I'm all LIP!
I guess I’m a big mouth now, since I’m “all lip”. He he. My name is Carlin O’Neal, and as Bob said this morning, I’m a new writer here on LIP. I have been living in the Philippines now for 4 years, since 2005. I live in Zamboanga City, Asia’s Latin City. It’s appropriate too, because I am from Spain!
Well, I’m not exactly from Spain, but that is the last place where I lived before moving to the Philippines. I am actually half Spanish and half Irish. My pop is an Irishman and my mama is Spanish. I have lived in both countries at different times in my life. I take after mama mostly, though, and mostly consider myself a Spaniard.
I love living in Zamboanga, because most people here speak Spanish, and language is no barrier for me here. Well, they don’t exactly speak Spanish, they speak Chavacano, which is sort of a derivitive of Spanish. But, I can speak Spanish (slowly) to the people here, and they can understand me 80%. I can understand them about 50% when I moved here, but now I have no language problems at all.
I don’t venture out of Zamboanga City too often, but I do travel this region of west Mindanao from time to time.
I will go short on this first article, but am excited to write more here. I have been reading this website for quite a while, but have kept pretty quiet. I will try to be more visible now, though.
Thanks to Bob for inviting me to the site.
Hola LiP! Viva Zamboanga! Hasta la vista.
Hi Carlin,
Nice to meet you! I’m on vacation here in Davao, but must begin my trek back to Chicago on Thursday morning. Looking forward to your articles here!
Cheers!
Hola Henry: Salamat! Thank you for visiting my first article! I am so excited to be already on the site.
Hola Carlin,
Que tal? Bienvenidos.
Where in Spain are you from? I’m interested about Galicia.
I did Andalucia last month and fell in love with Sevilla.
I’m in to Pedro Almodovar and Camaron de la Isla ahora mismo.
Salud.
Welcome to the site, I live in Davao with my wife, but I am currently in the US getting ready to go to Alaska for work. I do this every year, work 4 months in Alaska, spend 2 months or so with my dad in Florida and live in Davao the rest of the time. I look forward to reading your articles as I have always wanted to go to Zamboanga.
Hola Carlin, ¿Cómo está?
recepción al labio, y mirada adelante a leer sus artículos y al aprendizaje sobre sus experiencias en las Filipinas por los 4 años pasados.
Mi español no es bueno, pero intento.
I live with a Spanish speaking family, so I understand a little of the language, plus living in South Florida, it comes in handy.
Salamat kaayo,
Danny
Wow man when I saw your pic ..I did a double take and thought ..that guy looks just like a person I use to work with.. do you have a twin in the states
.. Now I have a reason to go to Zamboanga City .”try an tell my wife that” .. Glad to meet you Carlin … Phil n Jess…
Welcome aboard Carlin. Lots of good people on this web site but we do get the the ocassional clown. I am based in South Africa but visit Davao and Luzon fairly regular. How is secruity nowadays in your neck of the woods.
Hola Carlin ! Buenos dìas welcome to LIP !
¡Hola Frank! Es istupendo que tenemos un escritor de españa. Frank Fealey asks what I’m curious as well. “How is security nowadays in your neck of the woods?”
I’m also curious what are you doing in Zamboanga city. It’s great to hear a perspective of the chavacano dialect from a spanish native speaker like you. I read somewhere that there’s chavacano speaking-community in Cavite, es una provincía en la isla Luzon. Do you have any idea how it came about? Which came first, the one in Zamboanga or Cavite?
Saludos,
Hola Carlin,
Como tú, llevo tiempo siguiendo esta página y me alegro mucho de que el Sr. Bob Martin te haya invitado a colaborar en ella.
Ya era hora un punto de vista español entre tanto Anglosajón jejeje
Después de todo, ¿qué es un filipino sinó alguien que ha nacido en filipinas, tiene una mente americana, un corazón español y se comporta como un mejicano?
Seguire tus colaboraciones y espero aportar un grano de arena a la página, ya que hasta ahora estaba un poco intimidado por tanto anglo.
he visitado dos veces filipinas, la última vez fue en mes de Enero y espero visitar Mindanao y poderte conocer personalmete.
Suerte en tus colaboraciones, ya que hay 500.000.000 de hispanohablantes, como mercado potencial, 50.000.000 de ellos en USA.
Hi Mr. Sponk,
In Spain we call Galicia, the spanish scotland, is a place I would recomend anybody to visite for the beauty of the scenary and for the fish and wine. Is a place you have to visite!
