What being Southeast Asian means to me

In celebration of API Heritage Month, here's what it means to me to be from the Pearl of the Orient, and the sense of kinship I feel with the rest of Southeast Asia

Disclaimer: Everything that I wrote in this letter is how I feel about being Southeast Asian and living in Southeast Asia. I do not speak for other Southeast Asians and fully acknowledge that there are bound to be experiences vastly different from my own.

When I was very young, I had no concept that I was Asian, let alone Southeast Asian. I guess I objectively knew that I was from Southeast Asia. Throughout grade school and high school, the history of all the ASEAN member nations was a core part of our curriculum. So obviously I knew that the Philippines was geographically and politically part of Southeast Asia. But it still didn’t sink in to me fully and completely that that made me Asian.

When I thought of the word ‘Asian’, I—like the rest of the world—thought of East Asia. And this was only reinforced by the fact that, as a child of the 2000s in the Philippines, one of the constants of my after-school hours was East Asian media. There was anime, whether in English on Animax or in Tagalog on TV5. (Raise your hand if Rukawa’s deep Tagalog dubbed voice will haunt you for the rest of your life.) I was an OG K-pop fan, loving groups like Girls Generation, SHINee, and—of course, as a Filipino—2NE1. (Sandara Park was more deserving of the Philippine Global Tourism Ambassador Award than Vanessa Hudgens, I will die on this hill.) And of course, like a true Filipino millennial, I loved Meteor Garden and had the hugest crush on Vaness Wu.

One of the biggest things I’m thankful for as a Filipino who was born and grew up in the Philippines is that I’ve never questioned my Filipino-ness. I’ve never had any kind of identity crisis wondering whether I’m Filipino enough. But it wasn’t really until my first trip to another Southeast Asian country (it was Malaysia, if any inquiring minds want to know) that I realized that there was an overarching identity above my Filipino-ness, and that it was an identity that—although I didn’t really have a conscious awareness of it—was just as rock-solid in its foundation as my being Filipino, an identity that crossed international borders and one that I shared with millions of other people. That is, being Southeast Asian.

This sense of identity and kinship grew and deepened as I immersed myself in the online bookish community. I spent most of time as a bookish content creator reading and hyping books by Southeast Asian authors, and this experience taught me two drastically different but equally important things: the differences between all the various Southeast Asian peoples are starkly, breathtakingly, awe-inspiringly beautiful, but so are the similarities between us all.

When I think of being Southeast Asian, the first things I think of are two extremes: the unforgiving heat of the sun, and the sheer raw power of typhoons. Southeast Asian summers are notoriously hot, with temperatures rising well past the thirties and into the forties (because we use the metric system here, like a civilized society). Southeast Asian summers means fun along the thousands of beaches, riversides, and lakeshores that fill up a region of islands and archipelagos. But it also means severe drought, the kind that destroys crops and drives up the price of rice, the kind that causes kids and old folks to drop dead from heatstroke. And when the rains finally, finally come, at first you feel relief as the temperatures begin to drop. But then the rain turns into typhoons, and then the floods come, and the rolling blackouts, and the water just keeps rising and rising until you’re trapped, in an evacuation center if you’re lucky or on the rooftop of your house if you aren’t.

Being Southeast Asian means being a country that contributes the least to global pollution and carbon emissions, and yet remains the most vulnerable to and is affected the most by climate change.

Being Southeast Asian means a thousand little superstitions that make no logical or scientific sense, but we observe these things anyway because why tempt fate? The smell of frangipani or jasmine means that a lost spirit is lingering nearby. Make food offerings to the dead. Don’t you dare point into the woods or carve your name into a tree—you never know what’s watching you, and which creature now knows your name.

Being Southeast Asian means posting a tweet in English, but trailing off and finishing the thought in your own language.

Being Southeast Asian means struggling under corrupt, inefficient, and downright murderous governments, and dealing with those governments through a combination of protests and the most unhinged memes ever. (Magkita-kita nalang tayo sa nutribun factory.) Being Southeast Asian means public transportation crises, the most fucked up traffic, and politicians and other wealthy people cruising by in their comfortable cars, sometimes accompanied by a police escort and big black SUVs with flashing red and blue lights.

Being Southeast Asian means loving rambutan, Java apple, and mangoes, with each country having a different name for each one and a different opinion on which one is better. And never, ever ask a room of Southeast Asians which country produces the best mangoes. A brawl will ensue.

Being Southeast Asian means having huge extended families, where weddings and birthday parties and funerals end up being massive events. No, the children of your parents’ siblings are not extended family. As long as they come from the same set of grandparents, they’re your immediate family. Extended family would be the families of your grandparents’ siblings.

Being Southeast Asian means eating avocado as a sweet dish, not savory. It means having similar desserts, made out of things like rice and cendol and soy and corn.

Being Southeast Asian means shelling out God only knows how much money to fly to Singapore, Japan, or Australia to attend the Eras Tour.

Being Southeast Asian means having to spend thousands of dollars proving to American or European governments that we can afford to travel, and risking wasting all that money if our visa applications get rejected. Being Southeast Asian means seeing begpackers on the side of the road. Being Southeast Asian means seeing American and European travelers coming over here to become yoga instructors and English teachers, not because they’re passionate about yoga or English teaching, but because some Instagram or TikTok influencer told them that they could travel long-term and make money on the fly in that way. Being Southeast Asian means seeing American and European influencers urge their audience to become digital nomads, knowing that if any of us tried the same thing in their countries, we’d be arrested and deported faster than you can say “work permit”.

Being Southeast Asian means having solidarity with the South Asians, the Central Asians, the West Asians, and the Pacific Islanders every time API Heritage Month rolls around, because no one ever thinks of us when they say “API Heritage Month”. It’s knowing that if a Filipino stood side-by-side with an Indian, a Mongolian, and a Palestinian, a lot of people wouldn’t clock you all as being Asian. It’s knowing that if a Filipino stood side-by-side with a Thai person, a Vietnamese person, and a Lao person, that a lot of people would squint, pause, think about it very carefully, and then hesitantly ask if they were all Chinese.

Being Southeast Asian means speaking excellent English, at a rate and skill level higher than most Americans and British. It means having English deeply, insidiously pervading our school curriculums because once upon a time, Europeans and Americans came over here and decided that our school curriculums needed to be more like theirs to meet some arbitrary “world class” “global standard”. It means needing to pay hundreds of dollars take the TOEFL or IELTS if we want to work at “world class” establishments that meet the “global standard”.

Being Southeast Asian means being so amused that “selamat pagi” can mean “good morning”, but it can also mean “thank you stingray”.

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