#janus-faced

Janus-faced (jey-nuh s-feyst)

Adjective

1. having two contrasting aspects, as the alternation of mood in a capricious person

2. having two faces, one looking forward, one looking backward, as the Roman deity Janus

3. two-faced; deceitful

As the saying goes, “there’s always two sides to a coin.” The same concept can be applied to my hybrid identities: it has both positive and negative implications.

Onto the positive implications, I think my hybrid identities helps me become more prepared to interact with different people across the globe. With English as the language mainly used in communicating, it’s easier for me to make connections and friendships with people all over the world. It can help me thrive and be globally competitive. With my fondness of the foreign music, cuisine, and the films, my knowledge on different cultures expands. With this comes my interest in the other aspects of that culture as well. This helps me become unbiased, unprejudiced, and non-discriminatory, which in turn, allows me to become a more-rounded and sincere person when socializing with other people. Living in a technology-heavy world means I have all the access to any information I wanted with just a click of my finger. Whether I am inside my room or riding a bus to school, through the Internet, a lot of information can be obtained. If used wisely, it helps my general knowledge of the world expands. Not only that, I also grow as a person as I incorporate the values I have learned and believed to be parallel to the beliefs that I have. I’d like to think my creativity is also enhanced since I am influenced by a lot of different principles and techniques being used globally. I will then find my own ‘flavor’ as to how I’d like things to be done.

While there are a lot of positive implications, my hybrid identities affect me negatively as well. First off, there’s the sense of detachment with local beliefs. Since I am more exposed to the global norms and the various ideologies scattered all over the internet, I am growing more and more disconnected from the customs I have as a Filipino. I sometimes think that the values we have are old-fashioned and that it would be better if we just let them rest in the past as well. Sometimes, I also get confused when the beliefs I have seem to clash with those of my parents’ and grandparents’. This may have been due to the fact that I have been influenced by what I read from foreign articles and websites that I am slowly starting to change my beliefs to fit the more global perspective. I may have been becoming more liberal and vocal about my ideas, even though these ideas seem to repulse the older generations quite well (supporting LGBT rights, for example). With rampant globalization also comes the colonial mentality. I believe that as long as Filipinos are not deeply rooted in their Filipino origins, colonial mentality will continue to persist in our country. We have foreign films, series, books, and music dominating our country. It isn’t hard to see why people will prefer the foreign products more against local ones. With this problem arises another one, since I always find myself disappointed with the happenings in our country, I grew detached and disinterested. I now tend to skip over local news and would probably wouldn’t mind what happens to the government, or to the new situation in EDSA, etc. Although I still follow the news regarding the human abuses, trafficking and oppression happenings.