent stupidity within British culture.
Folks, this show is about British people laughing at themselves, not Filipinos.
As a community, we cannot overreact at every hint of perceived offence to our culture. We have more important things to be concerned about, such as the foreign national ID card. The National ID card and National Identity Register are serious intrusions into our right to privacy and freedom. For more information, please see no2id.
Edit:I’d just like to point out that these are my views. I’m not speaking on behalf of the Filipino community or anyone who is or has been associated with Phil-UK.
I recently found +63, a site showcasing creative trends in the Philippines. They aim to feature work from Filipino creatives around the work. If you’re a designer or artist, you might want to pay them a visit: http://plus63.net
"+63 is a collective blog dedicated to providing an online venue for Philippine creatives. The idea behind +63 is to create a rallying point for the industry by adapting and updating the international country code for the Philippines into a recongizable trademark for Filipino culture, design, and art.
The site features articles and entries on industry trends and provides a base for interaction among Filipino artists by allowing user participation. The goal is to provide a source for updates on developments in the field and a venue for relevant discussion."
Sunny Vergara, in his American Pop blog, writes about how he doesn’t like losing his Tagalog accent. The implication in his post was that losing your accent was like losing part of your identity. He disliked people pointing out his American accent, presumably because it made him feel less Filipino.
I’ve heard this opinion many times before but just don’t buy into it. Why should improving your language skills suggest that you’ve turned your back on your background? Surely a big part of mastering any language is to try speaking it like a native?
We had to learn French and German at School. Aside from learning grammar and vocabulary, the top students tried to lose their English accent. None felt that this would somehow make them less English. For them, it wasn’t even an issue. Why is accent such a big thing with us Filipinos?
A Chiswick based production company is currently filming a medical-based documentary in the Philippines and requires translators beginning the 22nd of August. They need 4-5 people to be able to translate from Tagalog and possibly Hiligaynon.
They will provide successful candidates with timecoded DVD’s from the 22nd of August and will need to have translated word for word onto a formatted word document as soon as possible.
This job is paid and will be negotiated on query.
Please get in touch ASAP if you’re interested and I’ll send you contact information.
Ivar Berglin of VBS.TV covers Payatas, Metro Manila’s only rubbish dump. Although this short documentary focuses on the dump, it does make you think about issues like poverty, entrepreneurship, ecology, over-population and the Church’s stance against contraception.
While UK-born second-generation Filipinos share some of these traits, I notice that they’re also the cause of conflicts between us and our ‘first-gen’ parents, friends and relatives. I’m specifically referring to his point about Filipinos being reactive and unwilling to openly settle problems.
What do you think?
It is safe to assume that Filipinos, as a people, are among the ‘easily pleased’, as compared to the other nationalities of the world. This notwithstanding, they also get hurt very easily, very onion-skinned in a manner of speaking. Little things make Filipinos in general happy but even the slightest incident could also trigger their disappointments.
