Just a little something before I start. For the non-Chinese community,
did you guys know that the tradition of dancing those huge dragon
heads they flaunt around every January/February with very perky people
inside its attached body is actually the Chinese version of
“pamamasko”? All this time, I thought they simply dance around for
prosperity. I remember thinking, wow, these Chinese people are very
generous indeed. You know how they are famous with making just enough
“tubo” with their 4 for 100 stuff in divisoria just to get their
initial funds back, while Filipinos are generally kupal and they’d
never give in to really giving below their threshold? I thought, wow,
they really are generous. They dance around for free.

And to think I also wondered if the dragon dancers’ labor is also for
free. I thought it was a labor of love, or something. Gawd, I think
I’m embarrassing my 1% Chinese ancestry. And also to think that Ger
told ME about it, she who’s proudly half spanish and half presidential
niece. Josko.

Anyhow, after such a long time, I was able to walk back the streets of
Makati on a school night. See, for the second time in my working
stage, I went out with my dad on a date. He was suggesting Cash and
Carry, but I said, hey, since I need to be around my former office at
8pm, why not go North Park at Convergys, Makati Ave instead? So we
did, and boy, did I unearth so much I wasn’t even ready to hear yet.

Now don’t mistake me for a lapastangang anak. It’s just that, my dad
and I weren’t really close. See, I was a horrible excuse for a
daughter: he was expecting a little princess, while I climbed trees
growing up. He was ready to put in a birthday bash for my 18th; I
suggested, why not invest that in a new computer instead? Our computer
needed an upgrade anyway. He was hoping I would run to him when people
hurt me, while I had a record in our primary school because of a bully
who probably grew up with some inferiority for having a mousy grade 1
girl smash his face and he wasn’t able to return it because my school
bus kundoktor came to the rescue. This bespectacled guy was in fact,
too distraught, that at one time I found that he was consulting
professional self help book on how to raise a daughter hidden in his
closet, lamely wrapped using a National Book Store plastic as a cover.

He was also the personification of the guy I didn’t want to marry.
He’s part selfish, part loud, part proud, part annoying, part bully,
part bachelor, part insufficient, part over sufficient, part
everything else. He mostly made my mum cry, but that’s not very
reliable, because every tense issue usually makes my mum cry.

But tonight, he simply called me up. And as we sat there, and talked
about things over broccoli and prime ribs, then moved on to brewed
coffee, it hit me that while I was looking at what he has become, a
part of who he is is what I am or have been. We’re both proud Leos,
we’re both selfish to some extent. We hate each other’s guts, because
maybe we come in conflict with space. But as we laughed, as he shared
his stories, as I listened, as I asked, as he proudly narrated, as I
have understood, it simply came to be that we were each other’s no
matter how we don’t really like it. He was my dad, I was his daughter.

We parted ways as he drove home to Cavite, while I headed towards our
old building, walking. It was a nice feeling, I guess, understanding a
part of who I am. I went through the meeting quickly, and sent him an
sms afterward. The manager mentioned I came highly recommended, I
said. I told him of course, I am my father’s daughter. My dad laughed.

And just there, it was enough.