They always want to know what its like to walk a mile in my shoes. Literally. They ask what my Nikes feel like and can they try them on. Everyone wants to try them on. It’s a strange anomaly in the Philippines; this land of trademark infringement where everyone from the shopkeeper to the bicycle taxi driver puts a Nike swoosh on their property...and yet most of them have never even seen Nikes in real life.

They stand around and stare like an alien just landed on my feet until I'm overcome with guilt because of these damn shoes. It doesn’t help that they’re a lurid fuchsia. They’re oblivious to the fact that they’re made not far away by underpaid and overworked child labor from their Indonesian counterparts. Even still, there's great mystique surrounding this fabric and rubber on my feet. They call them Nikes with a silent e. They show me their swoosh, it's on the wall right next to the statute of Mother Mary...right there, painted on an old piece of wood. Holy Nike.   

Its origins come from basketball and the West and it has the power to stop an old man and his grandson pulling a rickshaw as I run up a steep and winding mountain road. They’re both fixated on my feet. I offer a good morning “Maayong buntag!” and it’s as if they don’t hear me. I’m annoyingly American as it appears my shoes are punching their monochromatic cart with hues they’ve never seen before. I ask if I can help pull their rickshaw but they think I’m nuts. Who helps someone pull a rickshaw? Stupid American girl with her bright Nikes. 

I pass a group of young boys who’ve just purchased a can of paint to decorate the flat board on their bicycle taxi with a Nike swoosh. They’ve commissioned their friend with the steadiest hand to make an outline. In my inquisitive Western way, I ask “What does it mean to you?" They reply by telling me that Nikes are very nice. Very very nice. I ask why and he asks if he can try mine on. When I put my shoe against his, my 6.5 feet are clearly diminutive in comparison. Again, he asks if he can try them on. I have to explain that they won’t fit but still he wants to try them on so I weirdly pass one over. He forces his foot in while his entire heel hangs over and tells me how nice they are. "Oh wow!" he exclaims, “this is so very nice” except he says “berry” because Filipinos mix v’s with b’s. I’m quite sure they’re not comfortable in this fashion but I’ll play along.

A girl asks a girl to ask another girl who knows me if I she can borrow them so that she can play volleyball in a town far away. She tells me that she loves volleyball so much but she’s not allowed to play on the team without shoes. I tell her to bring the girl to see me. She shows up dressed to the nines. The Filipino nines with flip flops. She puts her feet to mine and clearly they’re oversized for my shoes. I ask what her size is and she says 9 so I explain they won’t fit. She says that’s ok, and she can wear them anyway. Somehow they believe there’s magic in these shoes.  

Despite the fact that people are sometimes shot because someone stepped on their Nikes in a club in Anycity, USA or that someone has paid over $11k for a pair of them, I embrace their love for Nike enchantment...mostly because I don't know what else to do. That's more than they'll make in their entire lifetime of hard labor while feeding their family of 6 and yet still, it’s adorned in many homes. Still there…right next to baby Jesus.    

Before I leave I make sure to give away all my shoes. The beneficiary of my Nikes is the happiest of them all. She explains to me that she never intends on wearing them, that they'll only be put on a shelf. "No no, you must wear them!" I explain. Shoes are meant to be worn. No, no! she argues while smiling. "Oh yes, I'm giving them to you so you can wear them.” I tell her but grow increasingly frustrated because I feel like I've chosen the wrong recipient of my dumb shoes. "Oh no! I never wear them!” as she stands there smiling so much that I can't just take them back now. The fact of the matter is that anyone I give my shoes to will never wear them. They came from this holy land...of Nike.