Sunday, July 22, 2007

The Legend of Kudkudangos and Aring Aring

My childhood days were not a time for internet, ps2's, online gaming, mario brothers, game boys.... instead we had jolens, text cards, kites ( which we made our own), kampuso (tops), ukis kendi, lastiko, sha-tong, tumbang preso and a lot more. Like all children I never tire of playing and my mom has some way to woo me away from overplaying if not, sleep for the siesta....

Kudkudangos, I never met him, but his aura is shared by many of the children of my time. Seemingly all parents knows him, and all children knows him too. When garbage collectors come to collect their ration for the day, adults has a way to inflict discipline to us, they will say ' Dont be a bad child, otherwise Kudkudangos will get you and put u in the garbage truck and put you away for good'.... Shocking! Isnt it... So we dutifully follow our parents wish. Including a nap in the afternoon, eat your vegies (sayote manen), get a bath ( naglammin apo) and lot and lot more because we dont want that Kudkudangos will get us to his garbage truck and take us away.

Another legend is Aring Aring, whom I had seen... He walks through the streets naked... Sometimes he holds two Family Sized Coke and consume them in public... Gosh! all children were either happy to see him or afraid of the two, either or he has an aura that makes him very very popular. He also was a tool of parents to woo children to their wishes, saying that Aring Aring will get them, if not they will end up just like him if the child does not want to do their errands...

As we grew up, we realize that these are not true, and we used same tricks to our immediate younger brothers and sisters until they had the comprehension that all of it wer just a trick. Amazingly these two characters had contributed to the well being of a lot of us... Would you agree?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I agree these two characters played an important role in our well being but this does not stop me from wondering how it affected them and their families. Did Kudkudangos have kids? Did Kudkudangos have an idea why parents would use him to frighten their kids? Was it because of his looks or the fact that he was a garbage collector?
I know Aring-Aring's sister. I witnessed how other kids would tease her because she's related to Aring-aring. She didn't seem to mind then, she managed to appear strong and confident.
Now we know better, let's teach our kids to have compassion specially with the less fortunate.