Finally- my Philippine rant

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ladislav
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Finally- my Philippine rant

Post by ladislav »

I don't want people here to think that I am being hard on Thailand so I will rant about the Philippines to show that there are some things which I am not happy about there, as well. They are not exactly what other expats complain about. Anyway:

1) My first one and main one is: I want to see/hear more Filipino music. While American music is great, most stations play it too much at the expense of local audio arts. I am a big music lover but when I go to a night club I end up hearing all these old American songs from the 1970ies and 1980ies. And all these Filipino people request one old American song after another. The same is on the radio and TV. And when I play Filipino song or order it, they say I am the one who is corny. Why? What country am I in? I recently went to a party and not one Filipino song was sung.

I raised the issue several times and they would say- Oh, it is our colonial heritage. But wait- Cambodians and Laotians do not play French songs all day. The Indonesians do not play Dutch songs all day so they? Why is this dislike for local music?

2) I wish they would stop going" Oh, your Tagalog is so deep!". How should it be? Shallow? And why do they ask me- "Why do you speak Tagalog?" What bleeping language should I speak in the Philippines to Filipinos?

3) I wish they would learn to prepare international foods properly. Granted when in Rome, do as Romans do. But when I order a burrito, why do they put sugar in it? Or why would a chicken sandwich have sweet condensed milk dressing? It makes me vomit and it makes the food inedible.

Some more later.
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Banano
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Post by Banano »

you expect too much from filipines,

i understand your passion for foreign languages but knowing tagalog would be last on my list, locals are ashamed of it, why the fk would you wanna learn that language in the first place? i can see why they think its creepy, creepy white man that speak filipino deeper than locals
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jamesbond
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Re: Finally- my Philippine rant

Post by jamesbond »

ladislav wrote:I wish they would learn to prepare international foods properly. Granted when in Rome, do as Romans do. But when I order a burrito, why do they put sugar in it? Or why would a chicken sandwich have sweet condensed milk dressing? It makes me vomit and it makes the food inedible.
That would make me vomit too! Putting sugar in a burrito? Putting condensed milk as a dressing on a chicken sandwich? :shock:

Just thinking about that makes me want to throw up! :lol:
"When I think about the idea of getting involved with an American woman, I don't know if I should laugh .............. or vomit!"

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Rock
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Post by Rock »

Banano wrote:you expect too much from filipines,

i understand your passion for foreign languages but knowing tagalog would be last on my list, locals are ashamed of it, why the fk would you wanna learn that language in the first place? i can see why they think its creepy, creepy white man that speak filipino deeper than locals
Ha ha, I used to have an Indian friend who was born in Manila and grew up in a gated community there making him a Filipino by nationality. Of course he was completely fluent in Tagalog.

But when we went out and about, he would always use English whenever he needed to speak to a local for any reason. When I asked him why he did this, he told me that Tagalog is a low class language for monkeys, educated people speak English. And not surprisingly, he despised Filipino men.

Another strange anecdote. I used to have a Filippina tenant of Chinese descent who stayed in my place before the French guy came. She was in Taiwan for 3 months to study Mandarin. When she first moved-in, a couple of her family members accompanied her. Later I asked her why she only spoke to them in English and she told me they always communicated in English and anyway, her Tagalog was quite poor as she told me she almost never used it. Her schools, work, and social circles all communicated in English.
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Re: Finally- my Philippine rant

Post by momopi »

"Modern" Taiwanese native music

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Falcon
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Re: Finally- my Philippine rant

Post by Falcon »

momopi wrote:"Modern" Taiwanese native music

That's in the Amis language of eastern Taiwan. Sounds like regional Filipino music, such as Cordilleran (Northern Luzon) pop songs.

Notice how some of the Amis words are the same as Tagalog ones, such as "ako" and "kita."

Great find Momopi! :D
The_Adventurer
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Post by The_Adventurer »

Having been there as long as you have Ladislav, I am sure you must know that Filipinos hate their own art and culture. I have never met a Filipino who wanted to listen to or watch Filipino music, TV or movies. There are those who love the American stuff, then there are those who love the Korean stuff and those who love the Japanese stuff, but not those who really follow local bands or movies. Most Filipino movies only come out around the time of their one annual big film festival. Aside from that time, they don't produce them, because people won't see them.

As for language, when I stayed in a rich area of Cebu, I noticed that all parents, even if their English sounded horrible, only spoke English to their kids. I am not sure these young kids could even understand the local language. I was living near a pretty expensive private school, I think.
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publicduende
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Post by publicduende »

Oh interesting, Ladislav. In Davao and Samal I have spoken to very few people with a good to fluent English, perhaps one in five. Even those who spoke to me in good English, mostly the middle-class, degree-educated ones, switched to Visayan when speaking to their native peers. I even met two young women who had spent a 3-year stint working in Japan, and they were more fluent in Nihongo than English!

