Week 6 Essay: Filipino Stories

This week I read stories from the unit Filipino Popular Tales, for my essay post I have chosen to assess this unit as a whole. The initial reason that I chose this unit over all the others was because I thought that the fact that they were Filipino stories was very interesting. I knew that I had never read anything that was of Filipino origin so I thought it would be interesting to read about them.

Source: Wikipedia

(The flag of the Philippines) 

 One of my favorite stories from this unit was The Clever Husband and Wife. I enjoyed this story because it was kind of funny how the husband and wife were both being ‘tricksters’ to their bosses. As many would think (and I thought while reading this story) that tricking an employer would not turn out to be in your favor. Well in this case it did. The bosses though the whole scheme was funny and decided to offer the two a place to live free of charge.

One thing that I feel people should know before picking this unit to read is that a lot of the stories had animal’s characters that depicted various personas. For example there was a crocodile and monkey in a story together trying to gain something from each other. There was also a monkey that married a man and then became a beautiful woman later on in their relationship.

I think that the ever-persistent presence of monkeys in the majority of these stories is relevant because monkeys are very popular creatures in the Filipino lands. I think it is important to notice trends in the stories within the larger story because it allows you to see some element of consistency and connection. Overall this unit did meet my expectations because it allowed to me learn some more about a new culture that I had no knowledge of prior to reading.