Why Basel (The Hungry Syrian Wanderer) Chose To Become A Filipino | Toni Talks

[Music] we all know him as philippines adopted son so i'm so excited that we have with us today the hungry syrian wanderer basel hi basel hi good morning where did you get that i was thinking of a way to call my audience and the people in general not only my audience through the vlog but the people i see in the street because i'm always interacting with people good morning good morning mata okay afternoon good morning mata it doesn't change so your full name is my full name is basel what does basil mean it means brave like fearless nice maybe this is how my family wanted me to grow up that's why they named me basset when's your birthday 1993 november november 11 11 1993. you were born in syria in syria how many siblings do you have i have one brother and one sister and then when did you come here to the philippines i came in the philippines in 2013. that was during the outbreak of the syrian civil war yeah uh the syrian civil war started like 2011. i experienced the civil war for two years that my family decided to send me here in the philippines where's your family now scattered so my dad and my brother in france my sister and my mom saudi and me in the philippines how come you all separated why because of course my family they wanted me to be safe and they wanted my safety first so they sent me here to study english of course how old were you when you first moved to the philippines 18 to 19 years old 18 today that was the first time you got separated from your family yes you probably missed your family very much yeah i do it's going nine years now or you haven't seen them so i wasn't able to celebrate anything with them not even my own graduation because i graduated as an engineer a computer engineer where in perpetual in the south like what i told you i've been in the south just a south boy you're a south boy yeah so it must have been hard for you at 18 years old moving into a foreign country and leaving your family how did you survive that i i'm sure the first year was the hardest yeah the first six months was like it's my first time to ever be away from my family yes and that time if you ask me how to fry eggs i really don't know so i got separated from my family like it was very quick i didn't feel like it's just very quick i got the visa the next day i was booked to go here and why the philippines i don't know where's the philippines located my parents yeah they go they travel abroad and stuff but me i was just a kid yeah and i was mama's boy so i i didn't go abroad i didn't so they told me you have you're gonna go to the philippines and this is your visa and then did you cry yeah so i objected first i said i can't you know i can't live by myself my dad dropped me to the airport and yeah my mom was crying when i left and my dad told me we're gonna see each other again but that was nine years ago we never seen each other so how do you communicate with them face time like that video calls we call video calls they attended my graduation through a video call because i wasn't able able to bring anybody with me to my graduation so i went by myself it's very hard i bought a swoot and then i went by myself to piccc i yeah i was just alone and then i couldn't believe that i'm graduating yeah how did you do it at 18. so the first six months were very tough i cried almost every day i asked them to book me back it was hard because you're a mama's boy yeah it must have been so hard to be separated from your mom yes i had culture shock what shocked you with the culture you're talking about food you're talking about of course i'm not used to food filipino food yeah i'm used to sandwiches bread a lot of bread we're all about rice here yeah canning is like of course and that's what happened to me now you have to always give me rice i yeah so i got culture shock to the level that i stopped eating because also i don't eat pork and i couldn't know whenever i go outside which is pork which is not pork as my english was not good and i cannot really i don't know what i'm getting or what i'm ordering so i started going to a sarisari store and buying uh whatever soft drink and just buying the biscuit and then that's my meal for a day so i didn't tell my family that and then i lost like 15 kilograms of my weight yeah and in about two months because you were just eating biscuits and soft drinks yes what was the first filipino meal that you tried the first filipino dish so the first filipino dish is chicken tinola oh how was it for you i love it until now yeah that's your favorite philippines that's my number one many people they think chicken adobo but they are always wrong so your favorite is tenola yeah and then ever since then you started liking a filipino every ever since i started yeah exploring more more and more and all the way i go to chicken isle but i got scared one time because i found dumi it happened so i said okay i'll stick to it no more than the intestine okay no not good for you that's good for you what's the weirdest thing you tried no filipino food did you know yeah but but don't give me the look with here i wanted to learn english but like nobody helped me to do anything so i searched just on google english school and i live in the south so the english school that pop out is in makati so i'm in the south don't know nothing about transportation don't know nothing about how to go there don't know nothing so i really i until this moment i don't believe how i reached the school i took like i commuted there when they're walking like one r in makati roaming around i just have the address of my phone so trying to find it then i started studying english there for like three three months and then after studying english for three months i started my school so i started feeling comfortable because i'm able to communicate with people and of course when you speak you're already having the ability to understand and interact and communicate with others so that's the time i i started i