Technology Over the Years – Miguel Salvador

Miguel Salvador is an elderly person who has been through many things and changes in his life.  He was born and raised in the Philippines, in Bulacan.  He now resides in a home living with his grandchildren.  This man is my grandfather.  He grew up in the Philippines and lived through the harshness of World War II.  From him, I learned much about how things have changed.  Miguel Salvador remembers many things about entertainment, transportation, and communication as well as how much they’ve changed over the years.  Things have transformed quite a lot since my grandfather’s childhood days.  Contrasting to today’s society, things are much more different than before.  My grandfather had said, “Well, when I was a young boy, I would say life is…simple.”  From listening to my grandfather’s story it has become clear and evident how much technology has changed.

My name is Miguel Salvador.  I am eighty-four years old.  I am, I was born in the town of Bulacan, in the Philippines on May twenty first 1926.

When I was small I, we always like to play by the river where we live.  And we always go fishing and my friends would just like to play with each other like you know hide and seek.  And we um, like the fish that we caught, we cook them.  For fishing rods, we only have like a stick that we get from like branches from the tree or a small bamboo and we tied strings on them and with the hook and we use worm for bait to catch fish.

I also had a small radio.  Which it has battery.  And we only um, listen to news and sometimes we listen to you know like drama shows on the radio and some music, but not all the time.  I did not listen really much be- because during my time…the radio programs are, there’s only a few of them.  So there’s only like radio programs like…around ten in the morning until two in the afternoon.  And we didn’t have T.V. at the time.

Well, when I was young, I would say life is…simple.  We only play, most of the time, we play outside the house.  And not like the, the kids today.  They, they always like everything, like everything is electronic like high-tech.  Those video games, which is so hard to play.  During my time, we always play outside the house, you know?  More physical and more simple.

 When I moved to America…regarding the T.V. there’s so many programs here in America.  There’s so much to…to see on T.V.  But some of them, I do not like to watch.  I, I just watch mostly news, musical shows, and…some old movies.  Other than that I’ll just read the newspaper or the book.

It, it was harder to communicate when I was young.  Of course, I can only see my friends who live nearby.  But those people who are far away, we can only…write letters to them.  When I was a boy, oh we don’t have telephone.  N-not like today you have…what you call this?  The cell phones.  We only write letters and…send them out by mail and they, my friends will get them probably after a week.  It, it’s harder to communicate when I was young.  Of course, I can only see my friends who live nearby.  But those people who are far away, we can only…write letters to them.  I still write letters to…to my sisters in the Philippines.  But sometimes I call them also because they- they also have phone now in the Philippines so I call them sometimes.

And with transportation…we only have, we, you call them calesa.  It, it’s a horse pulling a cart.  Like here it is a horse drawn carriage.  We call them calesa. But many times we only walk where we want to go.  And that, that’s also a good exercise for us.  Around town we just walked.  And sometimes we call it the Jeepney, you know in the Philippines they still have the Jeepney.  And we just ride in the Jeepney, it’s much cheaper.  We couldn’t really go that very far.  Not like today…most of the time we only go around you know, where I was born in, in the province.  And…very very seldom we go to the city in Manila.  But…it takes a long time to go because you can only take a bus, but the bus there are, it only goes to Manila once a week.  And it’s very expensive. 

I think it’s better when I was young.  Life is so simple, not like today.  Today, is so…complicated.  Always so much things to uh, these electronic things which are so hard to learn.  For me, it’s easier to entertain myself when I was a young boy because I’m satisfied with just…just playing around the house with my friends.  Not like kids today, always have to buy…this video games.  And…they don’t do much around like play around you know like physically they have always want video games.  Kids today, they’re more- they’re more lucky but you know, it it’s the modern times.  Kids today are privileged too.  But I think today’s kids has less discipline when I was- compared, when I was young.

Interviewed by Bryan Salvador