Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown | Manila | S07 E01 | All Documentary

Anthony Bourdain explores Manila at Christmas: overseas Filipino workers, cover bands, jollibee, holiday parties, lechon, sisig, and the country's resilience.

Key Takeaways

Christmas is a central cultural force in the Philippines, celebrated intensely and for an extended season.
Overseas Filipino workers are the backbone of the national economy and bear heavy personal costs of separation from family.
Filipino cuisine and food culture, from lechon to sisig to halo-halo, are deeply tied to community and celebration.
The Filipino identity blends warmth and humor with hardship, colonial history, and resilience.

What the video covers

Bourdain opens in Metro Manila during the Christmas season, noting the city's dense population and the Filipino love of the holidays, which start as early as September.
Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) are a major economic force, sending roughly $30 billion a year, about 10% of GDP, back home.
Filipino cover bands are a major OFW export, performing on cruise ships, in hotel lobbies and bars worldwide, with musicians expected to learn new songs quickly.
Jollibee, the beloved fast-food chain with over 900 locations domestically and many abroad, is presented as a cultural institution with unusual local dishes like spaghetti with hot dogs and chicken joy.
Corporate Christmas parties feature lechon (roast pig), drinking, and games like drunken musical chairs.
Filipino Christmas food includes halo-halo, a colorful dessert of sweet beans, fruits, and milk, and sisig, sizzling pig face served with egg.
The episode profiles the emotional toll of migration, following families separated by work abroad and a care-package sorting facility handling thousands of boxes at Christmas.
The episode also covers Filipino martial art kali and the country's history of colonial rule and violence.
Journalists discuss the dangers of reporting in the Philippines and the sense that citizens must often defend themselves.
The episode closes with the typhoon-prone climate and a Christmas celebration amid resilience.

Chapters

Why are overseas Filipino workers so important to the Philippine economy?

OFWs send back roughly $30 billion a year, about 10% of the nation's GDP, making remittances a central pillar of the economy. The video highlights architects, doctors, nurses, nannies, and musicians among the workers who go abroad.

How does the video portray Christmas in the Philippines?

Christmas is shown as an extremely important, long season that starts in September, with carols in malls, lavish corporate parties, and roast pig as the centerpiece. Filipinos are portrayed as very generous and deeply Catholic.

What role do cover bands play in Filipino culture and the economy?

Filipino cover bands are a major category of OFWs, performing in hotels, bars, and cruise ships abroad. They must learn new songs quickly and often dream of performing in places like Las Vegas.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

hey [Music] [Music] is from albert [Music] we have a request from the audience [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] twas the week before christmas when all through the house not a creature was stirring not even a mouse actually that's not true at all

Speaker A

metro manila bustling sprawling southeast asian capital of the philippines home to somewhere between 12 to 20 million people the world's most densely populated city [Music] but it is christmas a twinkly festive wonderland where the mostly catholic population take their

Speaker A

holiday season very seriously because filipinos are for reasons i have yet to figure out probably the most giving of all people on the planet think i'm talking keep watching [Music] [Applause] good afternoon everyone we're the band called keystone

Speaker A

[Music] ofw stands for overseas filipino worker and they are one of the philippines largest and most important exports people go abroad make money improve the quality of life for the whole family all over the world the philippines sends

Speaker A

architects doctors construction workers nurses housekeepers nannies the entire filipino economy relies heavily on the money sent back by more than 10 million ofw's roughly 30 billion us dollars a year or about 10 percent of the nation's gdp [Music]

Speaker A

until recently after domestic workers the largest category of ofws were musicians like filipino cover bands they're everywhere on cruise ships in hotel lobbies bars and of course in manila [Music] where the competition is fierce and the penalties for not getting a beloved

Speaker A

biker favorite like i don't know billy idol can be severe [Music] so [Music] [Music] hey little sister what have you done hey little sister who's the only one a little sister who's your superman who's the one you wanted

Speaker A

[Music] [Music] again [Music] [Applause] know this pampered rock and roll stars at any given moment somewhere in the philippines there is at least one person and probably many more who can step in and do your act better than you and

Speaker A

after only a couple of hours practice [Music] [Applause] wow [Music] [Music] it is true that i lie to my daughter and tell her that ronald mcdonald has been implicated in the disappearance of small children that i sneer at fast food

