Rice is Rice--Everett

Walking through the glass-sliding doors, with posters promoting sales and deals plastered all over, I was smacked in the face with the scent of barbeque from four types of meat: fish, pork, chicken, and beef. There was a red giant with white gloves welcoming me and greeting those leaving the place goodbye (apparently he’s supposed to be a kids character). But, the familiar scent (peculiar to outsiders) of street food from fish, chicken (​insides​ of a chicken might I say), and pork stands out like no other. The giant’s name is Jollibee and the place is Seafood City, the land I call my home, my pantry, and my happy place. I see it in such a positive light because it brings together a community that I rarely see anywhere else..an Asian community. More specifically, it brings together a Filipino community. Seeing the Seafood City market whenever I drive down Foothill reminds me of how far Filipinos have come from such a tiny country made up of islands and how they have integrated their culture in America.

The Filipino culture is pretty simple. It is mainly rice and hospitality. It doesn’t matter what kind of rice as long as it is cooked to a perfect level of being neither dry nor moist, suitable for every eater. Rice is to our meals as bees is to our environment: a keystone species. As my parents would say, everyday when I would try to lessen how much of that necessity gets on my plate, “No rice, No power.” In a filipino household, there must always be food, either on the dining table, refrigerator, pantry or kitchen; food must be accessible at all times. Why? It’s our

hospitality! Our arms are welcoming and our homes are wide open. I’d like to warn you, the Filipino household is one of the most difficult places to say no in. More specifically, it is one of the hardest places to say “No” to food in. It’ll seem like pestering and pressuring but it is a normality for Filipinos to be over the top in their hospitality. Every 20 seconds, they would ask if a guest was hungry or thirsty or just want anything. As Ne-Yo once said when he visited the Philippines, “There’s nothing like Filipino hospitality!” —or maybe he was just ​so sick​ of them asking him if he needs anything. 

But, the culture is more than rice and how nice Filipinos are. Filipino parents strive everyday to come home and see their kids; they come home to them doing their homework or doing nothing at all. It doesn’t matter what the parents come home to because they are just happy they came home. Once the whole family has had their dinner and their run-downs of the day, they go to bed feeling satisfied for another completed day. This may not seem much and that it is a simple life and ask, “Why would they strive for that?”. That is what many Asian families come to America for and what drives their lives. With all their efforts, they pursue their dream for their family of being comfortable and happy and enough. Enough can mean: enough for their kids, enough for their bills, or even enough rice! Enough is what I see in the Asians that go to Seafood City live by. I see nurses coming from their packing their carts full of snacks for their kids and nurses coming to prepare themselves for the night shift. I see elderly couples buying their elderly foods such as bananas and muffin cakes because they have sensitive teeth, teens and young adults hanging out at Jollibee because they need that “chicken-joy”, and the Filipino and Asian workers all doing their best to keep the market clean and running. All these efforts satisfy and mark our days as complete and ready for bed—then, they to do it all over again the next day. 

As a fellow Filipino entering the seafood market, I would notice at first glance the togetherness and communion of the different ethnicities with the same item in their cart. I bet we all know what that ​same​ item is (it starts with an “R”). To others, Seafood City is where “all the Asians go”. The seafood supermarket is a safeplace where our interesting dishes will be free from ridicule and on display, where we can meet other Filipinos and discuss what part of the Philippines they came from, where we can have our breakfast first then grab what we would need for our lunch and dinner too from the market. It is where we get our traditional Christmas lanterns and where we gather the ingredients for a good old homemade meal filled with dishes only we know and love. Our culture, my culture, is here and alive in our community with the establishment of the seafood market and even livelier through the doors of Seafood City and everyone sees that—well, at least everyone who goes to the Party City next to it sees that.