Hi, Mr. Bob Martin,
Many congratulations for your website, which I began following 20 months ago aprox. I hope I will be able to meet you and Feyma in my next visite to Mindanao.
Very good move to ask Carlin to colaborete in this site, the potencial of the spanish speaking market is very big.
Did you know that there is more spanish speaking people in USA than in Spain? or that there are more people speaking spanish in New York than Madrid??¡
Any way have a nice day and do not drink too much coffe, it is not good for your blood preasure
Hola! Welcome aboard Carlin.
I live here in Cavite and most of the older one speaks Chavacano. But the younger generarions prefer to communicate in Tagalog. The local government here are trying to preserve Chavacano as much as possible.
Looking forward to read more of your articles.
Carlin: Welcome! I look forward to reading your articles here!
Hi Ken, thank you very much for the links you provided. I will visit them as soon as I can. You see I’m curious as to how chavacano flourished in Phil ports. Are they distinct w/ one another? Would a Zamboanga chacano understand a Ternate chavacano? Are these analogous to Taglish (tagalog + english) w/ Ternate Chavacano and say Vislish (visayan + english) to Zamboanga Chavacano?
& how is the name chavacano came about?
Hola Antonio Marqués Sans, I am interested about what you said about what is a Filipino anyway but someone who’s born in the Phil, thinks american,feels like a spaniard & behaves like a mexican.
Do you believe in this or this is just a cliché?
Hi Dr. Sponk Long! I’m a big Almodóvar fan. My 3 favorites are: Mujeres al bordo de ataqué de nervios, Hable Con Ella & Todo Sobre Mí Madre.
Hey Carlin,
Dont speak much spanish. I do know a few of the important things like ?donde esta el banao? I get by.
Welcome to the site
Welcome.
Looking forward to your take on the Philippines.
Hi Carlin! Welcome to LiP! I haven’t been to Zamboanga since 1996. It seems like forever. Looking forward to reading articles from you on and about ‘The Latin City’ of the Philippines!
Cheers!
Hola Carlin,
¿Puedo saber el apellido de tu madre y el nombre del barrio donde vivías en Madrid?
Gracias anticipadas.
Epero tu próximo post.
Hola Roy,
No, is not a cliche, for me is very true. By Mexican I mean any country of Latinoamerica, hispanoamerica or Iberoamerica, whatever you want.
If you have the chance to visite any country of those you will feel like home from the first day as I felt, I know all of them
Nice to speak to you.
Hi Bob,
The difficulty you have in PI paying the utility bills, are common in all underdevolope countries. As most of the pople in this countries do not use the banking system they are unable to save any money.
Since people do not have bank accounts, they cannot send the bills to the bank.
Thanks for you invitation.
Hi Carlin,
Welcome,i look forward to your articles.
regards Chas.
Hello Carlin, Sounds like great fun in Zamboanga!! Lov for you to include some photo’s also when your out and about! How safe is it there? Is the US Navy still doing manuvers there? or showing the US Flag? I’m in San Francisco at present but soon to be back with the wife in Davao, with some Napa wines!!
And Hello to Mr. Martin, how are ya Bob? And the family, Fema? Be back in the Neighborhood on the 20th May…Yahoooooo
Do ya need anything from the Bay area? I’m coming back light!! O’Bie
Hola Ed: I do not know navy or what, but there are Americano military here. You see the flag on their sleeve.
Hi Carlin Darlin’
I am so glad that you have joined us. I will look forward to your take on life as a young Latino in the Philippines.
I live in Canada and will be emigrating soon as the recession improves a bit.
Please enjoy a little La Vida Loca for me.
Hi Carlin, welcome on board. I looking forward your articles. I only know one German in Zamboanga, it’s Wolfgang… Have you heard about him??? He is selling excellent German sausages and stuff…
Hola Klaus: I never know Wolfegang of Zamboanga. What his cellular? I can text him.
