My mother would take the knife and carve little tic-tac-toe grids into this quivering flesh. Then she would push the rind side up through the tic-tac-toe, inverting the curve of the semicircle and pushing the little carved-out squares of tasty fruit up and out. And there they'd stand, proud, erect, offering their succulence to any hungry lips passing in the night.

I tasted the sweet mangoes of the tropics while growing up in America. Even then, with an unrefined palate, with taste buds that were becoming dulled and standardized and homogenized and Americanized, I could tell that these complex fruits my mother brought home from Oakland Chinatown were unlike any others here in the new land.

Something about their texture -- milky and meaty -- that bathed my mouth with a tropical lushness, and something about their taste -- an explosion of peach and melon and cream with a sassy backbite -- that spoke to me. It said that this was the milk of the homeland, lad, all sensuous and warm and lush and tricky and snappy. These fruits come from the land of your birth.

Remember this, and never forget.

But I did forget. And I didn't remember for a long, long time. I didn't remember because my new land, America, had new demands on my memory: school, sports, money, careers, rock and roll, money, cars, money, bigger cars, money, money, more money. I was a college student at Berkeley, a newspaper journalist in Oakland, a wannabe filmmaker and rock 'n' roller, then a graduate student in Ohio, a doctoral candidate in Texas, and now a professor at Humboldt State University. No time, amidst all that achievement, to stop and smell the mangoes.

Many years later, the march forward became less important than the march back. And I felt the call from the islands to come home and taste the fruit, and I remembered the days when my mother would carve up slices of juicy tropical delicacies for me. And I knew that I had to taste the succulent mangoes again. But this time, I wanted to go to the source.

Yes, I would taste the sweet mangoes again. But this time it would be in Cebu, Philippines, a place many, many miles and many, many worlds away from the America of my youth. I came to Cebu to find a piece of myself that had been lost in my lifelong quest to become standardized and homogenized and very un-mangolike.

I am a Filipino-American, born in Manila and raised in California. I am part East and part West; I am part savage and part intellectual; I am part Catholic and part bohemian; I am part fish-head and part Longhorn steer; I am part Spanish, part Malay, part Chinese, all American, and -- like many Fil-Ams -- totally confused about who and what I am. And totally in denial about this confusion.

And so it was that I came here to Cebu, the first capital city of the Philippines, the city most infused with the traditions of the old Philippines -- to find out where I came from, and maybe to get a clue about where I was going, and maybe to find a piece of mango life-force that had been long missing from my life.

What was it about Cebu that stuck to my soul like manga paste? Was it the happy music that seemed to permeate every aspect of commercial life here, from the taxicabs to the new mega-malls to the street-corner carenderias?

Was it the people? Ever smiling, seemingly content in their misery, always ready to lend some friendly advice to tourists. Why were they so happy when all about them was squalor and poverty? Why were they so happy when the best they could hope for was a daily wage of $6 or less? Why were they so happy when all the best the country had to offer was controlled by a small elite? Why did they smile so much? It didn't make sense, but the smiles were so warm and irresistible, that eventually you would come to believe that they really, really were happy with their lot in life.

Maybe it was the jeepneys that got to me. Jeepneys, those clunky, coughing, hiccupping, belching military vehicles that had been tarted up in garish colors and too much chrome and converted into a loose public transit system for the masses. You could ride a jeepney across town for three pesos (about six cents). Jeepneys were just about the coolest things in the world, I concluded, as I leapt off a freaky red-and-yellow vehicle named "The Holy Face of Jesus."

Maybe it was the price of things that so grabbed me. Everything was so cheap here. I could get a San Miguel beer for about 15 pesos (30 cents), I could get a fabulous seafood dinner in a nice restaurant for about 300 pesos (6 dollars), I could buy cassette tapes of newly released hit recordings (officially licensed, not pirated) for about 3 dollars, I could buy a pair of Nike athletic shoes (probably counterfeit, but quite stylish) for 8 dollars, I could get a taxi ride across town for maybe 2 or 3 bucks. Things were so cheap, I found myself giddily tipping every driver, waiter, bellhop, maid and hotel clerk, just to see the happy look on their faces. I found myself dropping coins into the hands of ragged little street urchins just to see their looks of bewilderment.

Was I intoxicated with the thought of being a "rich" American? Was I conducting myself now with the arrogance of a neo-colonist who was flaunting his wealth before the poor natives? Had I become that? Had I become drunk with that power? I shut that thought out, realizing perhaps the pathetic baggage that came with it.

After all, I was emerging from a dark period and happily tripping though life for the first time in a long time.

