The young girl wearing a dress had pierced ears

On a roadside in the old city of Vigan, in northern Philippines, a little girl was standing quietly. She wore a simple white dress, and a faint sheen of sweat glimmered on her forehead. She couldn’t have been more than three or four years old. Yet, despite her tender age, small earrings sparkled in both her ears. It seems that in this country, pierced ears are nothing unusual. I later learned that in the Philippines, it is common for baby girls to have their ears pierced—not for religious reasons or fashion, but as a sign of growing up. Culture, I thought, is defined by where each society chooses to draw its invisible lines.

When I raised my camera, the girl gazed straight at me. Her face showed a flicker of surprise, but she didn’t move away; she simply observed. It was an expression poised between curiosity and caution, the natural balance of a child encountering the unfamiliar. The hem of her dress swayed lightly in the breeze, revealing the clumsy stance unique to early childhood. To her, I was nothing more than another passing detail in the scenery—just one of the countless strangers drifting through her world that day.

Vigan on Google Map

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