History tells that the Philippines were once colonized by Spanish and American, and that impacted greatly our culture; hence our difference from our neighbors elsewhere in Asia. Different colonolizers brought different experiences that resulted into different cultures.

I am not that knowledgeable about the different Asian cultures and histories outside the Philippines, alongside with my own observations and points of view, but I could tell that the majority of the Southeast Asian nations have done a better culture preservation in spite of many colonizers that have came in their lands in the past. While the Philippines is known as a mix of largely Spanish and American with a little speck of Asian. Although, I am not saying that it is a bad thing for us; but it was the most obvious Filipino characteristics that makes us different from any other Asian countries. You could certainly notice the difference even among the cities of the country as you venture and meet many people.

Now, let us go through some Filipino traits that I think is unique, because it is overlaid by western culture:

Family Ties

Generally, Asian people are known to have a close family ties traditions as passed down by many generations through one's parents; but in today's Filipino youth, it's in assortment. Most of the young Filipino today acknowledge the limitations and are trying to break away from that traditions; furthermore, they try to become independent, and live away from their parents just like the westerner's youth. However, a speck of family ties closeness is still there as an aspects of everyone's decision in their life as the parents could still say what is their young ones must do and what must they become, though it's in varying extent on every different families. A strong customary traits of an Extended Filipino families still intact, a family includes of at least one of the grandparents, aunts or uncles and other relatives. Or sometimes, a whole clan lives on a same compound. Another evident traits among Filipino families is that they perceived having a child as a blessings and as a sign of prosperity rather than another mouth to feed. Well that's also true but the former was the most dominant reason why the Philippines is among the most populous country in Asia right now.

Siesta

Asians are hard-working, determined, and enthusiastic. Filipinos are no different from them but with some exception. Being hard-working on some of Filipinos are very evident as many of our countrymen worked abroad as an Overseas Filipino Workers(OFW), our farmers worked rain or shine, etc. However, an exception to those is our love to have siesta. Siesta or an afternoon napping would heal our tired body from a whole morning of laborous ordeal. Sometimes, some of the Filipinos love to slack off, have a good time and sometimes sponge off to someone's hardworks. If they had found some easy way, they would do that. Though, I frequently used the words "sometimes and some" because it is not always the case, but most often happening—I am not generalizing.

Sense of Humor

Asians are funny, in a way we interact and have fun—we are both funny. But in a different way of course. We also have differences in what we considered is humorous. English proficiency and our western roots affected what kind of humor we have. We quickly understand the American humor and sarcasm. But there is this kind of humor that we definitely shared with the other Asian—the slapsticks!

Nationalistic Pride

One of the noisiest country(sorry my countrymen for the word I used, but this sometimes gives me cringe and facepalm moment) as we are known as very verbal about nationalism. Well, it's not totally bad in a sense that we are as adhering to our culture as the other Asian countries, but they just don't tend to voice it out that much as the Filipinos did. Being loud is not that bad but being so obscene is. In online gaming arena, regardless of what game it is, Filipinos are one of the loudest, hence the word "peenoise." Again, it is one of the western influences that we got from Spain and America, but I guess, the trait had evolve from being loud about nationalism into annoyingly loud—fortunately, there are still Filipinos put their heads ahead of talking and choose not to be too loud, but behave calmly.

Asians are sometimes wrongfully generalize as having the homogenous culture, otherwise, it is actually made up of different kinds of unique subsets of culture. Such example of that, Chinese culture is way too different from Japanese, Koreans, Thailand, and Filipinos in terms of traits and traditions.

Filipino traits are also different from our neighbor's traits as we are predominantly mixed with western and oriental cultures—a melting pot of many different cultures. Same way with our neighboring countries, they also have unique traits in contrast with our own.

Thanks for reading.

Lead photo credits to Freepik.com