Auring or Aurelia Salungsawa, 32, is the woman with a giant mole on the sole of her feet; hence, the famous Filipino adage that “ang taong may nunal sa talampakan ay layas” seems true in her case.
Auring is perennial traveler; a jetsetter who never missed an opportunity to travel abroad. She has been in different countries as student, as missionary, as participant of seminars, conventions, religious pilgrimages, as overseas Filipino worker, as businesswoman selling imported goods from Hong Kong and as winner of all contest possible which prizes include trips overseas. If she would have been not less than 5’4, she would have volunteered as soldier to Afghanistan or Iraq. Every possible chance to travel outside the Philippines endlessly excites Auring and she has come to know more and even love the countries she has invited. She knows Hong Kong or Bangkok more than Manila or Cebu. She loves kimchee than bagoong and prefers the coffee shop of Paris rather than the carinderia.
The scene opens one cold day in Vancouver, Canada, 8:00 a.m., Auring is bound for the Philippines after a two week vacation tour in Canada which she won in a contest of a chewing gum product. From the taxi to the airport until she boards the airplane. She will come to meet several Filipinos who have been longing to go home to their family, community and traditions back in the Philippines. She realizes that they are more knowledgeable of the country than she. They missed the balut, the banig, the Manila traffic, the jukebox and the everyday songs—the music of the tropics, the people and the motherland. These Filipinos overseas will reintroduce her to the beauty of her country which she has not discovered nor valued for a long -long time.
The scenes shall be delineated through Filipino music from various period of history tracing its development through times. On the last scene, Auring is glad to be coming home to her own country, at last.