said okay i'm starting schooling and so brave for you to like survive on your own in a foreign country at the age of 18 being away from your family and with the war going on to this day there is still war so where were you getting your money my family was supporting me you basically i came from a well-off family so back home in syria my dad is a very well respected engineer and he works for the government before so but i'm a type of person who don't really like to depend on my family i don't really like to ask them for anything even though i would really try to break the allowance as much as possible just for me to get by rather than ask my family to send me whatever amount of money i always tell them what you're giving me is enough but i don't want to be that kind of you want to be independent i want to be independent and that's the reason why i was never delayed at my graduation my course is five years i finished it in four years oh wow yeah so i i'm here to my goal was to graduate and i made it on time even before before because i was really focused how did you discover vlogging before when i'm still studying i used to travel sometimes like during summer or like that we used to go so when i go to beautiful places of course my video video my surroundings i show the places i go to like i go to burakai palawa i was actually amazed by the beauty of the philippines because before going here i had no idea as many people they never had idea about how beautiful the philippines is and i'll be honest to you many middle easterns don't know how beautiful the philippines is many rich middle easterns they don't know the beautiful side of the philippines so you saw it i saw it myself and when i saw it i wanted to show it also to other people so i wasn't vlogging like vlogging and you're just videoing i'm taking videos of my surroundings when i'm in boracay where i'm in other places that i travel to and then these videos uh of course i already started like sending to my family back in syria sending to my friends you know look i've been to this place it's so beautiful i have been to this area it's really really nice here amazing the nature that so i discovered started falling in love with the island what's the most beautiful place you visited here in the philippines for you for me palawan yeah el nido and corona the rock formation the water exactly everything so i discovered i can upload it on youtube i can show it to more people and share it to more people so i started uploading on youtube and then but i wasn't vlogging i'm still a student i just upload whenever i have a video i just upload so the intention before was to share how beautiful yes the country is many people including my family were shocked with what they see because not many people are exposed to i mean what are you talking about middle east not many people are exposed to the philippines they don't know much about the philippines they only know we have a lot of ofw's who are filipinos they work you know they work hard they they didn't know the island the beauty of the country they don't know anything else so uh i wanted to be the mean to show like beautiful places i go to you know i didn't know that people will like what i'm doing people will start supporting me or people will even like the idea that you know they liking my videos they asking me to upload more videos and then and then your followers started growing were you shocked i didn't expect i mean this because i wasn't planning for it so i did it was unexpected because i'm not planning to be anything i just have a dream to graduate and you know uh do something after graduation and you also started helping a lot of pinoys yes so when did that start you giving back to so that was when we grow up my family we are like i mean we have values we believe in good karma always and my dad also is known for that back home so yeah my dad is a very generous man and my mom as well so back in syria we were raised like that the idea of vlogging and giving back to people so it came from believing in good karma so i told you my dad and my mom they raised us like that we always you know give away food back home we always give away clothes we always give away stuff because we believe in good karma this is regardless of any religious you know doings or what it's just as you believe you do good it comes back to you and you do bad it also comes back to you it's very interesting because um recently i told you that i saw in the news how you change your nationality to filipino yeah and so fascinating to see someone like you who's so passionate and loving our country some filipinos who say it's so hard to love this country it's so hard to be a filipino i don't like this country with what is happening around us but it's so hard to love down the philippines but here you are a foreigner loving the philippines and even converting your nationality as a filipino why first of all i would not deny the fact that i'm fully blooded syrian because if you deny your origin you can't be loyal anymore yes i don't deny the fact that i'm fully blooded syrian i was born in syria and i fell in love with the philippines why did i convert to filipino filipino i choose to live here so i was offered after graduation to go to france to go live with my brother my father and just offered instant opportunity to work because my brother has connections there so and it was a hard decision that i made i refused because i wanted to make my own money and i started that's the reason why i started applying for a job the reason why i started applying for a job not because my family just wants me to work or because i need it too it's just i felt that i want to be independent on my own asking no money no allowance for my family because i want to be a grown man so i started looking for a job and i got denied because you're not a filipino citizen yes and i was doing like sidelines like translation uh i do translator because i speak arabic i speak english and i guess that was your first job so i do freelancer