Eric Williamson, 29, said he did know he could be seen. “Yes, I wasn’t wearing any clothes but I was alone, in my own home and just got out of bed. It was dark and I had no idea anyone was outside looking in at me.”

According to the woman, Williamson wanted to be seen naked. What? Why did the woman look at the window in the first place? She said she saw Williamson walking back and forth from one window to another. So what? It is his home and the woman does not have the right to peep through or follow which window he goes next.

This Peeping Tom should be investigated as well for intrusion of privacy. There’s no evidence of intent that Williamson meant to expose himself to a child from outside or an adult for sexual gratification.

The woman who reported this to the police is ridiculous!

Imagine how devastating this situation was for the parents and for the kids! The parents were being persecuted because they took innocent photos of their kids having some playtime during a bath. Their names were on the list of sex offenders and the mother was fired from work!

The Walmart store employee was clearly ignorant and did not execute the proper power of reason. So was the employee trained into some porno detection? To jump at something as scary as this and scream “child abuse” is pure stupidity. Probably, this employee was deprived of childhood photos when he/she was young. And the supervisor who called the cops was just as ignorant as the employee. The actions of the employee and Walmart were unreasonable.

Yes, there are laws that protect children from abuse and neglect. And I have no problem with them. However, people, especially those in Walmart Arizona, must execute due diligence in interpreting the laws. They should know that real child abusers never take nude photos of children and have them processed in Walmart.

The couple is now suing Walmart and I really hope they will win!

I know all about it. My father called it “Sunday school”. He used to skip out of the house, dash to the town’s cockfighting arena and spend the whole Sunday afternoon there. If my dad had to pick a graduate degree, he would most likely choose something that deals with studying a rooster’s flight. We used to have highbred fighting cocks at home. Our vast land in my hometown offered the best place to nurture chicks, to nurse them when they were sick and feed them with vitamins so they would grow strong legs, wings and thighs ready for combat. It is a very expensive hobby, indeed. The goal: Combative roosters to acquire the necessary killer instinct.

One time, I had to fetch my father from the cockpit. If it hadn’t been because my mom asked me to fetch dad, I would have never dared enter such place. It was noisiest place I had ever been in. Yells of “for the white, for the red” echoed. Screams from spectators placing their bets on their favorite gamecocks were deafening. Bills flew from one had to the other, then someone said ‘shoot’. I stood amidst bettors, looking about rather confused.

A shocking scene for a first timer like me, but not really violent. Two fighting cocks flew a few feet off the ground with a sharp, pointed artificial spur attached to one of their legs to rip and tear at each other. They clashed mid-air while the audience roared excitedly. As one of the cocks weakened to a point that it could not bite, smiles of victory started to break through the grinning faces of some. On my father’s face, however, there was sadness, a sign of misfortune, of loss.

Most the people in my hometown have fighting cocks raised in their homes, usually tied with a string on one leg and staked in the open field. When there is time, one would visit other houses and look for other roosters to match one’s own. It is the way to practice the flight and, eventually, stabbing techniques.

In my almost three years of stay in Brookings, I have never seen a rooster. Not even a hen with chicks running around. Most Americans may see cockfighting as animal cruelty, but not in other parts of the world. This sport can be found in some other countries as well, not just in the Philippines. Soon, I will be bringing some of my American friends to my country and let them witness how cockfighting works.

The one thing that I would never forget is that the owner of the winning cock gets to bring home the losing cock. It is some sort of an extra winning aside from the money, of course. It did not take me long to realize why mom would not include chicken on her Sunday’s shopping list and why we always had fried chicken on the table: All thanks to dad and his combative roosters for the free food.

This is not specific to one culture, though. Although Filipinos are known to be really clean at home, some are deficient on this area of household responsibility as well.

Except for those living alone, most students share a house or an apartment with others. Americans who happen to live with international students know very well the difference between “cleanliness” in one culture from “cleanliness” defined by another.

How habitually neat and clean are your housemates? Do they live up to your idealisms of what a clean house should be like? While you probably want to vacuum the carpet once a week, your house mates may just be contented of a monthly cleaning routine. Then cleanliness becomes a bone of contention.

If you share a house with others, you certainly would want the kitchen counter and food surfaces to be clean at all times. Who wants to cook in a greasy, off-color sink with piles of unwashed utensils anyway?

Next target is the living room – a place where most of the house members gather for a nightly TV viewing or conversation or a short playtime. Yet, who wants to sit on a couch invaded with scattered papers and magazines, personal belongings, cups and glasses and used tea bags – like a carnival of stuff in total disarray?

What about the toilet and bathroom? My parents used to tell me that if I want to know how hygienic a person is, I have to check the toilet. This part of the house should always be spic-and-span for sanitary purposes, especially if you reside with male house mates. You don’t want to culture molds over the seat, rim and bowl, do you?

This is my perception, ladies and gentlemen. I really do not care whatever people do inside their private rooms. Plant a tree, raise a monkey, interbreed insects, act like Tarzan; I do not care a fig! Your room is the only place you can be yourself, and you have all the rights to transform it to whatever sci-fi scene you want. Just leave the common area of the house free of your cultured bugs or your pet monkey’s hair. This advice goes to everyone and not to a particular nationality only.

One of the challenges of living with others of different nationality, indeed, is to learn how to adjust to another culture’s idea of cleanliness. You do not have to be rude to change someone else’s “messy perception” of tidiness. Or you do not even have to change anything at all.

You may have idealisms, but you have to balance it with reality. In this type of situation, textbooks no longer matter. Conventional wisdom says that one-on-one conversation works wonders. A regular house meeting is what it takes to keep things easy. Division of labor is the key to a house that is livable for all.

Enjoy living with your housemates!
***

Forgetting is not easy since the incident happened in a place that I am starting to call home. The incident in New York, about two years ago, was easy to let go, since I only stayed there for a week and it is very unlikely that I’d be seeing the place again. But this one in Brookings may take months to heal.

Frankly, I am bothered. Some friends suggest that I should file a complaint or at least talk to the Admin officials on racial discrimination policies that may apply to my desire in reprimanding the culprit (I remember a hand-out that was given to me upon my arrival in SDSU — t’was on racism and how the university is against discrimination based on ‘color’.) I am still weighing the options I am getting from my family and friends on how to resolve this.

Today, when someone invites me for coffee at CW, I come up with fake reasons just to avoid encountering the racist lady employee.

It is sad and unfair. But life is sometimes like this. I think I just have to accept it.

Things like this makes me stronger.