By Kim Atienza
Believe it or not, there is such a thing as Punch Your Neighbor Festival.
Celebrated each May in Tinku village, Bolivia, is the Tinku Festival. Tinku is a Quechua word which means “encounter or meeting.”
The festival had its roots from pre-Hispanic times where the earth goddess, Pachamama, demanded blood to ensure good harvest.
Centuries later, people took it extremely that they agreed to punch each other on this day. If you too are sick and tired of your neighbor’s karaoke nights, perhaps we should adopt this festival in our barangays.
Then, we can claim, Eh di ba may ganito tayong festival?
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TRIVIA PA MORE (Various Sources): The English word ‘boondocks’ is actually a Filipino loanword. The Tagalog word for ‘mountain’ is ‘bundok.’
Taal Volcano in Batangas, is one of the world’s 17 deadliest volcanoes , given their active state and explosive history. It’s also located in a lake, and has a lake inside it, with an even smaller island in it!
Manila, the capital city of the country, takes its name from a white flower that grew on mangrove trees, locally known as nilad. ‘May nilad’ can be translated to mean ‘there are nilad there.’
Camiguin has the most number of volcanoes per square kilometer than any other island on Earth.
Cebu City is the oldest city in the country.
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We have a small land area but we got a longer coastline.
The Philippine land area is just about 1/30 of the United States, but the Philippines has a total of 36,289 kilometers of coastline while the US has only 19,924 kilometers of coastline.
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The word Filipinas first appeared in coins. The first Philippine coins with the word Filipinas were first produced during the Spanish rule from 1861 to 1868. The denominations were 1, 2, and 4 pesos. They were gold and silver coins.
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Send your questions on anything and everything to Kuya Kim through my Twitter account @kuyakim_atienza using #AlaminKayKuyaKim.
Ating tuklasin ang mga bagay-bagayna di niyo pa alam. Walang ’di susuungin, lahataalamin.Ito posiKuya Kim, Matanglawin, only here in Tempo.