Speaker A

revile it at every opportunity but i am also a hypocrite because to me filipino chain jollibee is the wackiest jolliest place on earth [Music] spaghetti with the hot dogs on it right yes sir okay also uh chicken joy thank

Speaker A

you charlie [Music] welcome to jollibee there were over 900 of these things all over the 7 000 plus philippine islands and a whole lot more internationally wherever there are homesick filipinos there's a jollibee in new jersey by the way

Speaker A

um [Music] [Applause] i hate mascots you know they fart in those suits oh yeah chicken and spaghetti and not just any spaghetti i think it's like sweet banana ketchup meat stuffed with hot dogs because spaghetti is deranged you have strangely alluring

Speaker A

oh it's not a burger it's rice do i eat it in a piece my pork sinister brown sauce i don't know what it's for [Music] that's awesome that's what you do with the brown stuff [Music] did i mention it's christmas

Speaker A

the 7 000 plus islands that make up the philippines rank number one according to internet scientificians when it comes to celebrating the jolliest time of year holiday cheer begins a full hundred days before the 25th of december which means

Speaker A

there's a lot to do in this town especially if you like crashing other people's parties party start [Music] welcome to the seven continents travel and tours corporate christmas party held in the fabulous banquet room of the downtown pearl garden hotel outstanding

Speaker A

[Music] very catholic country very catholic country but 80 something percent christmas starts in september real really it starts in september you go to the mall you start hearing the carols and then it ends i would lose my mind

Speaker A

yeah so at 12 midnight of september 1 everyone greets merry christmas on facebook yeah uh it's a lechon on the menu yeah i have very fond memories of the last time i had let you on in the philippines

Speaker A

in fact not to kiss your ass but it is the finest big pig i've ever had amazing providing these babies to holiday parties is big business and standards here where pork is king and the lachon the best in the world

Speaker A

very very high today our little friend is prepared the old-school way turn slowly slowly on a spit over coals for hours oh delicious delicious [Music] you know during this time of the year there's a lot of christmas parties and

Speaker A

electron is always the star of the party engage how grand the party is by the presence of the legend so if you have two lessons you must be a big shot man that is good pig [Music] my name is

Speaker A

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] as we all know one must at a holiday party drink then get drunk and show off the boss this i expected and was prepared to do but the games i was a little surprised [Music]

Speaker A

then if i remember correctly i totally kicked ass at a game of drunken musical chairs but i can't be absolutely certain [Applause] [Music] [Applause] when they find out things could get awkward [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music]

Speaker A

[Applause] [Music] is [Music] hello hello hello please [Music] thanks so much thank you ladies is wonderful i don't even know what half of these ingredients are i mean it's delicious but how is it made what's in it let's find out

Speaker A

[Music] an icy milky technicolor concoction of sundry sweet mung beans candied fruits and gelatins [Music] delicious this is a wonderful creation it's got that kind of like i have to let the froot loops marinate in the milk for

Speaker A

a while the milk kind of tastes like this yeah you want one thank you that's okay very satisfying yeah i recommend it [Music] [Music] [Music] hey [Music] yes [Music] [Applause] [Music] this looks really good [Music] night in metro manila and i'm ready for

Speaker A

my single favorite filipino street food possibly the best thing you could ever eat with a cold beer i'm talking of course about sisig [Music] hot sizzling pig face with a runny egg on top and you better ask somebody

Speaker A

because nothing is getting in between me and this spicy chewy fatty goodness mix it up and go yes yes there's a lot of basic restaurant here but here's one is the best this is really really good this evening's dining companions cover

Speaker A

band regatta you may remember them from such epic office christmas parties as last nights [Applause] [Music] this is the christmas season a lot of christmas parties yeah there's a lot a lot of work it's a big season all over southeast

Speaker A

asia any hotel lobby any hotel bar there's a filipino band exactly and that is true and i've sat there drunk and challenged band after band uh shirley bassey no problem all of the dark side of the moon no

Speaker A

problem all of guns and roses no problems music and singing are a huge part of life in the philippines so making it as a cover band being sent abroad to perform is a big deal but one thing remains the same always to

Speaker A

succeed you better be able to pick up new material fast whitney houston celine dion tony braxton and elvis presley how many songs in your repertoire um and if you don't know it you pretty much can fake it real quick yeah yeah

