Annazing: Filipino Halloween (Araw ng mga Patay)

Mood:

Sick

I still haven't recovered from this bug, feels like all my posts as of late are of crappy substance. Let me use the illness as my excuse.

Filipino Halloween is a little more different than Western Halloween. Although there are similarities due to influence, there are other traditions that are crowded and messy but extremely Filipino.

In the Philippines, All Souls' Day or Araw ng mga Patay is more of a celebration of/with the dead than warding off ghosts or evil spirits, as the original point of this event was. Filipinos bring the festivities to the dead, literally. Cemeteries everywhere become picnic grounds. Families from provinces would fly to where their relatives are buried, bring flowers, light candles, and eat and hangout with them on this day. Strange as it may seem, even food stalls and trucks would be at cemeteries as part of the festivities.

Every year, we would go to Manila Memorial Park on the evening of October 31st. Some of my relatives would bring tents and stay the night at the cemetery. The nights are usually full of life since this is when some kids wear costumes, the food trucks are open and there are hundreds of people camping beside the graves. It is the norm, so anyone saying "I slept at the cemetery last night;" is completely acceptable. This year, we decided to go the next morning instead. It was less crowded but there were still a lot of people. The night would have been more festive though. During the day, there are no kids to be seen wearing costumes and just way less celebration in general.

People are making an effort to keep the area clean now. Weird that they are just standing there manning the trash cans. Oh wait! It's a project by a politician, and there's his booth just right beside the segregated trash. It's more fun in the Philippines.

It's that time of year when people also decorate the graves with fences. Particularly so that the grass won't get trashed or ruined by the hundreds of people walking around. The celebration is still captured though. Look at those pompoms!

We were starving by the time we reached our relatives' graves. The traffic going in is insane. Our choice of food, Army Navy.

If you don't bring your own food and fail to buy while driving through the stalls, it would be difficult to get back unless you want to walk really far. We brought a bicycle for this purpose.

Traditional Filipino street food also comes out during this event. I bought my boiled quail eggs and of course, Filipino "dirty ice cream." It was soo good.