Taho

For our last month in Manila we’ll try to post some more things about daily life here.

One of the most common sounds in the morning (6:45-7:15ish) in our neighborhood is the taho man calling “ta-ho!” We’ve heard a couple variations of this call, so it seems like each taho vendor has his own distinct identifiable jingle.

typical taho scene

Taho is a sweet tofu drink with syrup. There’s a man in our neighborhood who rides around on a bike with a giant container of the tofu and the other various toppings (it’s more common for people to carry taho in two silver buckets over their shoulders like the man we photographed in Tagaytay).

We don’t actually eat taho very often (it’s very sweet and primarily for children) but it’s a common sound and sight in our neighborhood. On Saturdays and Sundays, the only days we’re actually around in the morning, we often see little children running out to the taho man with cups for him to fill. One morning I took a video from outside of our apartment of one of these interactions.

One of our friends has two small children and she pays the taho man in her neighborhood a monthly amount so that her children can have it whenever they want. She said that her mother did the same for her when she was young.