Another sheeple moment

[lambertiana]

Last night I was at a Filipino dinner dance with my wife. They served a buffet dinner with plastic service. For those of you unfamiliar with filipino eating habits, they traditionally use a fork and spoon, with no dinner knife or butter knife. So the plastic service included no knives.

Enter the problem - they served a few meat dishes that had very large pieces. A few people at my table had large slabs of beef, and when they got to the table to start eating they suddenly had a problem. I offered my UKPK to the guy who was there with my wife's friend, and he declined, saying he was afraid he might cut his hand! As if he never uses a knife at home. It seems that many people have some sort of mental block that prevents them from seeing a knife as a simple tool once they leave their home.

In contrast, another friend of my wife came to the table a few minutes later and gratefully accepted my UKPK. I told her not to press hard or she would be cutting into the table, and she did fine. She remarked how nice it was, and asked if it was a scout knife. I told her that scouting taught me to be prepared.

 

[cybrok]

Sheeple filipinos?

I don't know much of their culture, but I tought they loved knives.

 

[rottwang]

That's just bad catering. There are no knives in Chinese cuisine because we prepare it in bite sized pieces.

Some people are conditioned to have a fear response and to depend on outside factors in time of crisis. They might live their entire lives making behavior patterns just to avoid a momentary feeling of discomfort or anxiety. You will always encounter someone who is irrationally afraid of everything, not just pocket knives. One of my friends continually tells me about his accident prone relatives who nearly sever their own fingers whenever he sees my knife. He has two pocket knives one of which i gave him, that sit in a desk drawer and won't ever be used.

Some people just need to go out and stub their toes, skin their knees, and yes, get a little nick on their hands. Pain is a great teacher, and once you do it a few times, you will freaking learn how to use it safely. Jeez...

 

[rhino]

Great Googly Moogly!

A Filipino without a knife is like a day without sunshine! It's just . . . wrong.

I'd probably give up my last gun before I gave up my last knife, and that's saying a lot.

Okay . . . benefit of the doubt time . . . maybe the guy who was afraid of the knife was not Filipino, but just attending? Let's hope! Otherwise, Lambertiana and some friends need to do a serious intervention!

 

[mete]

They certainly have jungle knives , many different styles !!

 

[raylaconico]

Hey lambertiana! a fellow filipino knife guy in Visalia! Where in Visalia are you?

 

[knarfeng]

A Filipino without a knife is like a day without sunshine! It's just . . . wrong.

I'd probably give up my last gun before I gave up my last knife, and that's saying a lot.

Okay . . . benefit of the doubt time . . . maybe the guy who was afraid of the knife was not Filipino, but just attending? Let's hope! Otherwise, Lambertiana and some friends need to do a serious intervention!

Guys, I trust I am reading sarcasm and joking in some of these posts.

To assume that all Philipinos love knives is as foolish as saying all whites hate blacks.

There are many large cities in the Philipines just there are in the US. Most "blade challenged" folks of my acquaintence are city dwellers. As people move into cities, they tend to forget the use of bladed tools because they find they are not necessary for their everyday work and therfore blades become strange and suspect instruments.

If we are using sarcasm could we use the grin emoticons to show we are joking please?

 

[raylaconico]

My observation is (from my filipino relatives and family friends) that most filipinos are not afraid of knives or get nervous around them. However, almost all of the guys I show my knives to view them as weapons rather than tools. It doesn't matter what kind of knife. They are not as appreciating of knives as tools like people around here are but they appreciate them and think they're cool. Many of the older men tell stories of knife fighting in their younger days. I don't know how much of it is true though

 

[z282z06]

Maybe he knew it was just in your pocket and thought it might be dirty or he didnt know what you cut with it last. I use mine for all sorts of cutting chores and when I am at a restaurant and need to use to cut food I go and wash it first. If I know I'm going to a restaurant that supplues those huge yet amazingly dull blades they call outback steak knives, I will wash my blade well before I go there, or bring a small thin gentleman's pocket knife with me.

 

[rhino]

Guys, I trust I am reading sarcasm and joking in some of these posts.

To assume that all Philipinos love knives is as foolish as saying all whites hate blacks.

Uh, that's not a very good analogy. For one thing, my assertion that Filipinos like knives is a positive thing that has no bearing on their character or their status. Your comparison likens it to something far more sinister.

Plus, mine is a lot closer to being true. While my assertion was good natured fun, I stand by it.

My dad, my brother and I all love knives. All of my cousins (of which I have hundreds since my grandfather had three wives in succession and children with each) seem to like or at least tolerate knives.

