Word: barong
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...Basin apec economic summits. But the clothes! Last week Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien chose for his guests a brown elk leather, $400 Roots flight jacket, each personalized with the summiteer's name, title and apec logo, and cut to size (Clinton's: XXXL, tall). Such outfits--a Philippine barong tagalog in 1996 and an Indonesian batik shirt in 1994--are now high on the agenda. Host countries "check out the President's size pretty carefully," says the White House...
...completely insensitive of you to say President Clinton looked "goofy" wearing various outfits on his visit to the Pacific Rim [NOTEBOOK, Dec. 9]. You showed him wearing the barong tagalog, which is the traditional formal wear of Filipinos. As a Filipino American, I am proud whenever I wear my barong, and I certainly don't think I look goofy. FRANK LOPEZ Atlanta...
...election over, President Clinton is once again free to look goofy--at least when visiting the Pacific Rim. From left: going native in Australia; wearing a Philippine barong tagalog, a gift from President Fidel Ramos; sporting Thai academic garb during a ceremony at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University; and back in traditional American costume on an Australian beach...
Maybe I've betrayed my ethnicity. Once I tell you that a barong is a stiff cotton shirt that Filipino men wear on formal occasions, you know about as much as I do about the culture of my father's birthplace. Every now and I happen upon that never-worn garment or a few photographs of relatives I barely know, but the paucity of my celebrations suggests that I deserve no prize for my embrace of my Asian-American heritage...
...shame that the illogic of the system encourages me to put on my barong, parade around in it and pretend it's been important in my life...