Cover Story

Scent of languages 

Nesreen AbdulRauf lends an ear to language-tripping

Orion, in Greek mythology, is a mighty hunter placed among the stars. But at the foot of the earth, Orion Pérez Dumdum, 33, is no less a dexterous hunter of fortune and prosperity.

An Information Technology (IT) consultant based in Singapore, Orion is a self-taught linguist and opera singer wannabe.

When he was in the sixth grade, his family moved from Quezon City to Cebu. “I remember being bullied for my family name because Dumdum, when wrongly pronounced, ends up sounding like ‘dumb-dumb’.”

Though incidences like this made him a bit shy, his distinctions in college— as team captain of the winning team of the 1989 Programming Competition in Central Visayas, as well as a runner-up of the defunct Radio Philippines Network (RPN) Channel 9’s inter-university “Battle of the Brains”—boosted his confidence.

Graduating with double degrees in Computer Science and Management Information Systems from the Ateneo de Manila University, Orion worked in Microsoft Philippines, transferring to their Singapore office in 2000.

Availing of budget flights and the average travel time of three and a half years, he travels back and forth to Singapore and Cebu thrice or four times a year.

Orion can’t stay away too long from Cebu’s violet-colored puto (sticky rice pudding) and sikwate (hot chocolate), pusô (hanging rice), Junjun and Malou’s chicken barbecue, and the beaches.

Though he says many Singaporeans admire Filipinos for being friendly and talented at singing, he admits there’s a bit of stereotyping against Filipinos. “It’s etched in their minds that ‘Filipino’ automatically means a domestic helper or one having blue-collar jobs. They really don’t expect that you’d be good at... mental labor.”

A Singaporean once asked his friend if there was another term for “Filipino” that was not derogatory. “They might have thought that the correct word is ‘Philippine’ and that the word ‘Filipino’ is like a racial slur.”

Orion says he sometimes shows off—using his Beijing-accented Mandarin or conversing in Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese—to teach non-Filipinos not to prejudge Pinoys.

“Honestly, partly being interested in languages stems from the fact that I was continually reminded as a child by my father that my Spanish mestiza great grandmother, Rosario Matti, was herself a linguist. And she spoke French with her Lebanese husband, Elias Jureidini. While the Lebanese speak Arabic, they also speak French. As a kid, I always wanted to be just like that: multi-lingual.”

Orion took a year off from IT work to study advanced Mandarin Chinese while teaching English in Harbin, China. “I’d look for every opportunity to practice my languages. For example, when I’d hear a group of tourists speaking Spanish or some other language that I know, I’d go up to them and, in their language, ask if I could be of help.”

He doesn’t believe there is a supreme language per se, but he recognizes that there are languages that are spoken by more people than others. “English has (many) imperfections… but the fact remains that a lot of people speak and use English.
There’s always a need for common ground and in today’s world, it’s English,” says Orion.

With paternal forebears who were church sopranos and tenors in Balamban, Orion promotes Filipino culture with his repertoire of kundiman (love song).

He’s been continually reading about and finding ways for the Philippines and Cebu to be better. Fellow Pinoys dreaming of a white-collar job abroad should be proficient in English to be competitive, he advises.

“Secondly, do your job well as much as possible and don’t go there solely for the money. Don’t just earn but more importantly, make sure you learn. Widen your horizon. Lastly, Filipinos have to be fiscally conservative and frugal. Filipinos should know that it’s not a permanent post abroad. They’ll eventually want to come home.”

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