Pasalubong and Travel Swag

Pasalubong is the Filipino tradition of bringing home gifts from one's travels. They're not expected to be terrible fancy. Very often, food that you can share while you recap stories and show off your pictures and videos is enough. Little souvenir trinkets like key chains, refrigerator magnets, shot glasses, T-shirts, and tote bags are nice if you can afford it. As a child, I often got loose change, small bills, postcards, and postage stamps although I don't know too many young 'uns now interested in such. Besides, the last time I gave small change to a child, the mother freaked. At what age can you trust children not to swallow the damn things, anyway? 

Sometimes you don't even actually have to buy anything to give someone pasalubong. My Ate Susan had worked abroad as a domestic helper before she worked for my family and has her own collection of international tourist kitsch. While she cheerfully accepts the tote bags, key chains and nail clippers, she more often than not regifts them to her family in the province. Since she is a small pudgy woman, baby tees are the right length but the wrong width on her. Larger ones fit her round quite well but might as well be nightshirts for their length. When I try to give her something a little more expensive, she thinks her alaga is kawawa and should learn to save more of her small income. Apart from food, the only gifts she truly accepts with genuine gusto and no guilt are the airline amenity kits and the hotel toiletries and stationery. So I stash the stuff. On the flight in. Every day at the hotel so they'd refill. On the flight out. And when I present her with all the swag I've swiped, she squeals happily. She may even be persuaded to accept a small touristy tote to hold all her stash.

And she is not alone apparently. There is a market now for such items online like in eBay for example.

What can I say. The woman is ahead of her time.