A "Toy Story"

Excerpt from Balikbayan Magazine December-January 2012 issue

| NOSTALGIA |
Written by Rowena M. Diocton | Photography by Jan Paul Jose

A Look at Kids’ Christmas Wishes, Then and Now

“Playstation!” says the 11-year-old Reymart, when asked what—from the bottom of his young heart—he really wants this Christmas. For a moment, a ray of light went past his wide protruding eyes, revealing that excited glimmer angled towards joyful expectation. This kid, though a member of the basketball varsity team, desires a little more techie than the usual new pair of rubber shoes and shorts that he needs for the sports.  Like almost everyone in his 6th grade class, he is fixated on a toy that will hold his attention for hours, even days; the kind of toy that, for girls and boys his age, only high technology can deliver.

Reymart’s mother, an overseas Filipino worker based in Hong Kong, agrees that just a decade ago, this would hardly be the case.  After weekday classes and during weekends, most children spend their time out on the streets, enjoying the breezy afternoon weather and awaiting supper while in the company of their childhood barkada or playmates.

Reymart’s older brother, on the other hand, was a hard-headed boy to deal with. The time most kids today spend on computer shops and arcades, the older brother spent on rounds of biking, tumbang preso, yoyo, and sipa.


But the times, they are changing. The years go by in an exhausted engine sort of way. Often, it blazes with a bang, sometimes it coughs as if hit by a plague, but always, it leaves legacies large enough to be handled by the smallest hands and large enough to be played; like toys with wheels, now transformed into remote-controlled mechanisms—RC (remote control), as we call them. With the shift in the dunes of time, the smallest things that amaze the youngest minds have also shifted, including their Christmas wishes.

For full stories, get a copy of Balikbayan Magazine December-January 2012 issue

in bookstores nationwide.

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Balikbayan Magazine is published bi-monthly by Asian Journal Publications, Inc.  Send subscription inquiries to subscription@asianjournalinc.com and advertising queries at advertising@asianjournalinc.com

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