@dargoyaki

Moral of the story, SEA netizens are the most creative roasters 🗿 #southeastasia #SEAblings #malaysiavskorea #kpop

♬ original sound – Dargo 🫠 – Dargo 🫠

The war in Twitter is so hot that I got cooked. 🔥

Obnoxious Korean girl brought a big-ass camera in a Day 6 concert in Kuala Lumpur, which is prohibited in concert venues everywhere. She got reprimanded but other Koreans online got on full racist mode.

Of course, we SEAsians bully each other like all siblings do but when an ousider hits our SEAbling, we forget our beef with each other, we assemble and attack the offender.

The Koreans said our women look like monkeys. Our SEAblings shot back, Korea is a sea of plastic — they’re so ugly that they hate how they look so everyone is doing plastic surgery. And one shot back by saying at least we have double eye lids. 🤣

But really, this Korean racism towards us darker Asians is ridiculous. They’re white passing. That’s why the Brazilians and the South Asians joined the rumble because they also receive a lot of hate for being dark.

One said that we SEAsians are poor, etc etc. A SEAbling shot back, at least our bridges aren’t for jumping…

Oooh that’s nasty.

But it’s true. They’re so miserable that they regularly jump off bridges and buildings. There’s too much pressure internally that they’d rather off themselves than face the high societal pressure that S. Koreans put upon themselves. They even go to the Philippines to off themselves.

I remember a corp comm friend told me that she was waiting for her driver to pick her up in one of the hotels in Poblacion in Makati when all of a sudden there was a huge splat of humans that fell from the sky in front of her. It turns out these were two Korean men who killed themselves by jumping from one of the hotel rooms above.

Anyway, back to the racist tirades by Koreans online vs SEAsians… A commenter pointed out that if it weren’t for SEA, Kpop and K-drama wouldn’t have taken off. We in SEA were the first ones who took notice of them and consumed their content as far back as 25 years ago. We had localized their dramas with our own dubbing or subtitling. Then we exported it to the west (via friends and family). I remember reading on one of the message boards in early 2000s about some Americans seeking info about a K-drama in our boards because they don’t know anything. We provided them with subs and titles of K-dramas and where to download. If they don’t get it, we dished the explanations.

The first consumers of their pop/entertainment were SEAsians. Their first concerts outside of S. Korea were in this region. Japan and China couldn’t care less about them (that’s a different history lesson altogether).

So when some of the stupid Koreans said the East Asians (Japan and China) are gonna tag team with them, the SEAsians said, uh nah, they hate you. You are alone, even your true sibling (N. Korea) isn’t backing you up.

It’s true, even in the workplace. I remember one Indonesian complaining eternally about the Korean boss (an investor) being so overbearing and racist…I said, I have your full sympathy…

I don’t want to know if my editor thinks we look like monkeys and we’re dull and poor. I could only deduce by the way she treats me. 👀

And that’s one long ass rant from me on a Friday morning.

Just another slow Sunday. I decided to cook tinola instead of buying from the weekend market because it was gloomy, rainy, and cold. I didn’t want to go out.

I spent my whole morning just savoring the stillness of my home. Unlike last Sunday when I was out of sorts, this morning is like a dream — slow, luxurious, and uncomplicated.

Romanticizing my days makes my anxiety-inducing job tolerable these days.

Last Saturday when I drove to my parents’ hometown, I thought that a quick roadtrip would help me breathe and forget about work. So I gladly drove my brood the following day for lunch in Caliraya so I can kick out the thought of my horrid editor from the land of bubblegum pop.

I just need to create little pockets of sunshine to help me stay literally sane.

Human Nature (from Thriller album) is my favorite Michael Jackson song, with Man In the Mirror (from Bad album) as a runner up. I just learned tonight that it was composed and partly written by Steve Porcaro of Toto!

And bonus fact: Steve Lukather, also from Toto, provided the lovely guitars to the track.

