The quirk factor: Sinyalan

sin·ya·lan

adjective

1. Departing from a conventional or established norm.
Synonyms: odd, weird, eccentric, idiosyncratic, quirky

adjective, slang

2. Displaying unusual physical characteristic(s), i.e., birth defect(s), and thus considered lucky (in cockfighting).

noun

1. One that deviates markedly from an established norm, especially a person of odd or unconventional behavior.

The root word is the Visayan sinyal, which comes from the Spanish señal, for sign (la señal de la cruz: the sign of the cross), signal (señal de auxilio: distress signal), sign as indication (of life, of habitation), or symptom. Sinyalan describes someone or something exhibiting a sinyal — sinyal in this case being a pejorative term for behavior that is weird, quirky, or out-there.

Anyway, the real business of this post has something to do with the month of May, which is the time of year for most Filipinos. Forget December and Christmas: May is when people eat and drink themselves comatose, ostensibly in honor of some patron saint or other, but who’s kidding whom? May, in case you have forgotten, is the month of fiestas. It is said that in Bohol, there’s a fiesta for every day of May (sometimes more on some days), so people just lug their belongings from one town/barrio to another in search of free food/booze. Apocryphal? You tell me.

More than any other food-centered event, fiestas bring out the sinyal in people. As we move from house to house, eating essentially the same fare, we begin to focus less on the food and more on the characters that attend to it. Food is food, after all: you can only eat so much of it. But dysfunctional behavior — that we will never have a shortage of fascination with. That’s what I intend to do: look at fiesta food and the quirks people bring to it, whether as host or guest. Oh, the tales I have to tell…

Or rather, that was what I intended to do. But now I’m tired from all that talk about sinyal, and it won’t kill anyone if we take this up some other day, no? I’m hungry, too. I think I’m in the mood for some Gerber…