Knowing

By Virginia J. Pasalo

 

IT takes time to get to know a person. You cannot claim to know a person even when you’ve lived with one for a long time.

But some people seem to know “si Aida, si Lorna at si Fe” and every “Tom, Dick and Harry”, when you ask them. This is true especially when the people they “know” have acquired a degree of status, and knowing them gives them a false sense of similar or higher status. The degree of “knowing” is magnified if the person is a macho (or its female equivalent), who embellishes his/her knowing with very personal accounts, true or not, in order to be believed.

An admission of “not knowing” is very rare. To admit “…I didn’t know you have a green thumb”, or ask the question “You eat live, baby shrimps?” is a good way to begin to know someone. But, it is not even close to “knowing enough” and still a very long stretch to “knowing well”.

 

Kabat ta ka

agmoak kabat
agmoak ni kabat
anggapo’y oras mon mikabat
o di no agmo iitdan na oras
ya kabaten mo ak.

Akin, balet, no tepeten da ka,
“Kabat mo?”
Say ebat mo, “Kabat ko, dalem tan paoay”
“tagey tan leksab,”
“asupsop ko’y suso to,”
“antak so taway na kayarian to,”
“akapeket ni ed dilak.”

“On, kwan mo, kabat kon maong,”
“singa karalem na paka-kabat ko’d kayarian ko!”

 

I know you

you do not know me
you don’t know me still
you do not have the time
or you do not want to make time
to get to know me.

Then, why, when others ask,
“Do you know her?”
You say, “I know her, inside and out,”
“from the bottom to the top,”
“I sucked her breasts,”
“I know the taste of her private part,”
“it’s still stuck on my tongue.”

“Yes,” you say, “I know her well,”
“as deeply as I know my own private part!”

 

Note: The original Pangasinan poem had the biological names of the “private part”. It is edited here for public reading upon the suggestion of “proper” readers.

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