"HEY JOE!"

The Many Names of a Tall American Tourist in the Philippines

After just a few hours of being in the Philippines two things became very clear to me. First of all when Zeus told me that we would be giants here he wasn't kidding. Secondly even if we spoke fluent tagalog we would still stick out. Not only are we tall, we also have extremely light skin compared to them. The main reason that we stick out is because of Zeus. Many times we will be walking down the street just like everyone else and someone will shout, "Hey Joe." which is the name for all Americans here. Overall Zeus is always the one to atract the attention because, "The audiences here are great." Zeus has been called everything, Santa Claus, Chuck Norris, Charles Braunson, Lolo (Grandpa) One name that we have been given more recently is The Jugglers. One of the first things we do when we arrive in a new place is look for an audience to juggle for. Many of the times I will be teaching students and I will turn around and see Zeus pulling out his tennis balls and teaching a group of high schoolers to juggle. Most of the time there is really no reason to stare at us other than the fact that we're American but as we found out after a couple of hours that is a good enough reason.

-Asa