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Reasons for staying put |
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 by Krip Yuson for GRAPHIC
It's been grossly exaggerated among circles of friends that my family and I are
taking the plunge and migrating to Canada. Well, I must say that if there were a
country I'd choose for a family transplant, indeed, it would have to be that
exemplary destination, where Vancouver beckons as a superb, second-chance
habitat. In fact, last September we did exercise our landing rights as
immigrants, capping the final stage of a process that was initiated a couple of
years or so ago when I had my wife fill up such forms as are necessary for a
principal applicant.
Why her? Because she had an infinitely better chance for acceptance, being of
the ideal age at 13 years younger, with three kids of ideal ages, too, that is,
in their early teens, and with academic qualifications that had this college
dropout's pale in comparison. She has a Master of Arts in Communications from no
less than Northwestern University of Chicago, and is working on her Ph. D. That
she had been previously employed in a broadcasting company in Manila also meant
that her field of expertise dovetailed with a premium occupation in the
prospectively adopted country.
Gaining positive results, her papers were processed quite fast, although we hit
a snag due to non-compliance from the Illinois state police regarding her
request for a clean bill of health. This translated into considerable delay, so
that we all had to have our medical clearances done one more time after the
first had lapsed. Then my wife became involved in caring for her ailing father,
so that by the time we could go, our kids were already deep into another
schoolyear.
In any case, before her papers as an immigrant (along with that of her family)
could lapse, which would have rendered all the effort and considerable fees to
waste, we had to bite the bullet and hike ourselves to Canada. We received our
Maple Leaf Cards (or permanent residents' cards), which entitled us to five
years' stay as first-stage immigrants. Or so that's how we've interpreted it.
But we weren't quite ready to make the definitive big move, that is, permanently
transplant ourselves.
We resolved that the ideal situation would be to have our three kids graduate
from high school, maybe even take a year of college here, before they moved on
to the great beyond that was North America with its greater opportunities for
personal and psychic advancement. That remains the plan.
For thankfully, the new immigration policy requires only an accumulated,
non-continuous stay of two years out of the next five for our immigrants' cards
to remain valid, as with the chance for a change of citizenship. Personally, I
consider myself rather too long in the tooth to start a new adventure, in
another country where the familiar support system I would surely find wanting.
There'd be no legion of buddies I could ring up close to midnight and invite for
a drinking session. No driving under the influence of minimal liquor. No daily
driver, no weekend gardener, no 24/7 domestic help. No cheap massage! Well,
unless I made a foray to Vegas and managed to hit it big, in which case my
instant state of retirement would mean writing the novels, stories and poems
still in my head, while living the "Life of Riley" in Vancouver B.C.
And so our plans for migration really involve the kids and their mother -- for
their higher education and better prospects of gainful employment.
We figure that by 2020, when our country would face the specter of a population
of 120 million, our kids would likely opt out of that kind of competition
anyway. And so for them the headstart, not to mention the quick out in the event
that we have to go through possible bloodletting in the form of an Edsa 4 or 5
or 6.
The ideal situation would of course be to have the best of two worlds, to have a
business or nest egg that would cover such, so that the kids would be schooling
in a terrific environment and we could all come home for summer and the Yuletide
season, no sweat.
Otherwise, they can go on without me. Because, primarily, I might not be able to
handle the less-than-stressful situation in a city other than Manila my Manila.
I love to gripe, anyway. So the horrible traffic here, and general state of
chaos, actually spell a comfort zone.
Padding about at home, the whole year round, in shorts and a tanktop is another
reason to stay put. There are more, so many more. Pastillas de leche. Lechon de
leche. Leche flan. Kare-kare. Sinigang sa miso. A personal driver. A regular
physical therapist, or okay, call him a hard masseur. Plus other options for
cheap, softer massage. Beaches. Tagaytay. Baguio. Boracay. Bohol. Cebu. Palawan.
Mindanao. Batanes.
You get the drift. Before I make any decisive Pacific crossing, I would have to
ensure myself that my memories of delight in such homebound privileges would
already have reached the quota for satisfaction, indeed, satiety. And that will
never be.
Again, personally, if it only involved migration for myself, it would have to be
in the Isle of Islay in the Hebrides, in Scotland, where my writing will
certainly be fuelled no end by a homegrown supply of single malt whisky.
Until those perfect circumstances, however, other places like Macchu Pichu,
Galapagos, Acapulco, Rio de Janeiro, St. Petersburg, Bhutan, Helsinki, Paris and
London would remain as places to wish to visit or revisit, but not to stay in
with the awful closure of permanence.
There is still a life to be lived, in Vancouver or Toronto or Montreal, as well
as there is, too, in Manila and environs, meaning the rest of our still
beguiling planet.
* * *
--- Published in Gutom.org with permission from Krip Yuson ---
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Posted on Thursday, January 06 @ 14:48:50 CST by don |
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