Alright y’all I am about to throw down some life hacks for understanding Pinoy culture: Go watch all of Mikey Bustos YouTube videos. I am not even kidding. There is enough cross culture learnings in those videos to write a dissertation on. Plus, Mikey Bustos is super talented, funny and one of the kindest humans in real life. 

My #3PinoyBoys and myself spent a solid chunk of time devouring Mikey’s YouTube videos. I am not a big user of the YouTube but we all felt so seen/visible/understood after watching Mikey’s videos. The cultural nuances delivered with humor and fun lyrics had us all learning, laughing and feeling visible! Mikey was born and raised in Canada and came over in his 20’s so his perspective is quite unique. He shares his cross culture learnings/teachings so creatively! I cannot think of a better ambassador to the Philippines than Mikey. 

Start here, 7 years ago with Filipino Politeness.

This one was our favorite for years (F-I-L-I-P-I-N-O)

But now this one is our current top choice (Baby Shark) 

We quote this one too much and laugh every single time (What’s Pinas?)

And since Mikey is a super star and multi talented, he also runs this gigantic ant enterprise - Ants Canada! 

The more we learn about our host country, the more we feel connected and care for our host country. Mikey presents history, information and cultural nuance in such a fun way it teaches us to love and care for the ‘Pinas. Mikey, you are a #PerksOfPinas. 

Kita Kita,

Amber 

p.s. here’s a post about the time I met Mikey while on a media familiarization tour in Taipei. CRAZY TALAGA!