Can you eat with your hands?

Thanx sweetie. Nice, now i'm hungry. And uumm, we normaly have a braai each saturday. No one can wait that long you know. TATA.

Hi Bing and Saphrina, Thanks for this new learning. You are smart Bing for checking out themeaning of it at once and generously shared it with us. Do both of you enjoy it? have a happy braai day...

I don't enjoy it seetie, i love it. TATA

basqui, you are rich! You eat at Kamayan!

Im sure there are still people there that eat with their hands. I do not know how your cousin even being from there can speak for the whole state of new york and the country of canada. There are so many people from different places of the world living all over the USA. that bring there own ways and customs with them. I know one thing if i ever go there im still gonna eat with my hands.

My cousin hails from New Jersey and frequents New York and Canada. He says that they don't even eat chicken with rice, mostly with potatoes or vegetable salad.

Eileen, you would be the hero of thousands of people all over the world afflicted with the disease multiple sclerosis if you could devise a treatment that reverses the demilination that causes the symptoms of MS. Super will power will not do it. People with ideas like yours frequently cause those with disabilities to become ashamed to go out in public.

bellis, shake it off. Requires super will power but you can do it. Get that right hand in control again.

Did I offend you bellis? I am sorry if I did. I had been incapacitated once in the not so distant past. I thought it was my time. It took me all my will to be up on my feet again, literally. I know MS is a difficult condition. A cousin is afflicted with the ailment. But she looks gorgeous, as if she ain't sick at all. I see some people with debilitating diseases struggle with their canes but can finish half a kilometer at the university walkway. I wish I could comfort and support you. I mean it. I do not mean to put you to an embarrassing situation. I'm sorry.

Well explained joepat, but I disagree the Philippines is a third world. I always thought of this country as my haven. According to your description, we are a cultured people, just by the way we eat!

joe, everyday I pass by mendicant children begging for alms. The sight of the poor is something I had to live with. Who is not angry at our greedy politicians? Who is not trying to make tomorrow a better day? As far as I am concerned, my Philippines is my homeland. How could anyone say this is a third world? In South Africa, the youth are devoured by beasts and the children eat roots. Is it also a third world? In New York, the learned and the educated were disenfranchised by the collapse of the stock market. And the shockproof Lehman Brothers sent its investors wobbling to as much as intensity 7. Can we call that first world? My world is what I chose to make my life with. And my life ain't third world.

Hello Eileen. The Philippines not a third world country? Well, everybody is entitled to his/her opinion. That's the beauty if Mylot - anybody can speak his/her mind. In some ways I would agree with you but there are aspects and issues that would call for further debate and discussion. This country is not wanting in terms of natural resources, in fact, she are rich in minerals and other nature's bounty. The country is globally competitive in education, tourism destination, labor force, etc. But what has the government done about it? Practically nothing - just too pre-occupied with too much politics, wrong priorities, graft and corruption...to name a few. If there are signs of industrial development, they are being done by foreign business conglomerates to the point of total exploitation at the expense of the welfare of the country and the people. We are now far behind our Asian neighbors economically. On the other hand, as a people, Filpinos are complacent, hospitable, mostly literate and educated, and industrious. These are plus assets of Pinoys but where are they being utilized? Abroad. Anybody who has the chance goes out to seek better opportunities in other countries. And they are the economic saviors of this country. If not for them and their inward remittances, this country would have long been bankrupt. The great majority, the masses are left here wallowing in extreme poverty, enjoying a hand to mouth existence (eating without utensils, ha ha ha...}, wooed by traditional politicians with money and promises and voting into power (well, almost, based on the result of the recent elections) retired movie stars and other popular personalities. With people in government who have no knowledge in governance except enriching themselves in power, this country will remain third world. Oh, by the way, I am Filipino and I still love this country despite her infirmities.

Nick, most of the aliens I know, including revisiting relatives, are turned off by eating with the hands. Their facial expressions somehow show how disgusting and how uncultured Filipinos are by eating with the hands.

You are right. Sorry, my mistake. My wife always calls it McDo. Maccas is more an Australian expression. We have Hungry Jacks here which is a franchise of Burger King. Much better burgers.

I was lucky my first trip to the Philippines because I lived with my wife and her family in the suburbs and not some fancy hotel. I lived in the small house with 9 others and lived and ate and did what they all did. I experienced a CR with no paper for the first time and the dipper in cold water for a shower and traveling in jeepneys etc. Eating with the hands was only a small part of the overall cultural difference which I found so fascinating. We went to the malls every day and I laughed at the driving system which I just found so different it was amusing to me. But I just loved the place and we are building a house to move there permanently in a few years. Of course the house will have hot water etc. and a few western comforts but we will still be living there in your wonderful culture. I can understand some westerners frowning at eating with hands but some westerners frown at many things in their own countries. When I read some of your history I am distressed by accounts of things like the war time invasion where your people were systematically shot and raped. It is a shame when westerners and even returning relatives think they are better when they actually have far less than the average Filipino in regards to happiness and contentment. Those things are very scarce in the west.

I would have told her to use the fork for the canned pears. There are some food that we can't use just our fingers.

There's no harm. It is actually a natural way of eating.

ms, I was surprised myself. Now it's taking me time to answer. But thanks for just being there. You are a real friend.

you are welcome. continue posting discussions like these and i am pretty sure you will be more excited responding on such blockbuster responses...hugs! how's the weekend?

red, there is an art of eating with the hands. You will be surprised that longs nails are not impediments to swallowing the food.

Rob, did I rub something on theRock? The last line sounded a little sensitive.

This discussion just reminds me of when (I can't remember specifically) I learned that you're not supposed to eat chicken with your hands. So I used to go to restaurants and try to eat with a fork. I confess, I love to eat and I love to enjoy every morsel of food. Eating chicken with a fork takes away from my enjoyment of eating it. So this discussion allowed me to release my "attitude" that no matter where I go (unless it's to a formal gathering of some kind) I will eat chicken with my hands.

Is baked chicken the same as oven roasted chicken?

Yap its the same.

When I was in grammar school, we had fried chicken for lunch one day. A young lady, with excellent table manners, attempted to cut each bite of chicken from a drumstick. It slipped from her fork and knife, flew across the table, hit another girl in the mouth, dropped into her tray, landing squarely in the applesauce which splattered the kids on either side of her. Everyone else at the table had treated the chicken as finger food and teased the first girl mercilessly about her elegant flying chicken leg! Fourth graders can be rotten little creatures. It took getting out of grammar school completely for the flying chicken to come to roost and fall into the girl's background.

green, you are so touchy! Whoever says there's something wrong with eating with the hands?

I never thought of eating as one way of unleashing stress. But if you say so! We are both brown blood! And neighbors, too!