Pylons and BBQ

By: Marie Pascual

What the Taste of Manila Taught Me About Grief, Joy, and Coming Home

We walked down Wilson Street and I thought of my sister. The same route I used to take, hopping off the 96. But where her low-rise once stood, a tall glass condo tower loomed. Ling wouldn’t recognize this place.

Half a block down, cranes clawed at the skyline. I sighed, expecting another condo. Then I spotted the sign: “TDSB FUTURE SCHOOL.”

They’re building a school here?

I remembered the families that used to crowd these sidewalks, kids tugging at their parents’ hands, fresh from the islands. Finally, they’d have a school within walking distance. Across the street, new builds replaced the old low-rises my sister’s friends once lived in. A small relief settled in me: maybe the community was being looked after, at least for now.

The closer we got to the festival, the heavier the air felt. Barbecue smoke clung to the humidity. The bass from a distant stage rattled windows.

In front of these lowrises, just before the festival entrance, residents held parties welcoming anyone on the block. Titos leaned into karaoke machines on balconies. Kids screamed and chased each other through puddles of spilled taho. Titas cackled over trays of lumpia and pancit.

The block didn’t just look alive — it smelled, sounded, and sweated like one giant barangay.

At one stall, two mariteses barged ahead, flashing their credit cards like VIP passes.

“Two bags!” one barked, pointing straight at the chicharron. Her quieter companion nibbled behind her, while the young vendor scooped from the open barrel.

She looked like a younger version of me — head down, taking orders. Sometimes I think our parents raise us too kind.

By the time we hit Bathurst, the night air was damp and buzzing. Post-COVID release, tourism on the rise, maybe just hunger for joy — the crowd pressed in from every direction.

My mom and tita had warned me about being careful after the Lapu-Lapu tragedy in Vancouver. But here, there was no fear.

Couples fed each other corn. Strangers passed bags of chips down the line like communion. Everywhere, the air shook with singing and laughter.

The entrance stretched like a Manila night market. Oil smoke, fried sugar, custard from turon stalls. Vendors shouting over each other: kwek kwek, taho, halo-halo, empanadas.

Every plate between $1 and $5. Every stall spilled over with food like it was impossible to run out.

Just beyond, the main stage blasted to life. Dancers twirling through smoke machines. “Top performers” glittering under neon lights. The crowd sweating under stage lamps.

Nelson and I ducked between tables and grabbed drinks: a tall sugarcane juice dripping down our wrists, and Thai iced milk tea, cold enough to fog the plastic.

We stood off to the side and people-watched. Titas dragging lawn chairs through the crush. Toddlers sticky with halo-halo. Teens in jerseys filming everything on their phones.

It felt like a pause before something big.

And then we spotted them.

A pack of teenagers. Two of them swinging bright orange pylons in the air like Olympic torches. Loud, hyper, funny — the kind of kids titas call annoying but lean on when it’s time to haul chairs.

They stuck to the sidelines at first, hyping each other up, waving pylons above the crowd.

The DJ dropped Shots! Shots! Shots! and toddlers shrieked along at our knees. Titas wobbled through the Cha Cha Slide. We found ourselves joining in the line dancing. 

But the teenagers wouldn’t stay sidelined. By the next track, they had worked their way into the center. Jumping, shouting, pushing the crowd higher.

And then the DJ waved them up.

Suddenly, half a block was moving together. The pylon kids conducted the whole crowd like an orchestra. Titas shrieking off-beat. Dads twirling their kids. Gen Z voices screaming lyrics with their arms around strangers.

Once Dj Khaled’s “All I do is Win” came up, an internet trend I’ve never thought I’d see in real life happened:

“Every time I step up in the building everybody’s hands go UP!”

At the top of their lungs, including myself, everyone shouted,
“PUTANG INA ALAK PA!”

The music wasn’t the point anymore. It was the sight of kids from the neighbourhood turning chaos into communion.

Nelson and I couldn’t stop laughing. Pulled into it whether we wanted to be or not.

It felt like the real headliner of the festival.

A few stalls away, a four-year-old rapper with a rat-tail spat into the mic while his parents bobbed along. A cypher circle formed. A horrified tita fanned herself furiously, clutching her chest, scandalized at this “hip hop corruption.”

The clash of generations only made the air buzz more. The festival had room for everyone.

And then, at the far end of the street, another stage. Smaller, rougher.

A cover band closed their set with “Perfect” by Simple Plan.

I froze. That was one of my sister’s favorite songs.

Around me, millennials with strollers. Parents in sweat-soaked jerseys. Titas with arms around each other’s shoulders. All of them singing their hearts out:

‘Cause we lost it all / Nothing lasts forever

I’m sorry, I can’t be perfect

Now it’s just too late / And we can’t go back

I’m sorry, I can’t be perfect…

The lyrics carried down the humid street like a confession.

It cracked something open in me.

I imagined them as teenagers, fresh immigrants, trying to survive classrooms where they didn’t fit in. Terrified of disappointing their parents. Screaming these words out of cracked car windows.

I pictured them now, years later. Nurses, PSWs, factory hands, delivery drivers. Raising kids of their own. Still carrying that ache. Still needing to be understood.

Walking from Bathurst to Wilson — from the neon polish of the main stage, to the chaos of the pylon kids, to the raw ache of that cover band — felt like moving through a closed loop.

Spectacle giving way to silliness.

Silliness giving way to memory.

Memory bringing me back to my sister’s voice.

From 90s DJ bangers that united a sweaty crowd, to 2000s rock anthems that reopened teenage scars — the festival wasn’t just a party.

It was a walk through every chapter of my culture at once.

The joy, the grind, the rebellion, the grief.

All unfolding in one epic fucking block party.