Dual Citizenship

Did you know that it may be possible for you to be a citizen of two or more countries? Earlier this year I became a dual citizen by reporting my birth to the Philippine Consulate General in Los Angeles.

US law ^1 2 neither supports nor prohibits multiple citizenship and by having multiple citizenship one does not loose US citizenship. Philippine law ^3 4 supports dual citizenship, says citizenship can be derived by blood, and my dad was a Philippine citizen at the time of my birth. This allowed me to register as a natural born citizen of the Philippines. Some other countries also have similar laws that you may want to check out.

One advantage that I have discovered now that I am a dual citizen are that I can travel to ASEAN countries without first obtaining a visa by using my Philippine passport. If I traveled to some of those ASEAN countries using my US passport, I would need to obtain a visa before arrival. I can even enter some other countries outside of Asia such as Brazil without first obtaining a visa. US citizens traveling to Brazil with only a US passport would need a visa before arrival.

Another advantage that I have is unrestricted residence and property ownership in the Philippines. I would love to live in the Philippines for a year or two at least sometime in my life. I want to connect with my roots. I can travel with either of my passports depending on where I go in the world. I am happy that I was able to become a dual citizen and I plan on passing it on if I have children in the future.

Fear Factor... Balut!

Continuing with my gastronomy of the food in the Philippines, below is an example of a more adventurous Filipino delicacy (and even considered taboo by some westerners). Balut is a partially gestated duck embryo that is cooked in the egg and eaten directly from the shell. Like many "scary" foods in different cultures, some people consider eating balut as an aphrodisiac. Balut was even something the contestants had to eat on on an episode of Fear Factor.

 This is the time I tried eating a whole balut. I've tried it before in the past in the both in the US and the Philippines, however I never ate the chick before. I just ate the yolk in the past and left the chick. However, this trip I actually tried eating the whole thing. It wasn't bad. As a whole, it tasted much like normal boiled eggs. With the chick and the fluid in the shell, it also tasted very much like a mixture of chicken and duck. Since it is eaten whole, you get the feathers and everything. The feathers felt kind of weird. It was like getting small fish bones stuck in your throat.

It wasn't as scary as most make it out to be, however my girlfriend didn't eat the chick. She just ate the yolk. I guess I'm more Filipino than her and she was born and raised in the Philippines while I was born and raised in the US.

Tropical Fruit

Above is a picture of some tropical fruit that I encountered on my trip to the Philippines this past June.

The spiky one in the back is durian which a lot of people know from Andrew Zimmern's show Bizarre Foods on the Travel Channel. Watch Zimmern trying durian here...

The pulp of durian is very soft and creamy. To me it tasted like funky onions. It was just tolerable and I didn't react to it as dramatically as Zimmern. However, it isn't something that I would crave to eat. It also sometimes has a strong smell that offends some people, but the smell didn't bother me. I've tried durian before in the US, however it was frozen, not fresh.

The small fruit in front on the left with white flesh is mangosteen. It is a citrus fruit with a flavor very similar to an orange. Only the white flesh is edible. Mangosteen is sweet and juicy. The fruit on the right that's in halves is pomelo. It is also a citrus fruit but its taste reminds me of grapefruit. It is not so sweet but is very much a citrus fruit.

I very much enjoyed exploring different fruits in the Philippines that I haven't tasted before.

Hello World!

Welcome to my blog for my CIS-68 class at Chaffey College.