Forget the ‘Life Takes Visa’ commercials, if anything ‘Life Needs Subtitles’ makes way more sense.

I’m currently staying in the city of Tanjay, a very small portion of Negros Oriental of the Philippines. I was here last year after about a ten-year absence.

By the end of my first week I felt really at home in the town of Tanjay with all of my relatives. But the issue that was the biggest problem, both then and now – is the language barrier.

Ten years before, my cousins in Tanjay were between the ages of 3 and 10 years old. We spent a lot of the time dancing to music, and taking funny pictures. Most of which didn’t require a lot of speaking. I don’t even remember how we communicated then, but I remember there was a lot of dancing and laughter.

Ten years later, everything was a little different. We were all older, more cautious and a lot shyer. My cousin, Rocket, was maybe four or five when I first saw him peak his head from behind the screen door to my room, before jumping to hide when I turned my head. Today he’s turning 15 years old and doesn’t speak much English.

My other cousin, Kutz, who is now in her second year of high school, only kisses me hello and goodbye before retreating into her bedroom. At her age, disappearing into the bedroom seems normal. But I guess she did want to reach out, but text messages seemed the only way for her to do that.

I always got a kick out of the text message she sent me last year after we had left Tanjay and were getting ready to go back to the States. It was the first thing she had said to me during my stay.

It went something along the lines of “I miss you! Come back soon!” I replied back with, “Miss you too. If I come back – you’ll talk to me right?” She replied with a ‘yes’ and a smiley face.

My relatives said the cousins wanted to talk to me but they were shy and don’t know enough English to make first contact. In order to avoid another awkward four weeks, I bought a language book in order to be able to communicate with them – or at least try to. I never got around to looking at it. I barely have a firm grasp of the English language, learning a whole new one would take years for me to fully understand.

Now we’re back in Tanjay and I’ve only spoken to the few cousins that know English. Alex, who was about the same age as her siblings when I came the first time, dances around me and calls my name to get my attention.

I tried to read the Intro into Cebuano book but nothing sticks. I took a crash course during college on Tagalog, the national language of the country, and is the only language that people think of internationally when it comes to ‘speaking Filipino’. It wouldn’t have helped because none of my relatives speaks Tagalog anyway.

The oldest of the cousins, Cissy, says they’re just shy and by the time they reach her age they’ll be more open and talkative. I tried not to roll my eyes. But I had a semi-relationship with most of these kids when I was here eleven years ago, before I met Cissy who was staying in Manila ten years ago, so I don’t know if growing up will fix the rift. But I’ll try to be a wee-bit more optimistic for the sake of my inner island hopping Filipina.
—Eming Piansay