“Tsong”

Muan 05/02

We normally address each other as “tsong” especially when there’s need to call one’s attention towards something that more often, of insignificant importance. At that, the communication demands nothing deeper than what's necessary and it was alright.

Before, I used to call her “manang” to which I refer to my native tongue, albeit she wores a lil “Maria Clara-ish” attitude which I find adorably cute besides her “being kuripot” at times, I figured out it was too undiplomatic to her image to be addressed that way for “manang” means an elder sister and idolized Judy Ann Santos as a fashion icon. We’ll she knew I am just trying to ease out what was, a tense-filled interaction before, to which now she’d fondly respond “manong” or a-pout-and-eyebrow-raising combo.

“T’song”; an originally tagalog- slang for uncle (derived from the word “tiyo”) but is now commonly used as reference to a close buddy and is often used as pronoun to express assurance and courtesy. (i.e. “Okay lang yan tsong”, Tsong, ganito yan…”).

Then “naten” began to appear in between. “We” as it’s English word meaning suggest, gives more than of its Oxford-ish translation in my head.