Paintbrush on my hair

I have a paintbrush sticking out of my hair. I've always been fascinated with women who wear chopsticks on their hair. Wala lang. To me it is a great example of oriental elegance. Can you imagine a woman wearing a spoon on her hair? Anyway, because of this fascination with chopsticks-as-hair-accessory I became determined to learn how to use a stick to keep my hair in a tight bun. Since we do not have chopsticks in the house I decided to use one of my long-neglected paintbrushes (a remnant of my past life as a wannabe painter) as a replacement. So now I have a paintbrush sticking out of my hair, and I feel like an extraordinary beauty with an extraordinary hair accessory. hehe.

***

I was in Hong Kong last week to interview some OFWs there for a book project. The weather was about 16 degrees. Cold. My rhinitis started acting up, in fact, up until now I'm still not feeling well. I'm just starting to recover. Please pray for me. But I had a real nice time, and I met a lot of Filipinas with inspiring stories. Life in HK is hard for many domestic helpers. Some of them have to sleep in bathrooms and kitchens, but they persevere, for the love of their families. I admire them. And it's quite amazing how most of them have managed to remain simple in a society that thrives on consumerism and vanity.

I mean, I can't imagine living in that place for a month and not having the urge to change my hairstyle and wardrobe. I can't imagine working there and not being able to buy that pair of cute Made in Japan ballet slippers in shades of green and silver which costs about P4,500.00, that I'll probably be able to wear twice a year, at most.

I was really surprised, and pleasantly, too, that when we had our seminar each of the almost 400 participants still had Pinay-na-Pinay hairstyle, hair color and fashion sense. It did not really matter that some were baduy. It only shows that they are clear about their goal--they're their for their families, nothing more.

***

Everywhere I look there's a billboard, ad, poster, product, that's egging me to trade in my morena skin for bland white skin. Why????? If white is truly beautiful how come thousands of white people are literally dying of too much sun exposure just to get my skin color? Tell me, why, oh, why?

I love the color of my skin. And to some extent, I even love my bilbil, although I need to get rid of most of it because of my scoliosis. We all need to learn to fall in love again, with ourselves and our bodies. Imagine if every female person looks like Kristine Hermosa and every male person looks like Troy Montero! What a boring planet Earth would be.