Friendship Dinner

Cruise Tasik where the MIYE friendship dinner was held.

PUTRAJAYA, MALAYSIA - There was no better way to cap off the 2016 MIYE than through a beautiful dinner cruise through Putrajaya. Amidst the calm waters and the quiet city lights, delegates and VIPs were treated to a buffet while a guide provided a background on the different sights we passed. 

Putrajaya actually boasts of several remarkable architectural landmarks and bridges inspired by different countries, and viewing them from the cruise ship--all of them proudly alight-- was a magnificent experience. Dinner was a relaxed affair, all of the delegates just happy to exchange jokes and stories as the cruise ship wended its way through the lake spanning the city. 

Towards the end, Jason Lee, a fellow delegate from Malaysia and our host for that night, called on the representatives from each country to share something about their homeland and what they learned during the exchange. The common theme running through all of the representatives' sharing was how much they learned about Malaysia and other countries. But what we all found valuable was the friendship we formed in our brief but special time together. 

"Malaysia is a beautiful country, but what would keep us coming back would be the hospitality and warmth we experienced during our stay. The experience in MIYE has been a mix of the new and familiar. In spite of speaking different languages and having different cultures, we saw glimpses of the Philippines, of home, in them. This is a testament to our common ASEAN heritage, truly unity in diversity."

Below is the whole transcription of Tina's speech during the friendship dinner:

“Magandang gabi” that’s what we say in Filipino whenever it’s evening. To my fellow delegates and to the VIPs here, good evening! I want to thank first the organizers inviting us [to] this programme. Thank you so much for your kindness and hospitality. I know from what my fellow Filipinos are saying that we really feel the kindness and the warm welcome that you have given us. Thank you for making us feel-at-home and because of the friendship that you and everybody here, we feel like Malaysia is a place that we want to go back to again and again. Especially since we feel that we have a lot more to see here. Definitely we will be back and we will get in touch with you when we do.

Just to share a bit about my country, there is so much to tell I don’t know where to begin but maybe I could tell you through our names. So they say that you are talking to a Filipino when the name of that person is a combination of an American first name, a Spanish last name and a very native nickname. So for example, my name is Ana Kristina Hipolito. And then my fellow delegates would be Jesse Guinto or Raymond Fajardo. So it’s a great interesting combination and the reason behind that is because of our colonial past so for the longest time we were colonized by Spain for about 300 years and then the Americans came in and took over for about 50 years and after that that’s when we gain independence after World War II. So you could see the different legacies that each colonizer gave us for example the Spaniards they gave us our names also the religion where we are deeply Catholic. A lot of the traditional values like being family-oriented – it comes from the Spanish. Our fluency in English comes from the Americans so we do have a lot of western influences. We do watch a lot of western programs on TV that’s why we get to speak like this. But essentially we’ve taken all of that and mixed it up and we are Filipinos. So we’re not quite Spanish, we’re not quite American, we’re not quite Asian, but we’re a strange kind of mix. So the only way to get the feel of what a Filipino is when you actually interact with them. So I hope that you’ve gotten a bit of flavor from how we’ve been interacting. So that’s about my country. I hope you’ve got to visit it."

As the dinner drew to a close, delegates exchanged gifts and extended invitations for the others to visit their home country. It was bittersweet, but the thought of having a friend in a neighboring country--easily accessible through a flight!--was a comforting thought. That last day marked not the end, but rather the beginning.