The prompt: What do you bring home for family after a trip?
Draft: this guide is waiting for review by a Filipino reviewer.
What pasalubong means
Pasalubong is a gift brought home from a trip for family, friends and sometimes coworkers. The word is related to salubong, which means to meet or to welcome, so a pasalubong is a gift for the people who meet you when you return. Coming back from a trip empty-handed is seen as a bit awkward, and the gift is often expected even on a day trip.
The gift does not have to be expensive. What matters is the thought of having remembered the people at home, and that is why the word has no exact English match. Plain answers like "souvenirs" or "postcards" miss that meaning, and score low as a result.
Food from the place you visited
Most pasalubong is local food that people associate with the place they traveled to. Dried mangoes and otap, a flaky oval pastry, are often bought in Cebu. Buko pie, a coconut custard pie, is linked with Laguna. Pili nuts come from the Bicol region. Barako coffee is associated with Batangas, piaya, a flat pastry filled with sugar, comes from Negros, and pastillas, small milk candies, are linked with Bulacan.
Airports and bus terminals in tourist areas often have stalls that sell boxes of these items, so that visitors can pick up something recognizable on the way home. People also give different pasalubong depending on where they have been, which is why a shopping bag of food is often a clue about the route.
The balikbayan box
Filipinos working or living abroad often send home a large cardboard shipping box packed with gifts, such as clothes, snacks and toiletries. It is known as a balikbayan box, from words meaning to return to one's country. It is a bigger version of the same idea: bringing something back for the family.
Chocolates, cookies and keychains are common gifts everywhere, which is why they score in the middle or low. The top answers are the ones that sound like a trip to a particular Philippine place.
Spotted a mistake? Please tell us. We want these to be right.