I've never met a Filipino that had a negative reaction to a knife or someone carrying one. The closest I came was when one of my cousin's sons was admiring my Spyderco Endura (back in 1992 or so) and wanted to buy it from me. He was too young and wild, so I told him that if he asked his dad and his dad told him he could have it, I would give it to him as a present. I didn't hear anything else about it.

I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for four years, which probably has the largest Filipino population of anywhere on the planet outside of the Philippines. While I won't claim to have met a significant number of them, I did meet and interact with quite a few (and even some that were not related to me closer than first cousin ) and I never got a negative reaction to my fondness for cutlery. And the bay area is not a place where knives and guns are a considered acceptable by the typical ultra-liberal socialist-statist resident.

In closing, you may wish to review your spelling conventions as well.

The accepted spellings in English are:

Philippines
Filipino

And in Pilipino-Tagalog:

Pilipinas
Pilipino

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raylaconico . . . Hah! Another cousin! Kumusta!

(and that's pretty much the extent of my knowledge of any dialects... my dad didn't teach me any language skills and I failed to avail myself of learning opportunities when I lived in California).

Maybe it would be "safe" to say that all of the Filipinos and people of Filipino descent that are here on bladeforums.com like knives.

 

[knarfeng]

Uh, that's not a very good analogy. For one thing, my assertion that Filipinos like knives is a positive thing that has no bearing on their character or their status. Your comparison likens it to something far more sinister.

Plus, mine is a lot closer to being true. While my assertion was good natured fun, I stand by it.

My dad, my brother and I all love knives. All of my cousins (of which I have hundreds since my grandfather had three wives in succession and children with each) seem to like or at least tolerate knives.

I've never met a Filipino that had a negative reaction to a knife or someone carrying one. The closest I came was when one of my cousin's sons was admiring my Spyderco Endura (back in 1992 or so) and wanted to buy it from me. He was too young and wild, so I told him that if he asked his dad and his dad told him he could have it, I would give it to him as a present. I didn't hear anything else about it.

I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for four years, which probably has the largest Filipino population of anywhere on the planet outside of the Philippines. While I won't claim to have met a significant number of them, I did meet and interact with quite a few (and even some that were not related to me closer than first cousin ) and I never got a negative reaction to my fondness for cutlery. And the bay area is not a place where knives and guns are a considered acceptable by the typical ultra-liberal socialist-statist resident.

In closing, you may wish to review your spelling conventions as well.

The accepted spellings in English are:

Philippines
Filipino

And in Pilipino-Tagalog:

Pilipinas
Pilipino

==============================
==============================

----------------

raylaconico . . . Hah! Another cousin! Kumusta!

(and that's pretty much the extent of my knowledge of any dialects... my dad didn't teach me any language skills and I failed to avail myself of learning opportunities when I lived in California).

Maybe it would be "safe" to say that all of the Filipinos and people of Filipino descent that are here on bladeforums.com like knives.

Sorry about the poor choice of simile and my poor spelling. I work among many people of Filipino descent. Many of them are sensitive about Anglo's perception of their country and of them as a people. As an Anglo I have had to be careful about anything that could be perceived as a slight or stereotype. Perhaps I'm over sensitized.

 

[lambertiana]

The interesting thing was that the guy was Filipino (pinoy for those in the know) from St Vicente in Ilocos Sur, which is not a big metropolitan area. He now lives in Stockton. The woman who liked my UKPK was one of the few anglo women there. Including myself, there were probably only about six or seven anglos in the large gathering.

Raylaconico - I didn't know there were any other BF members in Visalia! I'm on Feemster, just west of Linwood, between Walnut and Tulare. We should get together some time to compare blades. I'd like to see what you make.

For those who noted some ethnic generalizations - it has been my experience that Filipinos, as a group, are about the most relaxed people with regards to people saying things that may be considered offensive by some. I haven't seen very many get worked up over what other people have said. And I haven't seen much restraint when saying things about other groups, either. That sort of thing just doesn't seem to matter much. My observations may be influenced by the specific group of Filipinos that we spend time with (my wife is from Dagupan, in Pangasinan), but I have spent a lot of time with a very large number of Filipinos. And I used to live in San Francisco, close to Daly City, which has the largest population of Filipinos outside the islands.

 

[raylaconico]

Sure, we should get together. I've lived here for 5 years but I don't really know anyone in the area. I live in the Oakwood subdivision on the corner of Demaree and Houston. I work in my garage which is also my shop. Send me an email or something and we'll talk.
-Ray

 

[rhino]

Heh. Most of what I originally wrote in this message doesn't make any sense because I was thinking of someone else from another forum (traditional folders) on here, but addressing lambertiana. I'm a doofus. If I could delete it, I would, but I can only edit.