I wonder what Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus,AD 23–79), a Roman author and natural philosopher (among his many other pursuits), originally meant, when he (purportedly) came up with the first known version of the expression: ”Home is where the heart is.” The phrase has since become a popular proverb and idiom, as well as a favorite line in many songs. Even without trying to dig deeper into what this phrase means to me, I´d like to thank Pliny the Elder and those who have popularized this adage, because these words have inspired me to write this piece about me as a modern migrant and how it has helped me feel ”at home,” more or less, no matter where I´ve been.
I have moved from the Philippines to Norway about 14 years ago, and have since felt more and more Norwegian each day. But many of my dreams still contain images and sounds of the Philippines and Filipinos. What is this? Isn´t my heart supposed to be with me wherever I go? Is this how my heart really is now, a divided one?
Migration is nothing new to me, having started it early in life. I spent my first seven years in my home village in my hometown Gattaran. I finished my basic education in the barangay´s elementary school. After that, I moved to Tuguegarao, the capital of my home province, Cagayan, to attend the best public high school there that time, the Cagayan National High School. My next destination was Metro Manila, the capital of the Philippines, because I wanted to get my college and graduate degrees from the best university in the country, the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. While I resided in the metropolis for almost two decades, I changed my residence address seven times. I moved from one house to another in Quezon City, Manila City, Marikina City, until I could settle down in my own house in Antipolo City. I didn´t have enough savings for the required equities to buy real estate properties that time, so I partnered with one of my brothers to buy some properties in the metropolis.
It was a no-brainer that my home and heart rested well in the Philippines during those years. But deciding which part of the Philippines was my ”real” home was a ticklish issue.
One one hand, the hustle and bustle in the Philippines´ biggest metropolis estimated to have sustained 15 million inhabitants at that time, matched my youthful enthusiasm and energy. Strangely, however, I felt more at home there in that city that almost never slept, than in my home province, Cagayan. On the other hand, Cagayan, or my memories of it, made me understand the importance of having roots and maintaining a good connection with these, no matter how painful some memories can be. In my young mind then, Cagayan, where my mother and father chose to build their home, was the place I could always go back to, if I got tired of the big city or vice versa.
Within was in the Philippines, I considered my ”real” roots to be ”Ilocano,” and being a “Filipino” felt nominal. But each time I traveled to other countries, I liked being called a Filipino, as if there was a magic formula in that word that made me smile and be proud at the same time.
It is only now while I was writing down these thoughts that I got to understand more clearly which places made me feel ”most at home” in the 37 years or so I´ve lived in the Philippines. Metro Manila was the home for my heart and Cagayan was the home where my spirit connected with the first greatest loves of my life whom I´ve lost early, too: my late maternal stepgrandmother, Fermina, and my late maternal grandfather, Rufino. Cagayan is also home to my maternal cousins who share with me some memories of the good old days when were young and growing up.
My favorite ”home” in the Philippines was in Metro Manila where I found many of my now long-time friends. The University of the Philippines in Diliman is one of the special places I´d always hold dear. That place has given me my happiest years as a young adult. The campus there also provided a rich and safe playground for my mind to dream big – that of making the world a better place, as well as teaching myself and others around me to be more humane and be less biased about things. It was there I first met Chopin and Beethoven´s greatest works and developed my taste and understanding for arts and culture. The daily masses I attended at the UP Catholic Chapel helped me strengthen my faith in a God, who I thought, could love me and all the earth´s creatures in more ways that I could ever comprehend.
I´ve lived in Norway for the past 14 years and I intend to continue living here until I retire or until I breathe my last. So does this mean Norway has replaced Metro Manila as the home for my heart? Perhaps, and these are the reasons why.
My heart feels safe and secure here in Norway. The air is literally sweeter and breathing is easier because the air is cleaner in most areas here, compared to many areas in Metro Manila. Crime rates are also generally lower in Norway, at least in the place where I live. Writers, journalists, and editors here can write and express freely whatever they fancy, without the fear of being gunned down in the next intersection along the highway. Children here are spared from the dangers of kidnapping. Thanks to a sustainable and pragmatic welfare system, old people, with or without relatives, are taken care of by the system. Those who get sick get the cures they need from the system. Even those with cancer don´t have to worry where to get the money for their treatments. Many who have heart problems get the surgeries and treatments they need even if they didn´t have personal savings or private insurance for such, and they survive well past into their 80´s or 90´s.
My soul has also felt more peaceful in Norway, knowing that the principle of equality is one of the fundamental building blocks of the current Norwegian economic and welfare system. Everyone is almost equal. We call our chiefs here by their first names. Those who are actively working aren´t classified into ”blue collar” or ”white collar” workers. I´ve also seen that some people here who work with technical jobs are paid more than some office-based workers. Moreover, those who are made to work overtime get paid properly.
The government here is also highly efficient in tax and collection from everyone, as well as in wealth redistribution to the less privileged and weaker members of the society. The society and the people, organizations, and businesses in Norway, usually abide by the rules the government sets.