before yeah i moved out of my condo because my sister was playing in a luxury condo okay to live in alabang so i moved out i got just a small apartment not a good one where in the south also in the south when was this 2000 maybe 17 2017 so i started becoming independent and i ran out of money i did but i never asked my sister or my family unintentionally i became like filipino because i love the food i already love the culture i already act as one i live as one so it's not like i attended oh i want to be a filipino or i want to be whatever it just came to me naturally you know so when you finally got the news that you're now a filipino citizen what was that feeling like it's amazing of course it's good i mean for me i don't feel that i'm a foreigner but until this moment if you stop somewhere you speak tagalog sometimes yeah they laugh at me [Music] [Laughter] what i'm curious about is how do you find them in filipino women i love them oh boxes oh i love them what do you love about filipino women they're cute they're cute yeah and all right i mean they're cute because like why in a way that if you talk about like i'm used like to i know like my sister she's as tall as me yeah like because your height is six six one and your sister is six maybe six five nine oh my gosh she's so tall yeah she's so tall so i i like like cute [Laughter] so you find filipina women uh the height of filipino women yeah cute just right imagine i have a girlfriend she's higher than me okay it's not appropriate so what attracts you to a woman what's the first thing you look at in a woman of course the face the face okay the eyes the eyes and the lips again and the lips those are the first two things that you notice in a moment because i want to remember what's the best quality of a filipino woman most of them are supportive yeah supported yeah filipino women are known for being caring and loving very very nurturing yeah when you get sick you already find the medicine in your head already new mob vlogs movie bike filipinas you really have a life here now so this is where you feel at home yes in our country so this is where i feel at home and not only that i have a life here i mean i created many jobs for many filipinos as of this moment i have like 40 employees work for me 4-0 so and i'm working on a big project that will employ a lot of filipinos this is going to be if it succeed with me it's going to be a big opportunity it will have an impact on people you know if i am able to provide jobs for even just 40 people at least you know i'm able to give them stable income you know they go to work uh and just to tell you you might see me anywhere i could be a caricature in the morning and i could be a youtuber in the night i could be a cashier in the afternoon so you'll see me all over the place and you'll be shocked because sometimes you might see me carrying boxes or what so i work hard so i was listening to you it's like you really built a life for yourself and everything that you have right now you work hard for it very hard and everything that you are experiencing now is a product of your perseverance and determination to survive in our country right yeah because i wanted to feel good about myself and that's the reason why i decided to come up with you know something to do my own labor my own work so you came here at the age of 18 a teenager and now you're 27 years old you're now an adult yeah how would you describe your whole experience it's not easy i don't think everybody would take what i took the pressure and the hardship it's not easy at all you're all by yourself the reality kicks in and you feel that you need at least to talk to your family and it happened to me many times before when i was a student and even i try to call them can't reach their phone so i was really like alone yeah like what i told you i took the hardship and here i am today what's the best thing in your life right now best thing in my life right now is i'm able to change the lives of many people i have people who work for me since like two years and they know already if i go big they go big yeah we go all together so i'm giving them chance in life they have nothing also but they stood by my side so i'm not gonna just let them go i told them you know if we get big you're gonna be with me so what's your dream now basil my dream well my dream is already happening it's already happening you're living the dream i yeah my dream is not like you know which car i'm gonna drive you know am i gonna drive a ferrari or i don't have these kinds of dreams no it doesn't really matter you know i'm a simple person you might see me looking like that today but just because i'm gonna meet you but in reality i'm just a simple person and you can ask anybody my stuff or what i dress up simple you know i don't like to brag or show show off you know i i don't do that thing so i like to live simple i like simplicity of life how long do you see yourself staying here in the philippines i think for good what do you think is the purpose of your stay here in the philippines you'll already feel like this is my home this is where i belong to even though whatever nationality you have because you will adopt so this is what happened to me i adopted the lifestyle near the magatao in here they're different than the magata or in france or the magatao and wherever you go what's the best thing about mangatao here mahatao in here they're crazy like some of them like they shout at me when they see me in the street you know mahata oh like that so i like that they're not like the type of magata or like in france or what when my dad walks in the street you just see heaven but there's no maha tao i mean they're so like everything yeah everything serious yes yes but here in the philippines mangatao are game friendly yeah so they love you of course and i love them too so manga or here are the best s [Music] you

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Length: 24min 24sec (1464 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 17 2021