Host John Jonas introduces Episode 143 of his podcast and opens with a personal anecdote about a month-long bike trip where each rider packed minimally into a single saddlebag. He then pivots to an explanatory segment on the Filipino barong (barong tagalog): its forms (formal long-sleeve embroidered sheer versions made from pineapple/abaca fibers, polo/short-sleeve work versions, and feminine variants), cultural uses (weddings, funerals, formal events, work), and historical role as a social/status marker predating Spanish colonization. The segment highlights climate and cultural reasons for the garment's persistence.
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Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at working with OFS online Filipino specialists. This is episode 133, the Interesting History of the Barong. So the Barong is this typical Filipino clothing, this shirt that I'm going to talk about in a second. First, I'm going to talk a little bit about the clothes that we brought on our bike trip, because I've had a lot of questions. So people like. I mean, what we just did is different and unique and interesting. I mean, just taking seven of us, including little kids, riding bikes on a different continent for a month is different. How did you do that? How did you handle it? How did you take your luggage? Whatever. So let me talk about our clothes for a second. So, first of all, everything that we had fit into a saddlebag. It's like this big. Like, that's everything we had for a month. And hopefully you can see a picture of it here if you're on YouTube. This is my wife's bike that's fully packed. So the part underneath the saddle is all of our clothes. The rest of it, everything up around the bars was like food and daily use stuff. Or I kept our passports in there or drinks, everything else that we need. Right. So in the saddlebag, then, is. Here's all we took. So we had three biking kits, which are like the cycling uniform, like the spandex. And we wore that because that's what we always wear when we cycle. And it's a little bit more efficient, which when you're riding 40 or 50 miles a day and it's windy, then that efficiency is a big deal. We had one pair of pants, one pair of shorts, two shirts, underwear, three pairs of socks, two jackets, a rain jacket, and a puffy jacket. That's it. That's all we had, every one of us, for a month. All of us had the same thing. It was really interesting and it was really actually kind of nice. Like, you get. You ride your bike all day, you know what you're gonna put on in the morning, you're gonna put on your biking stuff. When you get to the hotel or the Airbnb at night, is it cold or is it warm? If it's cold, you put on your pants. If it's warm, you put on your shorts. Period. That's it. There's no choice. You only have two shirts. So which one's cleaner than the other one? Because one of them is probably dirty. And so you put your shirt on. And that decision making, or lack of Decision making was really kind of nice. The hardest part of it was laundry. We had to do laundry every three days and that meant we had to find somewhere to do laundry, which isn't always super simple. Laundry is a, is a different thing in Europe than it is in the US So while we're off riding bikes and not working for a month, the rest of the world is getting back to work. Like back into the office now and back into suits and ties. So many offices in the Philippines have adopted like men's that wear suits, many because it's kind of more of a formal culture there than in the US Many of them accept the barong still. So let me talk about the the traditional Filipino shirt called the barang or the barong tagalog. So the barong is a lightweight embroidered shirt that's worn kind of the same way that we wear a suit in the US So there's a formal barong which is like long sleeve and intricately embroidered and kind of see through. It's a sheer shirt that's made from pineapple leaf and husi fibers from abaca, which is like a banana subspecies. It's what you would wear to like life events like weddings or funerals. Wearing a formal barong can also be like a status symbol, especially if you got it from like a high end designer. In the Philippines, formal barongs are also worn, like at red carpet or black tie events. Even heads of state, like other heads of state would wear a formal barang when they're in the Philippines at an important event. And this happens kind of regularly like in this picture, hopefully that you're seeing is the Mexican president wearing a barong. So less formal than the formal barong would be a polo barang. And this is kind of typically what they would wear to work. It's short sleeves, it's simple, has little or no embroidery, it's made from cotton or linen, it comes in various colors. It's too informal for like a wedding, but it's good enough to meet with clients at work. And they also have a feminine version of the barong and often worn by like corporate executives or politicians. So wearing this kind of shirt really kind of makes sense when you think about the culture and climate of the Philippines. Nobody wants to wear a jacket, a thick jacket in the tropical climate. It's hot and it's, it's hot, humid and muggy. And the see through thin shirt that's embroidered makes it formal enough to wear and yet it's more comfortable. Another interesting part about the barong is that this dates back to before Spain colonized the Philippines in the 1500s. The barong were worn that it would show your status in society, what you did for work, what part of the Philippines you were from, and what you did for a living. Like it. It came. They came in a wide variety of colors and sizes and shapes and different, different styles that would indicate kind of who you were so other people would know. It's one of those distinct things about Filipino culture that. That has lasted the test of time, where a lot of things from in the Philippines are just very, very Westernized. This is one of the things that has stuck around, and they're still using it today.