Speaker A

five years from now where would you like to be where would you like to be playing that's a good question [Laughter] like my biggest dream is to play in las vegas the us this is my dream when we get to the dream you know

Speaker A

playing at las vegas we want to play first when we got there we are the champions if we get there [Music] [Music] [Music] oh merry christmas everyone [Music] [Music] merry christmas everyone [Music] [Applause] despite initial appearances the philippines is not all holiday cheer

Speaker A

warm hellos and dancing bugs [Music] [Music] the filipino national martial art kali is among the most brutal the most remorseless defense systems going it was developed to deal with some very harsh realities and a very tough very bloody history

Speaker A

three centuries of brutal spanish colonial rule invasion by the japanese near the end of world war ii american forces bombed manila pretty much leveling the city ferdinand and imelda marcus's extravagantly corrupt regime martial law [Music] although the philippines has remained a

Speaker A

democracy since then it can seem at times fragile [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] no you're both uh photojournalist uh based out of manila yeah uh me mark lives in mindanao does a journalist need to carry a firearm in this country

Speaker A

for me yes [Music] in the philippines a press badge is no defense particularly in the south of the country where mark navales lives and works mindanao has been warchorn for the last how many years because of the radicalization of recent years this

Speaker A

growing specter of isis mindanao is fertile ground for that now traditionally the argument against journalists arming themselves is that journalists have always been able to portray themselves as non-combatants yes there was some presumption that they would not shoot you

Speaker A

yeah but these days people seem to not make that distinction yes dating back to the marcos de marcos years even since 1992 77 journalists [Music] politics here can be deadly just before christmas in 2009 the maguindanao massacre claimed the lives

Speaker A

of 58 people dozens of whom were journalists it was the single deadliest event for journalists in history mark was the first one on the scene with a camera there is no system of justice there is no government attending to your needs

Speaker A

nobody's coming to save you is that what you're saying no one's coming to save you you know i have my family i have my small kids for me my last uh recourse there is to to defend myself look it's very much a do-it-yourself

Speaker A

culture you can see that right you see it in people's homes the way they just stacked one on top of each other built out using spare bits of metal and it's like nobody else is gonna give it for me i'll build it right i'll make it

Speaker A

myself right there's a lot of poverty in this city that is for sure but there's not a sense of hopelessness or rage you know they decorate you know they may not have much but they decorate yes they sweep the street there's still a sense

Speaker A

of humble ownership in the sense of this is my home and it's going to be safe it's going to be fine [Music] this is a super typhoon per hour [Music] [Music] [Music] in any metropolis you find all the good

Speaker A

and the bad in the world manila being bigger than most has plenty of both yet this is a nation of 7 000 islands and i really wanted to see at least one more of them but i learned about something filipinos

Speaker A

are only too familiar with the typhoon so it looks like it's going to be christmas in the city [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] grace [Music] [Music] [Music] name of the band is keystone keystone yes how long you've been playing

Speaker A

together around five years five years five years all right guys awesome egg doubles in the house yes looking pretty thank you thank you as one does i dragooned the band keystone in a lunch assuming correctly as it turned out that one of these young

Speaker A

punks would know how to make a good adobo is there a single authentic adobo recipe or does everybody do it differently everyone would stay claimed to having the best adobo but the basic ingredients i think will remain the same

Speaker A

so it's garlic pork we can now add the chicken vinegar peppercorns bay leaf soy sauce [Music] i learned this from my mom so the answer as always to who makes the best adobo is mom thanks filipinos like feeding people yes yes

Speaker A

what else do filipinos like filipinos are hospitable music everybody knows everybody knows how to sing they don't necessarily have to be in tune but they want to sing they like to sing we've been listening to music like from a very young age

Speaker A

i'm the drummer for the band but i'm not actually formally trained up to this day i don't even read notes but um i could memorize a song if you gave it to me like in a day i could play that's pretty

Speaker A

much the st you have to right i mean yeah that you guys have played abroad no yeah yeah so it's one of the goals actually five years from now where would you like to be hopefully we get uh we get to play for a