Hola Carlin,
I’m looking forward to reading your posts. I’m half pinoy, have chicano (mexican-american for those who don’t know what that means!) & am fluent in tagalog & spanish. I’ve been to the Philippines a couple times pero nunca he ido a la isla de Mindanao. Only recently did I realize how alive Chavacano is nowadays. I have relatives in Cavite pero hoy en dia casi nadie habla chavacano en esta parte del pais. En youtube, hay muy pocos links with spoken Chavacano. Encontre una que era una segmento de TV Patrol Chavacano. I’m dying to see a full broadcast of the news in Chavacano. I have ABS-CBN here in the states, but obviously it’s all from Manila. Quiza, puedes poner mas video clips alla con el idioma Chavacano? I think Chavacano might be a fairly easy language for me to learn because of my fluency in 2 languages that have much in common with it. Espero que te quedes en Zamboanga. Maybe I’ll visit in 2010 or 2011. Now everything about the culture there is truly fascinating to me after reading all of this stuff on the internet.
Dito sa stados unidos, nahihirapan ang mga tao saakin because I’m a mutt like you, but it’s actually amazing how similar my backgrounds are. Have the readers of these blogs checked out this website?
http://filipinokastila.tripod.com/FilMex.html
Yes, there is actually a “Parque Reyna Maganda” outside of Acapulco in Mexico. I travel in Mexico frequently (I actually live by the U.S. border) but I can’t say I’ve been to this park. It’s another place I would like to visit soon, like Mindanao & Zamboanga. I have been to Acapulco, however, (before I started looking up any of this stuff on-line), y vi mucha gente con caras filipinas. En Mexico, como una broma, muchos llaman a esas personas “chinitos.” Obviously, I think their background is more deeply rooted in the Philippines than China. Not to say that there are not any Chinese in Mexico, but many of them are near the U.S. border, in Mexicali.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8hk1uxOLkw
As noted by the historian Ken above, Acapulco was a Spanish port city like Zamboanga & obviously there were some interracial children there after hundreds of years of trade between the two nations.
I’m glad I found this website!
Sr. Bob,
First of all thanks for having this website up. I never caught where in the U.S. you are from or if you care to share that information? One thing I noticed on-line is that Zamboanga is underrepresented. I am a big internet fan and listen to radio stations from all over the world. Bakit walang estasyon taga Zamboanga? I know your from Davao which is way on the other side of the island but with your background, it seems like something you could potentially help set up – an on-line Zamboanga radio station. I know you are already busy. LOL. There is a huge Hispanic population in the world & also a huge tourist market potential. If the Hispanic world could hear spoken Chavacano, it would really help sell Zamboanga as Asia’s Latin City. Why do you think Mexico City is such a big tourist destination for Madrilenos? They feel comfortable because there is no language barrier. Estas de acuerdo, Carlin? I loved seeing Carlin’s post that he instantly could communicate in Zamboanga with Spanish as his native tongue.
Okay guys as you see I can ramble on forever & maybe I’m not even that interesting. Who knows if you will even choose to post this Bob? LOL. Maybe I should write for this column also. I’m young too pero mas gwapo si Carlin.
Natapos din ako!
Hi, Rey:
I happened to see your comment dated June 7, 2009, when I followed Josh Santana’s recent comment to Carlin’s article. I note that you may soon have some proficiency in Chavacano based on what you have stated in your post, i.e., “…I think Chavacano might be a fairly easy language for me to learn because of my fluency in 2 languages that have much in common with it.”
I don’t know where in the U.S. you live, or what your status in life is, but if you think you’d be interested in working as a Chavacano language specialist that pays $60+ an hour, there is a private company based in Northern Virginia that does contractual work for the U.S. government in the national security field, but is having a hard time filling the position of Chavacano linguist with good knowledge of Philippine geography and familiarity with Filipino culture.
Note that this position requires a very high security clearance. If you’ve had trouble with the law at any time in your life, or have a bad credit record, you can disregard this post. Further, if you don’t think your Chavacano is adequate enough to translate transcripts from Chavacano to English and vice-versa, the more reason you should ignore this post.
The company is MVM, Inc., based in Vienna, VA. See: http://www.hoovers.com/mvm/–ID__41271–/free-co-profile.xhtml
Contact point is: Kevin Reyes at reyesk@mvminc.com
my wifes mother is originally from zamboanga del sur ,i asked my wife if her mother spoke chavacano and she told me yes.my wife was raised in cebu she told me that when she has heard her mother speaking chavacano with a friend it sounded like a bunch of mumbling to her she couldn’t understand anything!
