As a child growing up in the Philippines, I remember one of the most exciting events to occur was receiving a balikbayan box from a relative overseas. The arrival of an unassuming dusty cardboard box, often covered with an inordinate amount of brown tape, and scrawled with a giant address in thick black texta was like Christmas morning.
The box’s contents, were usually a jumble of random goods to be distributed to various members of the family. The excitement building as each item was taken out, there could be anything from chocolate, lollies and biscuits, to an assortment of canned goods, hand-me-down clothes, shoes, linen, coffee, toys… you never could quite predict what the box would contain, but that was part of the fun. And for some inexplicable reason, it always just smelled foreign. To this day, I still swear that some things just “smell” like America.
With the Filipino diaspora estimated to be over 10 million (around 10 per cent of the country’s population), there are families who are often separated for years, sometimes even decades at a time, and the balikbayan box has become a way to bridge that distance. It’s so ingrained into Filipino culture that found that around 400,000 balikbayan boxes are sent to the Philippines every month, and that it is now a billion dollar industry.
It’s unsurprising, because if there’s one thing that is at the core of Filipino culture, it’s family. Balik means to return in Tagalog, and bayan means country, so a balikbayan box is sometimes seen as figuratively returning a little piece of yourself back home to your family. These care packages, are often a way to maintain familial bonds, and at times are a way to battle the familiar pangs of homesickness.
Tania Gomez. Source: Supplied
While the balikbayan box is said to have originated in the US in the 1980s, it’s also very much ingrained in the lives of Filipino Australians. , it’s a community that still very much has strong ties to family back home. Sending a box filled with an assortment of food and gifts is something that my family, and virtually every single Filipino family I know still honours.
What I love about the balikbayan box, is that while it’s a non-descript cardboard box on the outside, what’s on the inside is always a treasure trove. It may seem haphazard, but it’s always a considered collection of things that have been shopped for over many weeks or months, taking into account the needs and wants of the various grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins back in the Philippines who will be receiving it. It could entail vitamins for one relative, chocolates for someone else, while a new pair of sneakers awaits another.
The balikbayan box has become an enduring symbol of the Filipino diaspora. It’s a physical manifestation of the deep desire to remain connected to a homeland
In my family, the collecting is done until the box is filled to the brim. Finally sealing it is a big moment as my parents will then play a game of Tetris, trying to cram as much into the box as possible, while keeping in mind that it will be tossed around indiscriminately on its journey. It’s a science and I have yet to hear of any mishaps in all the years they’ve been doing it.
The balikbayan box: holiday edition is also quite the undertaking. Whenever a Filipino returns home, it’s customary to bring back pasalubong, which are souvenirs or gifts for those they are visiting. I have memories of when I was younger, being at Sydney Airport and cringing at being one of those people, as we loaded a balikbayan box onto the conveyer belt (why my parents never just brought the presents back in a suitcase I will never know) and prayed that as it was always inevitably overweight, that they would let it through. Otherwise there we would be on the floor, frantically taking things out and trying to reseal the box with brown packing tape (always brown) to get it in the right weight range to board the plane. Either way, it always made the flight. It had to.
The magic it creates for families is priceless. The connection it nurtures, invaluable.
The generosity of Filipinos is never more evident than at Christmas time, which is prime balikbayan box season. I remember watching an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown that was set in Manila and becoming misty eyed as a family eagerly unpacked a balikbayan box they had received from a relative overseas. As the various clothes, food items and gifts were distributed, the excitement on their faces was palpable but I also know the sadness behind it.
In 2020, the number of overseas Filipino workers was said to be 2.2 million. It’s not uncommon for Filipinos to leave everything behind to work abroad in order to make enough money to provide a better life for their family. This can include parents who have had to leave all their kids behind in the care of other family members, to a husband and wife whose married life often involves long periods of separation, to adult children who have parents that they only see every few years if they’re lucky. Saving enough money to fly home can sometimes take years so trips back to the Philippines to reunite with family are often infrequent. So in the meantime, the act of lovingly packing a box and sending it back to their loved ones is one way of showing them they are always in their hearts.
For the many Filipinos scattered around the world, the balikbayan box has become an enduring symbol of the Filipino diaspora. It’s a physical manifestation of the deep desire to remain connected to a homeland that they may only see once in awhile, and the family they desperately wish they could see all the time. While its contents are often filled with seemingly banal household items, the magic it creates for families is priceless. The connection it nurtures, invaluable. While it may just seem like a cardboard box, it’s actually proof that good things can come in very large, oversized packages.
is an SBS drama that marks the first major representation of Filipino-Australians on Australian television and continues SBS’s legacy of delivering exceptional drama exploring the rich diversity of Australia in an authentic and nuanced way. It premieres Thursday June 3 at 8:30pm on SBS, with the full series also available then at SBS On Demand (full-series drop).