Speaker A

bigger crowd you know because i think the fulfillment for me is actually uh getting more people to enjoy the music [Music] [Applause] [Music] team [Music] thanks so much [Music] so [Music] i'm waiting for [Music] [Music] filipinos speak about home with immense

Speaker A

pride and love and if you're an overseas filipino worker longing especially during the holidays it's always always about family in the philippines or anywhere you find filipinos [Applause] for christmas of course everybody those who can anyway gets together like family

Speaker A

matriarch aurora and her daughter anna lynne okay you're a big help and amy and ruben her adopted children amy can you hand me that bailey wow smells so good also cousins nieces nephews grandchildren even some great-grandchildren [Music] i love cooking i really love cooking

Speaker A

curry curry is one of the favorite of the filipino people and to make a curry curry i use a tribes and i put the oxtail on the pressure cooker wow wow now the peanut butter here are the peeled

Speaker A

buttermilk please no more no more now the banana blossom the egg the eggplant the eggplant oh holy night the stars are brightly shining here is the category i hope everybody will enjoy this okay it's time to eat [Music]

Speaker A

amen i'm hungry although we always say ladies first i think we'll serve you it's okay this time just this one it's so good so how long have you been back in uh in philippines in the philippines three years three years now yeah where

Speaker A

have you worked hong kong for five years for five years and then i went to america i stayed there for almost 30 years aurora is recently back in manila after most of her life spent abroad what kind of work were you doing i did the

Speaker A

housekeeping you know and babysitting the money she sent home put everybody here and many many more through school lifted them up to a more comfortable life and you would left family behind yeah to go out there and make money

Speaker A

that's never an easy decision a painful painful choice aurora's children now middle-aged are finally getting to know their mother okay bring in the food inside [Music] many many many filipino women like you who had to leave their families go

Speaker A

abroad yeah absolutely theirs her three children children my eldest is about four years now in qatar then the other one is two years and then the other one is in hong kong working conditions for ofw's particularly in some gulf states can be

Speaker A

punishing at best abusive or worse i'm a single mom with my two grandchildren i really cried a lot especially this holiday season still due to lack of opportunity at home many filipinos have little choice but to go somewhere far away

Speaker A

find a job money but hopefully in a few years you think they'll come back yeah i don't really ask them to go home because i'm not getting younger anymore i need them with my side i tell them several times they call me up please get

Speaker A

home soon i need you [Music] [Music] [Music] any filipino watching will recognize this immediately the balikbayan box a christmas tradition a way for ofws to show loved ones though separated by oceans that you miss them that you're still out there

Speaker A

what's in these boxes whatever you can send little things you'd casually give to a loved one if you didn't live on the other side of the world this facility alone sorts thousands of these boxes a day during the christmas

Speaker A

season just one of hundreds of facilities like it some five to seven million boxes a year that's a lot of love so how many relatives do you think you have in america in america oh my gosh seattle california albert

Speaker A

my attend my other sister is in california in hong kong we have at least 10 10. and then dubai around eight and qatar qatar i'm at this christmas gathering today because of one of our directors eric osterholm it was aurora who raised him

Speaker A

for over 20 years she cared for and loved eric and his sister looked after his whole family eric sent me a letter talking about you i wanted to read you what he said aurora is such an incredible woman she

Speaker A

has an infectious and loving energy that is so powerful i am 100 the man i am today because this woman literally raised me from when i was six months old singing to me dancing with me wiping away my tears cooking for

Speaker A

me and making me laugh at every turn unfortunately like so many filipinos her story is not all smiles and love she had to choose a life away from her daughter and thousands of miles from her family there are literally thousands of people

Speaker A

around the world thousands of people around the world me included who have been influenced by her endless kindness and love [Music] filipinos give of themselves of their time their money their love to others they do and continue to do what needs to

Speaker A

be done to survive every morning i greet you small and white clean and bright bless my homeland forever [Applause] some of snow may you bloom and grow bloom and grow forever [Music] bless my homeland forever [Music] [Music] oh this is from alberta

Speaker A

oh my gosh [Music] i really hope you enjoyed the simple gear i sent and i know that my heart is with you always i love you very much albert [Music] is [Music] uh [Music] is grace [Music] is [Music]

Speaker A

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Topics:Anthony BourdainParts UnknownManilaPhilippinesOFWChristmasJollibeelechonsisigcover bands

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