Last Friday, Kevin and I went to some live comedy where the headliner was Rex Navarette who is a pretty popular Filipino comic who grew up in the bay area. The comedy club is walking distance from our house and I got discount tickets from a website called “Gold Star Events”, so, it seemed like the perfect Friday night outing. I warned Kevin that the crowd would be really Filipino though and some of the jokes might go over his head.
Rex Navarette started his set with “How many people are Filipino?”. Nearly 85% of the audience raised their hand and he followed this up with… “Who is taking care of the patients at Kaiser, then? ” 
(If you didn’t know this, the two professions that Filipinos dominate are Nursing and the postal service). Anyways, while the comic was going through jokes regarding going to the Philippines, he started to talk about “Balikbayan Boxes”. Balikbayan boxes are the big boxes that Filipinos end up substituting for luggage when they fly home so that they can fit as many gifts as possible in them. Go ahead, check out a line at San Francisco airport near the Philippine Airline terminal. All you will see are big boxes wrapped in gray duct tape and woven rope. The comic went through the various jokes of what goes into these boxes from Spam, Vienna Sausages and Corned Beef (typical Filipino favorites). Then, he talked about chocolate. He mentioned that you fill the next layer of the box with Cadbury chocolates … and if you are more successful, even Toblerone. Now, my family fits this stereotype, for sure. We always had boxes full of both Cadbury and Toblerone, but, I had no idea they were a part of Filipino culture. I just thought that my mom liked these chocolates! My sister and I would get treated to a white chocolate Toblerone bar every time we went shopping at the dept. store, Fedco, as kids. Go figure, how did these British and Swiss chocolates ever make it into Filipino culture? I learn something new every day.
Anyways, Rex Navarette is well worth seeing for any Filipinos. His jokes are not broad enough to fully understand if you didn’t grow up in a filipino family though.
