Wedding, Department Store

There's a wedding on campus tomorrow. The groom is an alumnus, set to begin Ph.D. studies in the UK this fall, and the bride is the receptionist in the seminary central office. It will be most interesting to witness Filipino wedding customs first-hand. This is a great experience for everyone.

The wedding also has a stated dress code, something that is usually implicit in the States, almost never stated. One wouldn't think, I suppose, of coming to a church wedding in shorts and flip-flops. Some might, but I certainly wouldn't, unless the wedding was outside or something--and probably not even then. But males are to wear white barongs and black dress trousers. I am hearing shades of Matthew 22 in all of that. (Go ahead, go look it up.) Anyway, I took a jeepney down to the mall today and bought a barong for whatever it was. Incidentally, that's another thing that's different about Filipino culture. Although it's generally considered a taboo subject in the States to ask someone what X cost, Filipinos have no problem asking this, so I'm told. But I am hesitant to say, for whatever reason. The workers at the department store--who are universally helpful and friendly--were giggling at this ridiculous oaf of an American buying this article of clothing which is distinctly Filipino. They talked me into signing up for the rewards program at their store. The department store is run by the same company that runs the grocery store in the mall, and a lot of the malls/department stores/grocery stores around the area, so it's a good thing to sign up for. The fee to sign up was P150 (=less than $4) for two years, and it knocked 1o% off the price of the barong on the spot, which amounted to more than P150 savings. So I figure I already made my money back on that one, even if I never get 10% off on anything else. I'll get reward points or some such silly thing, but I am not sure how that works.

Anyway, on the application for the card was something that would never be seen on a similar application in the States. In fact, not only would JCPenney or Sears not care what the answer was (being rightly only interested in my money), they could be held criminally liable for asking the question.

The question was "Religion."

Yep.

They wanted to know my religion on an application for a discount/rewards card. Right next to name, citizenship, date of birth, address, all that jazz. I thought, of course, why did they want to know that? Not only would such a question not be allowed in the States, it would be considered an affront. But I didn't want to press the issue so I just put "Christian" down and had done with it.