Filipino Ako (I am a Filipino)

I used this photo before with the theme brown. This is a drawing that my then 4-year-old son did in the kindergarten. When I went to pick him up I was told by the pedagogue that he was particular about details. Kids his age, the pedagogue said wouldn’t include a neck when drawing a human figure but he did…

He told me that he particularly colored the skin brown because his skin is brown, unlike his other playmates at the kindergarten…because he’s Filipino.

I always sing to the little boy when he was still a baby and I taught him to sing too, beginning with Tagalog songs Ugoy ng Duyan and Isang Mundo, Isang Awit. The latter he knew even before he turned two-years-old. I can’t find the video I took of him then so I re-recorded this today but he was singing the chorus only…

(“Je ‘taime, Te Amo, I Love You, Watashi wa Anata wo Aishete Imasu, Ich Liebe Dich, Iniibig kita, Wo Ai ni“) – this is his version, originally Gua ai di; Fookien, he says Wo ai ni which is Mandarin.

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