The Last Piece (La Verguenza)

Its really fun to be a Filipino. Filipino's are not be called Filipino for nothing. Earlier when we had lunch, it took us half hour in the kitchen because of this last piece hahaha. As you know, I was eating lunch with my colleagues. I just wanna share some Filipino traits that I've encountered this afternoon.

1. Invite people to eat with you, whether you mean it or not. In our country where instead of “how are you”, people greet each other with “have you eaten?”, it is also common courtesy to invite someone to eat when you’re eating so for example, if someone were having lunch in the office kitchen, and his colleague happened to walk in for a glass of water, the guy eating would normally say, “Tara, kain (Let’s eat),” simply out of courtesy. To which, the other person would reply something along the lines of “Later, thanks,” or “Thanks, but I just ate.”

2. Avoid taking the last piece of food on a serving plate. While doing otherwise isn’t exactly offensive, the practice of not taking the last piece of food from the center of the table is subconsciously practiced by most Filipinos. This is mostly out of shyness in case anybody else at the table is still hungry. Among close friends and family, it’s more common for someone to lightly and jokingly announce that he’ll be taking the last piece upon doing so while in less intimate circles, someone who wants the last piece might first offer it around the table, and after several refusals, only then take it for himself.

This scenarios are usually common here in our office. The last piece of shame is so epic hahaha but because of what happened my other colleague shared her saging na lakatan to break the awkward moment of that last piece of shame.

Eating is enjoyable when eating with our love ones, friends, colleagues or to our new found acquaintance. It's maybe hard to admit but eating is the only time we spent much time with our family because of many reasons such as busy schedule, out of town, or they are not staying with you anymore.

The Last piece will remind us to be grateful, generous and humble by giving it to the most needy. We will become generous by giving it to the hungry than letting greediness to take over.