Walking last Sunday with Aldo Descaling, (Baguio City friend), along the market of La Trinidad, Benguet, Aldo spotted another friend, Samuel Dumalis, also from La Trinidad holding a filled-up market bag and apparently waiting for somebody. Maybe his wife?
Aldo pointed out Samuel to this scoundrel as both paused to watch Samuel from a distance. About half-minute observing Samuel, Aldo scratched his stubble of beard and said, “Ti makunak ket saan met unay nga gwapo ni gayyem ta nga Samuel, ngem taraki nga talaga! Uray ti panagtaktakder na, taraki nga talaga! Um-mannugot ka kadi idiay inbagak, a, Ah Kong?”
This dim-witted laborer grinned at Aldo’s friendly comment about Samuel, and answered, “Unay ka met, Aldo, gwapo ken taraki met ah, ni Samuel, uray naka side view lang ni Samuel, makapaarem.”
Times there were, on occasions, we’ve heard the phrase, “Uray saan nga gwapo, basta taraki,” referred mainly among males in Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), Region 1 and in Ilocandia areas.
It means in Tagalog, “may dating,” in English, “appeal.” It isn’t referred anyhow to womenfolk.
Which proves beyond reasonable doubt that most Cordilleran and Ilocano daily laborers worth their salt are gender-sensitive. You never heard them blurt to a woman as “taraki.”
This lazy laborer, other daily laborers, as well, declare with finality that all females are not taraki, but beautiful; period.
And in being beautiful, a female can best be defined as appealing, angelic, alluring, admirable, bewitching, beauteous, charming, cute, classy and comely.
Or, a female can best be defined as dazzling, delightful, divine, exquisite, elegant, excellent, enticing, fascinating, fine, fair, foxy, good –looking, gorgeous, graceful and grand.
Or, you can define them as ideal, lovely, magnificent, marvelous, nice, pleasing, ravishing, refined, resplendent, shapely, sightly, sublime and well-formed.
Now back to taraki. It’s sometimes associated to a man’s face. But wait a minute. What’s in a man’s face, anyway?
Good-humored readers, pause we for a moment to study the human face divine.
If you stare upon your friend’s face, you notice it’s divided into two parts. If we’re to split the face straight up following ridge of the nose, we will have on one side of the face one nostril, one eye, one cheek and one ear.
The same goes through with other side of the face that was split up.
Since both sides of the face are similar or the same, we tend to have the uneasy feeling that a human was originally created with but half a face, until two persons laid their heads together and these stuck to become one face.
Such feeling becomes truer when we reflect on the fact that indeed, any mortal can see with one eye, smell with one nostril, hear with one ear and chews food with only one side of the mouth. No?
Yes! Because we don’t usually chew food with both sides of the mouth.
Try to observe a male who smokes or uses a tobacco pipe. The cigarette or tobacco pipe is usually thrust into one side of the mouth, therefore proving your theory that the other side of the mouth is altogether useless.
And we should do away with the altogether useless side of the mouth since it’s just an excess, like excess fat.
Now, talking about excess fat, we hear many faces grumpily complaining, “Mabuti pa ang bilbil, nagtatagal; pero ang sahod, eh, naku di nagtatagal.”
But back to the face, smiling readers! Your theory is also correct that one eye is enough for all purposes. Why?
When you look through a one-inch water pipe (tubo ti danum), you don’t see through the water pipe with two eyes. Instead, you close the other eye so your other opened eye can peer through the pipe. Right? Very right!
Another example to prove beyond reasonable doubt that your theory “one eye is enough for all purposes,” and erase once and for all doubts of doubters out there.
A soldier, on a gunnery range, does not shoot with his rifle with both eyes open. Instead, he shuts the other, takes aim with the other opened eye, and fires. If he hits the target, the soldier’s face splits into a smile.
Still another example. When you wink at your wife, or when a bachelor winks at a lady, you don’t wink with both eyes. Impossible! Goes to prove that winking with both eyes is most incompatible with the art of winning a lady as an ally.
Now, we study the face’s cheeks. Correct, again, dear readers, your theory that one cheek is enough for all purposes. Let’s prove your theory right.
Let’s consider an artist, painting a portrait of one side of a face. You know for a fact that the other hidden side clearly matches the one side of the face painted by the artist.
Proof Number 2. When a woman receives a buss, it’s only on one cheek. Your theory about one cheek is enough is correct.
Now, we go to the ears, to establish right your finding that one ear is enough.
Sometimes, we are gripped with this lazy trait of hearing good advice on one ear and passing it out the other ear. Presto! You got it right: useless having two ears.
If there is only one ear, then there’s no way the good advice can exit.
Can we now say that the quantity of ear governs the intellect? That the more ear, the less wit?
Now, you have proved your theory to the satisfaction of doubters that half a face is enough for every purpose in these hard times when prices of commodities have gone up. We only need a half face to feed. Intiende?
Proceed now, we, in dissecting utility of the face, that’s to say its varieties and purposes.
Yep, a face is a mark of respectability. Any, who wronged a fellow mortal one to many, can’t show his/her face in decent company.
Likewise, a face is an utang. No cantina owner would trust to give utang to a mortal who has no face, like Ah Kong, because when time comes to paying, Ah Kong couldn’t face up and pay the utang. Ha! Sabi nila kay Ah Kong, “walang pagmumukha.”
The long face. Critical when matters of importance are discussed. Just visit one session of the Baguio City Council, where councilors, when not ribbing each other, show grave countenance in discoursing merits of agenda topics. Sometimes, one, two or three among the councilors with long face may wish to wail in exasperation at their colleagues.
Have you ever seen a presiding judge grinning? Never! Presiding judges have the long faces of the law.
Aha! Comes now the pudding face, known for its voluptuous smoothness of the cheeks. It’s similar to a full moon for its remarkable roundness.
Sometimes, ladies are tempted to pinch here, there and everywhere the rounded contours of a pudding face, saying, “Ayna, kasla baby face.”
Next, the razor face. Mortals with this face are good at bargaining and are said adept at outmaneuvering anyone in sales talk. Saan pay laeng nalpas ti saritaan ket naisalda nan diay pagtungtungtungan yo.
Last, the laughing face. Aah! This is where Ah Kong truly belongs. It is a face of amiable and gentle disposition, never contradicting and deaf as a post. In short, “tuleng.”