Corruption is ruled out by the way the system´s rules are designed. For example, it is not acceptable to give and receive gifts (either as goods and services, including travel), to employees, both in the private and public sectors. If ever employees received taxable perks from their employers, these are usually included in the periodic reports submitted to the government, and these are taxed.
It is easy to understand laws and rules here because the government is almost 100% online by now. The Web site where all the laws are published is run by the government and is free of charge to the public, though there are special technical services that are available on subscription basis to the professional users who´d need deeper information on laws and regulations, like lawyers.
The government here has also invested much public funds in building up the digital backbone around Norway, such that information and communications technologies (ICTs) would be the best that they could be in this country. I couldn´t think of monopolies in Norway now (except for Vinmonopolet, a government-owned alcoholic beverage retailer), and the market competition this environment fuels gives consumers the best of both worlds – they get to choose freely which providers give them the best prices and quality of service they desire. Telephone number portability has been practiced here for a long time now, such that it´s not difficult for consumers to shift from one provider to the other and they get to maintain the telephone numbers of their choice.
I first dreamed of a semi-utopian type of society for the Philippines, way back in 1988, during my first job after finishing a four-year course in Bachelor of Science in Economics at the University of the Philippines School of Economics. It was my direct supervisor at the House of Representatives´ Congressional Planning Service (at that time), the late Mr. D. Cueto, who first introduced to me the idea of a welfare society and an almost free health care system that a country located far up north, named Norway, was supposedly building up at that time. I knew Norway then as just “the land of the midnight sun,” from my elementary and high school geography lessons. The idea about a welfare society Mr. Cueto mentioned appealed to my young mind, but I thought it was just a utopian idea that was too far-fetched. I didn´t have the faintest notion I´d be living in that utopian or semi-utopian world and directly supporting it, like what I´ve been doing for the past 14 years.
But no matter how I´ve thrived well in Norway, the songs that I hum in my head are still the ones I picked up back in the Philippines in the 1980´s, 1990´s, and early 2000´s, and the music that soothes my soul are the classical music of the great maestros Beethoven and Chopin. The nursery rhymes and poems that I remember differ from the ones I hear from my Norwegian colleagues and friends. Thus, even if I now used more Norwegian than English at work or at home with my husband, I still couldn´t get over the idea that the English language – that became my favorite when I was in the Philippines – suits me better in my writing avocation, as it offers me the chance to infuse more colors, layers, and nuances in the things I write. Norway has a population of around 5.5 million people while the Philippines has about 108 million people, so my decision to write more English articles for this site hangs much on these number dynamics. Anyway, I´ve chosen to make this site bilingual, so it wouldn´t matter if I first wrote something in English or in Norwegian, since I am bound to write two versions of each piece — one in English and another in Norwegian. All readers have to do is to click on the language switch of their choice.
As one of the 10 million overseas Filipinos living abroad, temporarily on a contract basis, or permanently, I´d always have nostalgic feelings for my past life in the Philippines and other places I´ve been to before I moved to my current country of residence, Norway. I don´t expect myself to get rid of lingering feelings about divided loyalties for my new home versus my old home from time to time. This is a classic migrant heart´s dilemma that would follow me to the grave. It´s part of who I am and what I have become.
I have originally planned to write just a short introduction about my blogs on the Philippines and (overseas) Filipinos for this Web site, but my words ended up the way they now appear here. Perhaps, this is the way my subconscious is leading me to get to know my inner self better. The truth I´m shown now is: parts of my heart and soul lie scattered here and there, as I might have left pieces of my consciousness in the various places I´ve visited or lived in and fell in love with over all these years. If I called all these scattered pieces of myself to ”come home,” which home would they go to, I wonder? Perhaps, I´d need to specify, ”The scattered parts of myself, come home to me here, now, in my new home, Norway.”
It was my mother who first told me about the idea that we might accidentally leave a part of our consciousness behind in some places that we visit. When we were younger and I would feel uneasy or sick after visiting some places, she would shout out, ”Evelyn,” (my nickname then), ”come home.” And then, as if by magic, I´d gradually feel better.
I plan to write for this section ”Phils./Overseas Filipinos” stories about the Philippines – perhaps, ideas, places, events, personalities, and politics. My goal for writing blogs about these is to help me remember my past while I could, connect these memories with my present realities, and help paint, by the use of words, the Philippines in my dreams: a place where justice smiles all the time, where corruption is almost a non-issue, where economic disparities are not so disturbing, and where almost all Filipinos in more than the 7000 islands that comprise ”The Republic of the Philippines” have enough food on their tables, enjoy both clean air and water, even as they also enjoy the amenities of economic growth and modern living.
I still dream that the Philippines in the future will also have a more humanitarian and egalitarian society like that of Norway. To do this, I´d have to first look more closely at the proposed law allowing dual citizenships to Norwegian citizens. They say it will be passed soon. Let´s see how it goes. I´d also write about that law and my insights about it here, for me and my fellow Norwegian-Filipinos living here.
