Para-what? Protection in Manila

Vanou and I have been coming to Manila to train Intercultural Negotiation Skills for about four years now. But there is always a moment for a first. Any number of times we have left the hotel to walk to the client's workplace. When it is raining (or in some cases typhooning), the doorman offers us the loan of an umbrella for the day. 

This week we had bright unseasonably hot sunshine and the doorman, said to me as I went out, "Would you like an umbrella, Sir?" I was actually startled by the question. Though many Filipinos carry umbrellas to shade them from the sun, it had never occurred to me to do so, just counting on my baseball cap to get me through. 

This led to some cultural reflection though. Etymologically the word "umbrella" is really to

 shade one not protect from the rain, though in English we tend to think of it that way most of the time. They even carry an ombrellino over the pope! French has parasol for sun and parapluie for rain. Spanish has parasol and paraguas.  In English we also can hear parasol but without  making much distinction as to its purpose. We even call the big beach umbrellas "umbrellas" most of the time.  I expect there are a lot more cultures who have such distinctions. 

To me this is a reminder of how culture and language are shaped by our attempts to survive and succeed in the environment given us and that there are always surprises in other environments.