Filipinos and Hoarding
What do you admit to hoarding? Me? Gift bags. As the weather cools, my mind often drifts to fixing up the house because it is finally comfortable enough to work outside. In Texas, the one hundred degree August heat was so unbearable, there was no need to move to break a sweat. Air conditioners were breaking down everywhere. There came a point where I was looking for excuses to go shopping because the stores were cooled to frigid temperatures for temporary relief. Thus, my shopping habit increased due to some survival motivation to find a cool area to combine two things that bring me joy: buying something I did not need and free air-conditioning. This brings me to my topic of hoarding. I ask myself if hoarding is an individual thing or should I stereotype my own culture? If I frame my culture as my familial experience, then I think I can truthfully make this argument without surveying all the Filipinos I know. I cannot help but think that culture has something to