I was told that, without the shadow of a doubt, Visayan and not English is the second language in Mindanao. Can you confirm?
ladislav
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Post by ladislav »

4) Every day in the Philippines is a constant struggle for "change". What I mean is, people don't have change. Taxi drivers, stores, street hawkers. One day I blew up- How come you don't just go to the bank and get some small change? How come you can't prepare the night before? One day I just gave up and went to the bank and came out with pockets jingling like Santa Clause's sleigh. That is the only way!
5) Taxi drivers either don't turn the meter on or ask for money on top of the meter. This is particularly true in Manila. Their excuse is "traffic". So what? I am not responsible for that traffic. Some even refuse to carry passengers- I am too tired, I am not going that way!"
If it is any consolation, unlike in Thailand where there is one price for foreigners and one for dear fellow Thais, in the Philippines it is an equal opportunity rip off- rip off a foreigner and also rip off a fellow Filipino, particularly if he looks rich or is out of town. In Manila they love taking out of towners on a wild goose chase around the city clocking up tens of dollars for what should have been just a short ride costing less than a dollar. Taxi drivers have a number which you can call posted on the door on the right hand side- I once got mad and called the number and it was invalid. There has to be some authority to reign in these hungry monster taxi drivers.
I was told that, without the shadow of a doubt, Visayan and not English is the second language in Mindanao. Can you confirm?
In Northern Mindanao

Visaya- 1st
Tagalog 2nd
English-3d

In Southern Mindanao

Tagalog 1st
Visaya- 2nd
English-3d

But then, it depends as there is such a patchwork of languages and such a language mess all around Mindanao that they always need to ask the stranger what language he speaks.

They need to talk Tagalog to each other because most are migrants from all over the Philippines so Tagalog is default. In GenSan they also have to deal with B'laan and T'boli ethnic groups which do not even know Visaya well. All the texting is in Tagalog, too. South Western Mindanao is Ilonnggo speaking, also.
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Post by Banano »

filipino are ashamed to be filipinos, that tells you everything

they wish somebody just comes and colonizes them, cos filipinos know tht they can only benefit from it, its difficult to imagine getting worse than they are now
ladislav
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Post by ladislav »

6) The words "white man", "foreigner" and "American" are absolute synonyms. If you ever wanted to be an American and you belong to the "Caucasian" race, forget about going to the US to be naturalized. In the US they will still call you by the name of the old country ( even if you were born in the US). Just come to the Philippines. You will instantly be a Kano ( AmeriKANO).

I was in Kuwait and I showed one Filipina pictures on a FSU dating site - all the pictures of Natashas, Olgas, Marinas, Svetlanas. She looked at them and concluded- Americans!

An Iranian student ( the one who cannot study in the USA because he can't get a student visa ) is sent by the Ayatollahs to study in the Philippines and he becomes an American upon stepping off the plane. On the other hand a black guy from the USA is not called an American and Koreans are not called foreigners.

Not only that. You will now be receiving all the gratitude and respect reserved for the GIs who had fought to liberate the Philippines from the Japanese. Reverend and joyful cheers, and even people jumping up and down with glee while shouting Amerikano! Amerikano! will greet a Russian, an Iranian and even a Spaniard when they are in the country. What joy! Thank you, GIs! You have really paved the way for so many people!

7) It is impossible to talk to most Filipinos about Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia- the neighbors that is. These are blank spots on their map. They had never seen, met or many do not even know what those nations are and who the people there are. I spoke to one high school graduate and I asked her what the country to the South of the Philippines was and she said: "I don't know!". I mean Americans are known to be ignorant of geography but even the most uninformed American would know that Mexico was to the South and Canada to the North. I showed pictures of Myanmar and they are shocked- they look like Filipinos! Then I showed some Indonesians and they are shocked to see people who look like them. One of my co-workers refused to go and work in Papua New Guinea- he said:" I don't know what kind of people live there."

I was in Kuwait and a Filipino asked a Samoan worker there what his nationality was- he said "Samoan". The answer was a question: "Where is that? What is that?"

These are neighbors in Asia/Pacific. WTF?
Last edited by ladislav on January 14th, 2013, 4:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Raja »

ladislav wrote:
On the other hand a black guy from the USA is not called an American and Koreans are not called foreigners.
Funny people see me on the street and call me Joe
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Post by OutWest »

Banano wrote:filipino are ashamed to be filipinos, that tells you everything

they wish somebody just comes and colonizes them, cos filipinos know tht they can only benefit from it, its difficult to imagine getting worse than they are now
No, they are not looking for another colonial power to invade. Public polls consistently show that the Philippines would like a closer relationship with the USA- like becoming a commonwealth or several states. Of course this is not likely to happen, but if statehood was voted on tomorrow, it would pass in a landslide.

Apart from Lad and the Adventurer, no one here seems to have much of a clue about the Philippines beyond transactions with prostitutes.


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Misamis Oriental, Mindanao
ladislav
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Post by ladislav »

No, they are not looking for another colonial power to invade. Public polls consistently show that the Philippines would like a closer relationship with the USA- like becoming a commonwealth or several states. Of course this is not likely to happen, but if statehood was voted on tomorrow, it would pass in a landslide.
The Filipinos used to be US nationals. The US has this strange division between a citizen and a national- unique concepts. Then, they were basically stripped of it around mid 1930ies because arguably they were becoming a threat to US agricultural workers- there were even pogroms against them as they were taking jobs away from Mainlanders. So, supposedly the independence was not really wanted by most people as the US was very rich at that time and replete with job and other opportunities. It was called Mother America. A child was rejected by the mother and since then has been yearning to go back to it.

Of course, it is the poor that want to be a US Commonwealth and they would benefit from it. Not the rich ones. They would lose their power and positions and become minorities and serve the Mainland overlords. Most rich people anywhere dislike America and Americans and want to keep away from them.
Funny people see me on the street and call me Joe
And you are of what appearance? And where do they call you Joe? In Manila? Did anybody call you "Amerikano Amerikaaaaaaaano?"
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Banano
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Post by Banano »

these filipino people are strange

if they are so ignorant and dont know nothing about nothnig,
what sort of conversation can average foreigner/american have with them?
if their men are so dumb, women must be even worse by 50% at least
how people like winston and steve hoca can ever fit in such culture??? This is a serious question
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