It’s been well over a year since I captured video in the philippines. I treated it like a documentary, capturing candid shots, background audio, and still photos. I claim that my schedule is too hectic and that I have no audience for this. Seeing that I want to go back some time in the future, I fired up my video editor and took a look at the source material.

It was late February, but most of people that I filmed would never know that I just came from minus 2 degree weather, icy roads, and people dressing in more than one layer of clothing. I saw an uncomplicated but barely subsistent life. These people live on farms, work odd jobs, and run small scale means of transportation. People that wouldn’t complain about working on an the expensive laptop that they were being edited on. I look at these lean dark-tanned faces then see my round pale face enter the shot.

From the conversations that I can translate, I heard my parents touting my success and worldliness. They were proud that I was able to hold my own in the poverty and climate that they remember growing up. Their audiences smiled politely at my presence, but I kept hiding behind my camera. My cousins, the kids in my generation, in these videos don’t know how easy I have it. The video shows them slightly embarrassed as they don’t know how to communicate to me as I don’t know how to speak to them. One night of filming just had us sitting on a porch, drinking. It was the only time that I felt somewhat akin to them, and it saddens me that it could be the only way that I can reach out to them.

I am a pale fat capitalist. I love the situation that I’m in, but I don’t know if I ever want to see them doing the same.