Was it the language that got to me? Did the lilting tones of Cebuano and Tagalog rekindle in me some memories of a happy childhood in the home of loving parents? Was it the food - the ampalaya, adobo, paksiw, the lumpia? Was it the deep culture - the love of family and God, the simple values of home and charity? Was it the tropical heat, the dream-like state I always seemed to be in, the sleek brown skin and dark eyes and black hair of everyone around me? Was it the overall feeling of returning home to my homeland, the Philippines, that got to me?

Was it the complexity of the people? Was it the fact that they had Spanish names but didn't speak Spanish? The fact that they were so unlike Americans but wanted very much to be American? The fact that they treated me like one of them but also like a rich foreigner? The fact that they smiled and went about their work happily even in the face of crushing poverty and hopelessness?

Maybe it was the history of the place that fascinated me so. Having grown up in Oakland, California, where Black Panthers and Hell's Angels held sway in the 1960s, and having survived an education at the feet of radical Berkeley professors in the early to mid-1970's, I was, of course, fascinated by rebel movements. And the Cebu/Mactan area is, after all, a legendary site of resistance; where 500 years ago Western hegemony was temporarily halted by a savage, club-wielding tribal chieftain named Lapu-Lapu, who laid some serious wood on explorer Ferdinand Magellan, thus temporarily halting the Spanish empire's march to global domination.

Magellan, history tells us, was doing quite well in the Philippines with his mixture of diplomacy, parlor magic (he won many converts over to Christianity when he supposedly helped "cure" some people with herbs), and brash show of weaponry - until he went up against Mr. Trouble himself, chief Lapu-Lapu. You've got to watch out for that sassy backbite, captain.

The death of Magellan on Mactan Island in 1521 at the hand of Lapu-Lapu was a pyrrhic victory. Half a century later, the Spanish were ready to exact vengeance. They would return in full force, with their galleons and their cannons and their armor and their horses and their Catholic priests, and the Philippines would soon fall into their hands. This was how the East was won, and for the next 400 years the Philippines would be forced to take Spanish names and bow to the Spanish God.

About 100 years ago, the Americans came, and brought with them a new order. The Americans brought their ships and their cannons and their horses and their promises of freedom and their star-spangled ideologies, and they whomped the Spaniards good, driving them out of the Philippines and humiliating them on the world stage. It was all too quick. The Spaniards, weakened by centuries of gluttonous behavior and having fought too many wars in too many places, fell like an old, fat, out-of-shape heavyweight who had no business taking on a brash, trash-talking youth. Thus, America, the superpower, was born and Spain, the has-been superpower, was reduced to Sonny Liston status.

The people of Cebu embrace the Lapu-Lapu legacy. They embrace it like it like a totem of power, the thing that makes them strong, the thing that gives them the inspiration to carry on in the face of overwhelming odds, in the face of oppression by the Spaniards, the Tagalogs (fellow Filipinos who comprise the dominant class), the Japanese or the Americans, or whomever.

But here is where it gets complicated: They also worship a statue of Jesus Christ called the Santo Nino. This little statue, featured prominently in all the churches and shrines of Cebu, is the gift that Magellan gave to Queen Juana of Cebu as a token of Spanish friendship. Even though Magellan fell at the point of a Lapu Lapu spear, the Santo Nino statue lives on.

A Santa Nino statue was found, some 40 years after Magellan's death, in the ruins of a village that had burned down. The Cebuanos took it to be a sign. They erected a church on the site of the discovery, the Basilica Minore del Santo Nino, now the most famous and one of the oldest churches in the Philippines. And the Santo Nino figure is the most loved and cherished religious icon in all of Cebu.

It's just one of the many complicated arrangements that make the Philippine people (and Cebuanos in particular) so fascinating, so beautiful, so utterly unpredictable, so elegantly unruly.

Was it the history and the mysticism of the place that so grabbed me then? Or was it the brave, suffering, complex people of Cebu? The fact that they adored the warrior chief who killed the invader, but yet worshipped the gift the invader gave them?

Was it all of that?

Or was it the girl?

Her name was Liza, and she worked in a department store in Cebu. Her skin was the color of an exotic desert. Her eyes were the eyes of a surprised, laughing child. Her smile was pure, utter acceptance. Her long hair was black silk falling like rain over the delicate terrain of her frail body.

I fell in love with Liza the very first moment I laid eyes on her. That was11/2 years ago.

Now I was in Cebu, visiting Liza and returning to my homeland for the very first time. Now I had the eyes of the amazed, laughing child, a manchild in a land of strange fruit. Now I was about to taste the sweet mangoes of Cebu, REALLY taste them, for the very first time.

But I would realize later that I wasn't fully ready - how could I possibly ever have been ready? -- for the very sassy backbite.

My name is George. I am a Filipino-American. This is my story.