The Prometheus Curse
Or WHAT’S IN THE BALIKBAYAN BOX?!
When Prometheus brought back fire from the gods, he didn’t know what he was getting the human race into and in particular, us Filipinos. I’m talking about that lovely, heartwarming, cumbersome tradition of bringing pasalubong.
When I went to the United States to visit some relatives, half my suitcase was filled with pasalubong. I carried 40 pounds of hopia, balut, butong pakwan, daing, dried mangoes, Skyflakes and miniature jeepneys. I was a mobile sari-sari store. Note that some of the stuff I was made to carry was illegal according to US customs law. Not only was I a sari-sari store, I was also a smuggler—all for the sake of my kamag-anak. I half-expected my mother to ask me to hide sampalok in my socks.
While in the land of milk(duds) and honey(nuts) we spent half the time looking for –what else?—pasalubong. So what if all these things we were buying were available at the duty-free shops (for convenient pasalubong s...