Another fun fact: Steve Lukather has played guitar for 2000 recorded songs — a very prolific sessionist. Jeff Porcaro (whose Porcaro shuffle has troubled many drummers), also from Toto, has also been a session drummer for many recording artists and he was in demand because he has great groove. He was on the speed dial of many producers.

And here’s Human Nature in its unadulterated form. This song has been sampled so many times that I always forget how the original sounded like.

Was just in my bed for the last 48 hrs or so. Been suffering from flu with diarrhea. My head is pounding and all I did was sleep.

I drove to an expo at the World Trade Center on Wednesday and I did my best hunting for people to interview. I was supposed to go to SM Mall of Asia to write but once I was in my car, all I could think about was my bed and how lovely it is to lie down and rest. I ditched the idea of going to MOA and drove straight home.

By 4:30 pm I was already home. I hopped on my bed and never left because by evening I was already feverish.

The following day was worse. I was slipping in and out of consciousness and dreamed weird dreams while I nursed my fevers. I also had a bit of asthma attack so I had my nebulizer at the foot of my bed.

I don’t remember how I fed myself but somehow I was able to. I just ordered Grab for dinner for me and my kids when they arrived from school in the evening.

Then my diarrhea started. 🤦🏻‍♀️

My head still felt heavy this morning but I was already breathing normally and the fever is gone. I prepared my work desk but the pull of my bed was stronger. I had to sleep.

I tried working in the afternoon, so I refiled two stories that were left hanging last week. One made the cut while one is still left in editing hell.

I managed to cook dinner while suffering from body aches, headache, and diarrhea.

I just want t sleep 😭

My 2026 started badly that I couldn’t help but feel it’s going to be like that for the rest of the year. It’s a downer.

So yesterday I prayed for survival for this month of February. I don’t want another shitshow. Going to Anilao every weekend to decompress is not realistic given the scheduling and booking problems.

I have to carve out little moments of calm to survive.

I attended a family function yesterday and learned about the plans for our ancestral home. My cousin built a 4-storey commercial building near the municipal hall and his parents will live on the 3F after transfering from our ancestral home. He said the old house and lot, which they painstakingly renovated and expanded, is too noisy now as it is next to the highway. Well, he has a point; it’s not an ideal place for senior citizens to live in anymore.

The sad part is that they plan to demolish the house and all the structures around it (including my grandpa’s beloved kitchen) to make it into a commercial establishment.

My bestie cousin told me if we only (other cousins) had money, we could buy that family property instead of erasing all the footprints of our ancestors.

It’s nostalgia vs capitalism. Can we live with just nostalgia? I don’t know. My gut tells me we should at least try to buy it from my cousins.

However, we aren’t going to live in it so what’s the point?

Meanwhile, the home of my grandparents on my father’s side is still untouched. No one is living there and it stands there as a museum of sorts for that side of the family. My uncle who built it already retired and is living in a commercial establishment a kilometer or two from that house. He said he didn’t want to live there alone and do all the renovations because it was too bothersome.

I asked if I could at least scrounge through the old stuff I could preserve, like my dad’s old stuff.

However, I don’t have the time to do that. 😶

My father would have thrown a fit at the state of the house now. I mean it’s alright but you know that it’s like a haunted house, hosting the ghosts of the past while having no future.

Again, can we live with just the memories and remain in its stillness?

It has been a rough week.

I think half of my problem with that editor from the land of bubblegum pop is miscommunication. English is not her strong suit so 1) the tone is very harsh maybe because her first language is harsh or not polite, 2) she thinks I’m stupid for always misunderstanding her 3) she is harsh by nature.

So many lines are crossed. My skin jumps when I see her in my emails and chats.

Anyway, I’m just buying time. I’m figuring a way out. If I don’t get the two jobs I applied for, then I will have to figure out how to get two consulting contracts.

It’s the weekend; I’m driving to Batangas tomorrow and then to Caliraya on Sunday. To drive the cobwebs away.