By Oliver Geronilla

When I was just a little boy living in the countryside, I always thought all East Asians were Chinese, and that all Europeans and North and Latin Americans were Americans! This was despite the lessons I had in geography, civics and culture, which remained in my head until I was a high school sophomore.

Now I smile when Filipino kids say ``Hey Joe!" to the white-skinned; and when they say ``annyeong" to the yellow-skinned. Being a mestizo, I sometimes find it to be more fun than a barrel of monkeys when even my fellow Filipinos mistake me for an East Asian.

Just recently, I was amazed when I was suddenly stopped by a group of young Filipinas while Tony, my Korean student, and I were walking inside the University of the Philippines' Los Banos Botanical Garden. Giggling, they excitedly asked if they could take a picture of us. I declined and hurriedly walked away from them.

Why did I do that? The obvious reason was that I didn't know how to handle the situation. And my student? Well, we shared the same reason. When I got home that night, I flirted with the idea of entertaining some funny thoughts. What if we allowed them to click their cams to satisfy their ``curiosity?" That would have given me and my student some moments of fame and popularity! Alas, we're not trained to pose before strangers.

But that was the surface of it. I knew there were some underlying reasons why I acted that way. Perhaps I thought it was inappropriate. Have you heard of a Westerner asking a ``nobody" from Asia for a picture?

``Blame the boob tube for that," my friend commented. This reminded me of my article ``Be Our Guest," which I wrote for this paper. The current entertainment landscape has given Filipinos an alternative way to while away the time. Korean soap-operas are here to stay indefinitely. And with the TV advertisement made by Kim Bum for RC Cola, expect the Korean frenzy to go several notches higher.

This trend goes beyond the Pavlovian principle of conditioning. The way I look at it, Koreans have somehow penetrated the Filipino teenagers' Weltanschauung. I, for one, must say that things are changing now bit by bit, adding a wider hue in the Filipinos' cultural palette.

Koreans, too, I suppose, are no longer culturally impervious. Those who have visited or have migrated to other countries may knowingly or unknowingly be the socio-cultural conduits that spice up the peninsula's changing cultural landscape.

Interracial marriage is another interesting factor that should be considered when looking at how Koreans have slowly showed their openness to other cultures. Aside from the mail-order brides that have hit the headlines countless times, there are genuine love stories that have ended in ``walking down the aisle."

These marital unions make the concept of having a borderless world not only a sociological perspective, but a biological process catalyzed by the need to reproduce. Through the process, standards of beauty will begin to change. And perhaps cosmetic surgery, double-eyelid surgery for instance, will become a thing of the past as more and more Koreans are born with those highly-admired eyes of the West - a product of racial admixture.

It should be noted that South Korea, once dubbed ``The Hermit Kingdom," is still one of the most ethnically homogeneous countries in the world where ``mixed blood children" still face two things that are poles apart: discrimination and/or adulation.

For centuries, many Filipinos considered Western looks as the standard of beauty. As such, mestizos and mestizas have an inherent edge over those whose looks resemble their Negrito-Malayo-Indonesian heritage. But now, the physical features of East Asians, especially Koreans, seem to have captivated the imagination of many Filipinos. Sure, Western beauty is still ``wanted" here, and Hollywood stars remain famous, but they seem to lack the pull that Korean talents currently have.

Oliver Geronilla, who once worked with W. Scott Thompson, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state, is the head teacher of Hanmaum Academy, the Philippines. He has been teaching ESL since 2000.