Jeepney Wondering # 1 - Why aren't you laughing?

My first Jeepney Wondering started, as they usually do, with little warning. I walked towards the jeepney feeling incredibly pleased with myself that I had downloaded some Australian radio and could pretend I was in my small yellow Barrina driving to work. Alas, I had stumbled onto what I call a disco jeepney – think bad 80’s pop played full-ball. Being the cheapskate that I am I refused to lose my 7 peso fair and so settled in for the ride. Most of the trip progressed mindlessly - and then bamn!!  Total Eclipse of the heart comes on and up snaps the head of the full grown adult male next to me– turns out he has quite a good falsetto and doesn’t mind showing it off.

I learnt multiple things this day:

1.       It’s totally OK to sing along very loudly – especially to a power ballad

2.       It’s not funny

3.       You can muffle your laughter by pushing your shoulder into your own face – and still hang on

4.       It’s not funny. Even when he does the key change!

5.       Snorting into your shoulder means people move away.

As I sat there making almost equally ridiculous, but much less musical noises, the power of the jeepney came upon me and I started to think – why aren’t you laughing?  

Being uncoordinated, I know that the Filipinos appreciate humorous situations (slipping in the gutter, tripping up the gutter, stubbing your toe on the gutter), so it was not their sense of humour that was off, but mine. In Australia you might get an occasional person humming on the bus, and maybe on a full moon someone might bust out the chorus – but the WHOLE song – in a FALSETTO???? I don’t think so.  And if it did happen in Australia, you could pretty much guarantee that the bus driver would assume drugs, the lawyer type would spill his decafe frappachino and mothers would divert their children’s eyes. Because it is WEIRD.

Yes, it’s a daggy song, but really it is the potential social humiliation that stops us in Australia. I mean come on – who hasn’t had that moment where you nearly bust out the chorus of blame it on the boogie or I will survive?

As I looked around me (between fits of laughter) and realised no one else was concerned, or had even really noticed, I wondered:  why, in a country that prides it’s self on being laid back and easy going, do we not allow ourselves to be laidback? Are we really that uptight that a guy enjoying a song, and displaying a good voice constitutes culture shock?

Or is it just that I am so acutely aware of my tone deafness that I assume all public singing must lead to humiliation.

I kinda hope it is the latter. But I have a feeling that there is more to it than that.