CARL HOFFMAN: Born and brought up in Ramat Hasharon, Ayelet Hazan had just finished her BA degree and decided to take a break for a year. Like thousands upon thousands of young Israelis, "Ginji," as she is better known, headed east. But unlike most of those thousands upon thousands of young backpacking Israelis, Ginji was traveling alone. With a voice so soft one must strain to hear, she recalls, "I did not even plan to go to the Philippines. I was on a trip to Japan where you could take a stopover in the Philippines, and I did." Not long after arriving in the Philippines, Ginji met her future husband. She smiles as she remembers: "People were sitting around a table, singing, passing a guitar from one person to another. When the guitar reached Noy, people started telling me that he was a musician, that he had a group and made records. Afterwards I talked to him and told him I'd be very happy to listen to his original music. And that's how it started." The newly-married couple settled on the resort island of Boracay, where the white sand, blue-green sea and easy-going attitude are famous among tourists from all over the world. They established souvenir shops featuring crafts by native artists, and in time had a daughter, whom they named Lalel. They remained in Boracay for 17 years before moving to Israel one year ago. Why leave an island some call "Paradise" to endure the strains and rubs of life in Israel? "To begin with," says Ginji, "paradise is not paradise when you actually live and work there." Their major reason, both Pillora and Ginji say, was that their daughter had become old enough to make sense of some of the things she was seeing in this wide-open, anything-goes tourist beach resort - drugs, sex and so on. Another reason was that after 17 years in the Philippines, Ginji felt strongly pulled home. "I always knew there would come a time when I'd go back. I needed it for myself because I wanted to close some circles and see what it would be like to be an adult here." She also wanted to be near her mother, who is elderly and unwell. How have they adjusted? Pillora says, "People ask me how I'm adjusting to Israeli society. The truth is I don't 'adjust.' I stay who I am." Ginji agrees. "Noy doesn't try to get used to places. Places have to get used to him. He just remains the same man wherever he goes. I am the one who feels the need to adjust. I just don't really feel Israeli any more." Both agree that their daughter has had little or no problem becoming an Israeli child. The couple have been playing music together for years, throughout the 1990s, and even recorded an album together in 1996. In the year that they have been here, they have entertained at numerous occasions before mostly Filipino audiences in Tel Aviv, singing Asin songs.
