When Is Baduy Really Baduy?

As a kid I used to think one-dimensionally of 'baduy'. Eating pasta with a spoon was baduy, pronouncing escargot with a T was baduy, slurping your soup and biting your spoon was baduy, wearing a blue shirt with brown pants was baduy, wearing elephant jeans and bonnets in a tropical climate was baduy. Thankfully, I've grown from that. If you're not dining with the Queen, I guess exquisite enunciation and Victorian etiquette shouldn't matter that much to the average Juan. Whatever turns you on shouldn't be my business. To each his own.

But what is baduy, really? Is it the inexpensive fashion the poor wear? Is it old people trying to crack antiquated jokes? Is it your class 'nerd' with his tucked in, buttoned up long sleeved shirt? Is it the non-Parker pen, the non-Armani suit, the mainstream music one listens to? Is it the ignorance for things 'kewwwl'? Is it the distaste for the modern, the urban, the metropolitan? Fuck no! We tend to say eww, eek, and yuck to the wrong things. What do you care about your neighbour's personal tastes?

Baduy is the absence of basic human wit and intellect. (stress on basic.) Baduy is a cheap, poor sense of culture. Basic human culture.

Baduy is 'txt tok' on an essay assignment, it's putting too many H's where there shouldn't be one in the first place, it's that no-talent trying to sing on TV selling out his dignity and the values of the young ones who idolise him, it's the people who cheer to the top of their lungs for that particular no-talent sell-out not for his singing but for his pre-ordered smile, it's two cheap cowards talking garbage about unsuspecting passers-by instead of minding their own lives, it's finding someone fall off his seat funny, it's those shows on TV that find other people's sob stories entertaining and exploit the desperate with humiliating parlor games, it's that sad excuse for a movie (read: cheap rip off) showing in a theatre near you, it's those empty plots and discussions they have on so-called talk shows. Baduy is network wars, the social climbing phonies that can't even pull off a single believable skit, it's voting someone for mayor because the bloke is cute, it's trying so hard to sport an American accent when the basic rules of grammar don't even meet satisfactory, it's boasting a Castilian pedigree when one's Malay bloodline is begging for attention (read: 99% Malay, 1% Spaniard), and so on. I could list more, though.

We have a great deal of rubbish today in the current pop culture that undoubtedly belong to the province of baduy. Trends, they are, unfortunately. I wish them death. For the sake of this dying country, I wish them a terrible, terrible death.

Raise war, people! A unique kind of war that, though may take a hundred years, will greatly diminish (if not completely stamp out) the baduyness that is the current trend of things. 'Don't be baduy' means get some culture.

Labels, Labels, Silly Labels

Gay
When people say 'Gay' they don't mean just 'men liking men'. They think Malate, San Francisco; tops and bottoms, George Michael, Cher, Maximo Oliveros, the rainbow, feather boas and leather wear, and pink shirts. Last time I checked, I've never been fond of those, so why call myself Gay?

Bi/sexual
Bisexual is something given. Almost all social animals (humans, apes, dolphins, birds) are largely bisexual in nature.

Straight
Simply put, the etymology of 'straight' suggests heterosexuality (relationships, attraction, etc) is the "right path" and its homosexual counterpart the "bent broken road". Rubbish!

Half Man
What, like a eunuch? My balls are still intact, thank you very much.

Third Sex
I'm not even going to start with how wrong this word is. We don't have pen-ginas or vag-enises.

Queen, Bitch, Girl
I have nothing against men who like to call themselves such, but if we're not that close, I think it's beyond inappropriate to call me something so misleading even if it's done jokingly. Respect my manhood as I do yours.

Queer
Although I do know that I'm strange in many ways, calling my sexuality queer is like saying my sexuality is abnormal. It isn't. Check your science.

Bakla/Bading [Philippines]
This name suggests 'transgender' (read 'woman trapped inside a man's body'). Go look up the words you intend to use before you actually use them. I'm not transgendered. I love my penis. Why embrace a word that isn't you?


That all said, do we really need all these labels? I certainly don't. I'm not Aldrin the [insert label here]-sexual or Aldrin the [insert label here] guy. I am Aldrin, full stop (period). People should be bigger than words.