slow tempo/ short hair

Slow Tempo
This past month has been a great opportunity to slow down, reflect, and assess my goals for the next phase of my life. However, I am not the only one taking things slow here.

One thing that is really different here is musical tastes. The more sentimental (ie: slow) the song, the more popular it is - no matter the decade. Musicians here are really talented, and there are many. Pinoy cover songs on the radio of American rock ballads are something you'll hear often - "loving you is easy 'cause your beautiful" sung by a Pinoy artist was on the radio few minutes ago here at the cyber cafe.

The other day on the mainstream station they were playing "Making love out of nothing at all" which I haven't heard since the 80s. I also have heard album tracks of Michael Bolton, Josh Groban and Bette Midler on the radio that were never hits back home. The slower the tempo, and the more gooey, the better.

For that reason, I am very surprised that pop country music isn't more popular here. (Maybe I'll start a business exporting pop country albums and tampons.)

There's a noted lack of heavy metal type bands and emo music - you know, anything that is angst-y. There is an niche called "Original Pinoy Music" (or OPM) which is mostly in Tagalog, and isn't as schmaltzy but it's more quirky or catchy than it is angry or harsh. I am probably not the best person to describe OPM, but it seems to be exemplified by groups such as "Rivermaya" or "Kjwan" and "Sandwich."

Short hair
As I have wrote about a lot, I have spent the past 18 months changing my life dramatically; my social life, my hometown, my relationship patterns, my attitudes toward myself, my artistic path and employment. I have developed lots of skills I didn't know I had, and appreciated things I had only criticized myself for in the past. I have taken risks and made bold choices that challenged everything I had experienced before. So far it has paid off, but it hasn't been easy.

Perhaps in honor of all these changes, I had my hair chopped off yesterday. The last time I had my hair cut was when I left religion (and founded www.pokrov.org). This time my cut is a lot more fashionable than the GI Jane cut I had back in 1998 and it is the start of a new beginning as well. (Shout out to my man, Mr. Ruben here in QC who designed the new look)

I leave for NYC via Hong Kong in almost 24 hours. I am excited, but a little bit sad. I've gotten used to things here and learned to love so many things about this country.