Sinking Roots

Tell us more about yourself and where you’re from!
I’m John, I’m 28, and I’m a Filipino who’s now living in the United States. I’ve been based in the US for nine years now. My mom went over initially to build a better life for us there, then she brought my family and I over.

Tell us more about your family.
I have quite a big family—I’m the oldest of four siblings. Most of them are in the military, like I am, or in nursing. We’re tight-knit so we stay around the same place in California, near one another.

So how has your time in the military been?
It’s been awesome! It was something I really wanted to do full-time, and I’m glad I ended up getting the chance to be a part of it. I’m now on a tour around the world as part of my work in the military.

Where have you been as part of this world tour?
I’ve been to Italy, Spain, Croatia, Greece, and Guam. I’ve also been to Thailand and it’s beautiful. But this is the first time I’ve been to Singapore, and I have to say, this is number one for me so far. I’m a really huge fan of engineering and architecture, so that’s what made me fall in love with this place.

How about in terms of food?
I love the local food! I don’t know what the names are exactly, but I love the spices used in every dish. That’s the thing I love most about Asian food. We’ve been around different places to eat, and it don’t disappoint, that’s for sure. Here, you’ve got different types of delicacies, and it’s a culture shock in the best way possible because you don’t usually see this kind of variety much in a single country. It’s so good too, so it don’t disappoint. I love it, I love it!

Do you cook a lot at home, or does your family cook a lot?
I’d say I cook some stuff—Filipino food such as adobo, which is a flavourful chicken or pork stew, and this pork blood stew known as chocolate meat or dinuguan. I love that. I tried cook some steak too recently, but I’m not really good at it (laughs).

That’s a cool tattoo you’ve got there! Tell us more about it.
The artist who did it for me is Angelo Kohuai Berardy, @akb_future. He’s a really good dude. I got it done in Las Vegas. I went down there, sent him a message, and that was it. I was originally going to do an anime tattoo based off of the anime Jujitsu Kaisen, but I thought that would be too much for my first tattoo, so I decided to get something else. So I told him to just do whatever he wanted with the design, and he did it on the spot which is so awesome! He even put a little sun there to represent my hometown in The Philippines.

Because it was my first, I didn’t want to take any breaks, so we powered through it in just three hours (laughs). Now, I’m hoping to get my next one done in Japan, but it’ll be one of those traditional types. It’s expensive though, so I hope I can get the money to do that soon!