Filipina Soul

A balikbayan* box is indeed a genuine Filipino trademark started mostly by Filipinos in the US in the ’70s.

Giving pasalubong (a gift or token) to family, friends and colleagues after coming back from a trip or vacation is a natural Filipino trait. I guess as natural as not surviving a day without rice.

This very trait led to the birth of the balikbayan box ever since Filipinos have been migrating/working in the US; making this box a huge gateway of sharing the “American” life to their families back home. This must have originated from our clamour for the taste of the “American Dream” but eventually has turned into a way of life that is purely Filipino.

These balikbayan boxes, the unmistakable trademark of the Filipino, have been our family’s chest of treasures for as long as I can remember, connecting us to one another in a quaint, unexplainable, yet very real way. In a way, they have made present those who were absent and made tangible what could not be seen so that the line dividing presence and absence was lost somehow.

Rosita Alyssa M. Baua wrote at INQ7.net’s Youngblood Column.

So have you sent/received your balikbayan box this year?

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* balikbayan is a contraction of two Filipino words: balik (meaning: go back) and bayan (meaning: town, in this context connoting hometown or homecountry)

Forex (photo credit) has been servicing the overseas Filipinos in the balikbayan box business since 1986.

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