All the Visayan You Need to Survive

There are dozens of dialects spoken among the 7,107 islands of the Philippines, but you wouldn't know that from a trip to the local bookstore. You'll find stacks and stacks of Tagalog-English dictionaries, Tagalog audio courses, Tagalog Rosetta Stones. But try to find even the most meager dictionary of Cebuano (a dialect-rich language spoken by a healthy third of the population), and you'll probably have to visit four stores. I did. And when I finally secured my quarry, and retreated to the flatbread pizza shop to learn the phrase for "excuse me" and the word for "scrumptious," I was not in luck.

Even though I quickly found the Cebuano word for penis (pikoy), testicle (itlog--the same as for "ovum," human or fowl), and rump (the delightful lubut), I couldn't find a preposition anywhere. I later decided that this had something to do with Cebuano grammar, but at the time, I just wondered at the ignorant text in front of me. I now knew how to say "understanding," but not "I understand;" how to say "here" but not "there;" how to ask someone to take me to the movies, but not the word for movie itself. This dictionary was a piece of trash, and if you know me, you know I am a fan of robust, unabridged reference books. The smell of the flimsy newsprint pages nauseated me.

Luckily, everyone in the Philippines under the age of 60 speaks a clear, articulate English, and you don't need much Cebuano to get along. Here's a basic vocabulary list, gleaned from my travels, with which you can easily make friends and enamor (or avoid) the opposite sex:


Carinderia (car-in-d'area): Imagine if your grandma cooked a massive Sunday dinner every day, and instead of spooning it into dishes and setting it on the table, she just hauled her silver pots out to the curb and set them up on a card table beside a cooler full of cokes. Of course, there are more established kitchens that copy this presentation-style, but they pale in comparison, and aren't nearly authentic enough for the gastrointestinal adventurist I know you to be. Go ahead--just lift up the lids and see what's inside. It's more than likely a little piece of heaven.

Gwapa/Gwapo ('gwah-pə/'gwah-poh): "Beautiful/handsome." If you're a decent-looking man under 40 years of age, you'll probably hear the masculine gwapo several dozen times a day. At first, it's flattering, but after a while, you'll get fatigued and start to shoot the feminine gwapa back at your admirers, just to watch them blush and retreat giggling behind a nearby obstacle.

Gusta ka ('goo-stə 'kah): "I like." Another Spanish holdover. Let yourself become a child again, pointing at foods and buildings and shiny objects, expressing your fool's approval.

Red Horse (rehd hoors): The Philippine strong beer, weighing in at 6.9% abv. It's shockingly drinkable, and only costs a quarter more than the popular and watery San Miguel Pilsen. ex. Gusta ka Red Horse.

Videoke: (viddy okey/ vidjokee) "Karaoke, basically, except the background video is almost always basketball highlights on loop." The Filipinos love them some sentimental rock ballads, and you're sure to find plenty on hand at the videoke bar. Be wary of choosing such relative rockers as Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive" or Jesus Christ Superstar's "Gethsemane." These will only net you confused stares and uncomfortable grimaces. But sing Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart," and the revelers will flock around you like a brand new god.

The Strand

There are two types of travel writing. You have classic British Isles style, in which the author employs latinate language to convey a shuddering distaste for native customs and hygiene. And you have what I will call gonzo modern, in which the writer puts himself forward as the object of ridicule. Both styles focus far too much on bowel movements and misfortune, and ultimately fail to communicate the fullness of the traveling experience. But if you chronicle with the wide-eyed excitement of the truly engaged, you will be written off immediately as naive, and no publishing house worth its teeth will touch your manuscript. There has to be another way, but until I find it, I will continue to give the details of my pepper-fired liquid shits, and err--in my cultural sensitivity--on the side of the gonzo. Of course, there is also the mundane genre of expat bloggery, where the writer has ceased to be surprised by the oddnesses of his host country, and spends time complaining about the fact that the new Nicole Kidman film is only showing in that dingy, out-of-the-way cinema far from the trainline.

I don't want this record to take that turn, but the truth is--at some point, I stopped touristing Cebu City and started living there. I mapped all the alleyways and fruit stalls within 2 kilometers of my pensionne room, sniffed out a reliable source for swamp cabbage and cucumber salad, and settled into a routine. It went something like this: street food, jeepney, streetfood, google, naptime, wash, repeat. Of course, It wasn't my plan to take up residence in the Queen City of the South, but my flight to Surigao--province of my mother's birth--was cancelled twice, and I eventually resigned myself to the will of the fates.*