Hola Carlin,
Que tal? Acabo de encontrar tu sitio hoy. Soy Filipino, y te digo, me fascino mucho sobre hispanismo en mi pais. Como el libro que presentas dice, “Can you handle the culture of the Philippines?” es realidad. Que hay muchos misterios en la herencia filipina que fue mezclada con espanol. Mi madre es chabacana y yo conozco el lugar donde estas ahora. me hace feliz que te encanta tambien lo que ves alli y de todo mi pais. Gracias por apoyar la herencia fil-hispana. Que viva Filipinas y su hispanidad!
Hi Sponk: I’m not much of a movie guy but of course I know Pedro Almodovar.
I am from the barrios just outside Madrid, still kind of the concrete jungle! Hope to have more nice conversations down the road.
Hi brs – come and see me in Zamboanga! The weather is good here!
Alaska? Too damn cold!
Danny: su español es bueno. Come back again!
Hola Phil! Come on down to the Latin City for a little fiesta!
I don’t know of any brothers in the USA, but pa did travel a lot! He he
Hola Frank: I didn’t go to Davao, but maybe one day. Maybe also you go to Zamboanga? Clowns on LIP? Dont you talk about me like that!
These cities were all port cities of the galleon trade (Cavite, Zamboanga, Manila … and Acapulco in Mexico). Along and around the ports, Chavacano are/were spoken. I don’t know now how extensive Chavacano is spoken in Cavite but there used to be a website or an article in a website that wrote about it. There was also a small area/community in Binondop in Manila that spoke Chavacano but I am not sure now if that community still exists. It probably does. Also, there was an article in National Geographic a while back that pointed out some of the cultural/language/dialect similarities of Acapulco and the Philippines (there are even families there who have Philippine roots). All because of several centuries of the galleon trade.
Hi everyone, not to belabor the point, I found the websites about Chabacano (Cavite and to a lesser extent, Manila) that have some discussion on the origins:
http://www.angelfire.com/art2/roger_santos
http://www.angelfire.com/ca2/family2/cavitecity.html
http://hablachabacano.blogspot.com
It may be that Ternate Cavite Chabacano was the first to be formed and was derived from the Portuguese (apparently from Indonesia – from Ternate Islanders who settled in that area after being expelled from Indonesia = they were called Merdika or Mardikas).
Zamboanga Chabacano appeared to have formed among the population around the Spanish garrison in Zamboanga. Great article here: http://filipinokastila.tripod.com/chaba.html
and here
http://filipinokastila.tripod.com/chaba2.html
Hola Roy: I have eyes in the back of my head, so I’m always on the lookout for bad guys. So far I didn’t see any yet.
Hi Antonio Marques Sans – It’s nice to hear from you, I hope you participate on the site often!
Hola Antonio Marques Sans,
Gràcies. Parles català?
No ho entenc català.
I’m going to learn Castillian seriously pretty soon.
Also I will try to do right for Galicia by doing the El Camino
from Montserrat to Santiago de Compostela.
Thanks again.
Adéu.
Hermano Antonio: Hola, Bienvenidos. I try to stay with English a lot here, for most readers. Muchos gracias.
Hi Roy,
I’m just starting. I’m done with Hable Con Ella (my fav so far). I also finished Matador and Volver. I intend to finish all. Viva Pedro.
Paalam.
Hola Tommy: Maraming Salamat
Hola Phillmor: gracias por su ayuda.
Hola John: I always read your articles.
Hola Hudson: It is in the hallway.
Hola Kevin: gracias por su ayuda.
Thank you for support me.
Hola Martin: Come to the Latin City for a visit and I show you the town!
Hola chas: Muchos gracias.
Hola Tyleen: I can not rhyme your name like what you did me. Sorry. Maybe I see you in Zamboanga soon?
Hey Darlin Carlin
I will be in General Santos City next March. I will be coming with a group of Rotary Club Dentists. We will be coming over to do a dental mission for some of the surrounding villages and a couple of orphanages. I am not sure of the dates just yet but for sure in March.
I wish I could get the next plane out of Vancouver to Manila….but not just yet.
I just read your latest article and I think you will bring much to LIP with your great sense of humour and wit.
Later amigo
Hola Tyleen, Amiga! Maybe I visit you in General San. You will work on my teeth too? If you work on my teeth I am there for sure!
Hasta la vista!
Hola Carlin, i will send you an email. Thanks.
Hola Klous: I wait your email, but nothing. Is Wolfgang went to Germany now?
Hola Ray: Mi amigo. Como esta? Please, you visit me when visit Zamboanga. We have fun together.
Ha ha. Spanish will understand chavacano. Very nice.