{"id":266,"date":"2009-06-04T23:37:43","date_gmt":"2009-06-04T13:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/?p=266"},"modified":"2009-06-04T23:37:43","modified_gmt":"2009-06-04T13:37:43","slug":"anzac-night-out-pinoy-aussie-style-by-marie-rea-bsdevcomuplb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/?p=266","title":{"rendered":"ANZAC Night Out Pinoy-Aussie Style"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Marie Rea<\/strong><\/p>\n

What can you do on an ANZAC holiday night with the kids? Aside from movies, bowling or just dining out, there\u2019s not much a family of two boys aged 10 & 14 have not done before on weekend nights really.<\/p>\n

So upon learning from a friend there\u2019s a show and dinner buffet at Corregidor Entertainment Centre and Restaurant in Rooty Hill, we persuaded our computer nerds to come with us to get exposed to a bit of Filipino culture: singing, dancing and heaps of eating of course!<\/p>\n

Getting there, my hubby forgot to plug in his GPS and boasted he could still find the place! After almost an hour of driving, we saw the SAN MIGUEL signboard outside the restaurant. The place is far from the train station and their website was not much of a help. They could have said it was in front of the Catholic school away from the main shops!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We paid $70 for food and show tickets at the door. That night there was Cleo and her mates. I learned during the show they were supposed to be ex-Las Vegas performers. Well, they\u2019re okay, but the venue left much to be desired for us!<\/p>\n

There was not much food (to select from). My youngest son ate only rice and soy. But still we soldiered on. After all, we didn\u2019t go there just for the food which didn\u2019t live up to our expectations!<\/p>\n

One saving grace though, was the dessert which my hubby enjoyed. It was a purple yam dish (guinatan) with some thin slivers of jackfruit. It was cooked in coconut milk and one tiny sweet potato square for each teeny weeny silver bowl! It probably had bananas as well but mine didn\u2019t have them. We were told we could come back to the buffet table but since it was too far from our table, we didn\u2019t go for second servings.<\/p>\n

Staff was friendly and smiled a lot! Where else can you find an usherette doubling as receptionist, hostess and photographer? Only in Pinoy events, I bet ya! It turned out this woman \u2013 Michelle Baltazar, a fine lady with a good singing voice to boot, also works for ABS-CBN and writes for a financial paper! She even asked for my card which I gladly gave though I had a hard time finding one due to my discomfort inside the hot room! She also complimented my kids saying my youngest could be a model! She was very entertaining in her own way!<\/p>\n

Anyway, one of the disappointments for the night was my hubby\u2019s food getting cold, while waiting for ages for his change at the bar. The bar woman didn\u2019t seem to be well-versed with the system there, fumbling for the drinks\/change, etc! Where was the famous barman I heard about? Oh, it was a holiday!<\/p>\n

The sound system was so bad it was a miracle the singers still sounded fine! Too much echo almost ruined my hubby\u2019s already fading hearing. Plus, the technician kept putting the wrong music according to the main singer CLEO.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never heard of Cleo before or seen her but she was alright though it was not easy to understand her Visayan accent. I explained to my boys that she was just speaking like the New Zealanders anyway! They seem to talk in a similar manner!<\/p>\n

Cleo\u2019s opening number of \u201cJAMBALAYA\u201d probably set the tone for the night \u2013 a jambalaya or hodgepodge of many \u201cinterrupted\u201d love songs, a couple of Filipino tunes, popular disco numbers and songs of the 40\u2019s and 50\u2019s perhaps? I was glad I didn\u2019t know some \u2013 really, honestly, proving I wasn\u2019t that old!<\/p>\n

At least my youngest recognised one of the songs \u2013 \u201cI Will Survive.\u201d My eldest just kept playing with his mobile phone.<\/p>\n

Survive we did, after the music was stopped and started again and again to get the proper queuing, I suppose.<\/p>\n

It was still a riot of an act. The audience enjoyed themselves and that\u2019s all that mattered in the end.<\/p>\n

So after enduring so many apologies for the technical problems and hearing that there\u2019s a 15-minute break for a disco free-for-all, I decided our kids\u2019 education on Filipino arts and culture has ended temporarily for the night.<\/p>\n

The moral for this family ANZAC night out?<\/p>\n

I impressed upon my sons the Filipino value of family togetherness. The other opening act was that of Michael White who sang sweetly with his mother. He also dedicated a song to his younger sister who was there. The young lass looked like she was fresh out of kindergarten!<\/p>\n

The show magnified respect for elders and the Filipino value of family togetherness \u2013 dads, mums, grandparents going out with their kids of all ages and grandkids for a fun night of good fun and dining. Hopefully food will improve soon! For $70 ($20 for adults and $10 for my 10 yr old), that\u2019s still good value anyway I look at it! My husband\u2019s Aussie teenage nephews and young nieces will probably not enjoy going to a disco\/show with their parents! Though for birthdays like 40th or 21st, I am sure they would make some exceptions.<\/p>\n

Where\u2019s the spirit of ANZAC here? All the performers paid tribute to their elders \u2013 the opening acts dedicated their numbers to their deceased grandmother, mother, older family friends, etc. That\u2019s close enough!<\/p>\n

These revered people just like the ANZAC diggers sacrificed a lot to bring up their mob and \u201cfight\u201d for freedom!<\/p>\n

Moreover, those Filipino immigrants certainly shed blood, sweat and tears to live in a strange place and make it a wonderful home for their families! Thanks to them, they are living a blissful life in Sydney and this writer hopes she\u2019s doing the same thing for her kids now!<\/p>\n

(Note that this is not the typical high production show FIlipino-Australians usually dish out. We just recently watched the JON SANTOS show at Burwood RSL and it was more organised. Jon was a brilliant comedian and impersonator and it was a night to remember not just for me but my hubby as well. Luckily he was well-versed with Philippine politics and culture so most of his jokes weren\u2019t lost much on him being a true blue Aussie at that! We thank Jim Paredes and his mates for bringing Jon\u2019s brand of comedy to Oz.)<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Marie Rea What can you do on an ANZAC holiday night with the kids? Aside from movies, bowling or just dining out, there\u2019s not much a family of two boys aged 10 & 14 have not done before on weekend nights really. So upon learning from a friend there\u2019s a show and dinner buffet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}