Old Foreigner in the Phillipines

[kangarunner]

I have seen your videos on Medellin. People seems to be more alive and friendly there. But I agree that you have to be immersed in the culture and learn to live like a native. The Colombians I met were in the U.S and it seems that their life/soul has also been partially sucked out due to the American matrix. The reason they have not become another cold gringo bastards is that they live in their own community with other Spanish speaking people. I find, Colombians in America, most of them still retain their friendly demeanor but they became money grubbing and greedy thanks to years in America icy Hellhole.

Trust me, you gotta go there to really see how they are. The taxi drivers were real friendly, laid back, and happy. Yes, over a period of years America will destroy one's spirit. No matter where you come from.

[Lucas88]

Completely disagree with everyone saying don't go to Medellin. I was literally in Colombia for 6 months this year from February to July. First of all, it's a huge city and the surrounding areas including make 4 million people. I was there and I did not stick out like a dumb tourist. I blended in with other local Colombian people. And they were very friendly to me except for one older woman who was a bitch at a hotel. Medellin does get old, the women are overrated there although there are many hot ones. I agree that it's best to go to other cities in Colombia.

But what about the prospect of getting a good and honest wife in Medellín? That's what MrPeabody was asking about.

I'm sure that Medellín is a paradise for sexpats but what about for relationships and marriage? I've never been to Medellín but I imagine that the competition will now be quite stiff with all of the well-off expat pouring in and plenty of local women living in survival mode and with a hustler attitude. This leads me to suspect that Medellín might not be the best place to find a wife and that people like MrPeabody would probably have a better chance in less well-known cities like Pereira, Armenia, Bucaramanga, etc. But your input as somebody who has recently lived in Medellín would be greatly appreciated.

I'd certainly like to visit Medellín but I probably wouldn't want to live there. I've seen videos about the influx of foreigners resulting in costs of rent being jacked up and people getting pissed off about it. I'd rather not be part of that and go to a different city instead.

[MrPeabody]

I have been to Medellin. I was actually there more than 20 years ago and I was the only gringo there. I haven't been back since the expat invasion, but the environment has clearly been poisoned. When I was there, being a gringo was an advantage, but I have heard now that it is a disadvantage with the normal people.

[publicduende]

A fool and his money are easily parted.

Well I thought the Philippines is a paradise, but I was wrong.. SO many people end up disappointed even Winston himself.

@Natural_Born_Cynic it's a world governed by few simple rules. One (or a subset) of them is: if you're good looking, have some money and are willing to support her (and her family!), you can find a cute and decent woman. The rule is more or less the same in other parts of the world.

What makes the Philippines special is that the threshold of "being good looking" and the threshold of "having some money" are much, much lower than in the rest of the world, and I include South America and even Africa.

When in "husband-hunting" mode, Filipinas have very, very, VERY low standards when it comes to physical appearance. You can have congenital or accident-caused deformities, you can be more in "the spectrum" than a rainbow, you can be short for most women in the civilised world. So long you are a "good guy", you turn up to the girl's home and vow to give financial the girl and the parents (and siblings...and a couple of inlaws...), that's automatically more than what those girls would receive from 99% of the local prospect they might receive.

The Philippines have one of the world's lowest socio-economic mobility in the world. If you are born rich, chances are your Jesuit or Harvard education, your vast network of scion of equally rich families will make maintain, or even multiply your family wealth as easy as eating a ripe mango with a spoon. If you are born poor, expect to remain poor for the rest of your life. The only existing escape hatch might be if a girl is so extraordinarily beautiful, that a middle or upper class young man will choose her as her wife. And I say "might" because said middle or upper class young men would still marry women from their stratum and then maybe keep the gorgeous but poor girl as their "kabit", "attachments", mistresses.

And, rest assured, those girls who pursue and are pursued by us foreigners, especially the adult, once or twice divorced type, are not even the "poor but beautiful" specimen. They're the "poor and mediocre", at best.

So, what is a foreigner to do, in the Philippines. Either he grows a thick skin and meets different girls just for fun, knowing that it's a "eat or be eaten" situation, not caring about breaking hearts, so long their bank stays unbroken.

Or, he stays the romantic and gullible type and, if particularly lucky, he will get his piece of poor, dark-skinned, uneducated Filipina who will vow eternal love. If he complies and gets the girl and the family what they want (which, truth be told, is not a lot in most cases), then he will be actually set for a relationship far better than anything he would have gotten - everything else being equal - in the US or in Medellin.

[publicduende]

But what about the prospect of getting a good and honest wife in Medellín? That's what MrPeabody was asking about.

I'm sure that Medellín is a paradise for sexpats but what about for relationships and marriage? I've never been to Medellín but I imagine that the competition will now be quite stiff with all of the well-off expat pouring in and plenty of local women living in survival mode and with a hustler attitude. This leads me to suspect that Medellín might not be the best place to find a wife and that people like MrPeabody would probably have a better chance in less well-known cities like Pereira, Armenia, Bucaramanga, etc. But your input as somebody who has recently lived in Medellín would be greatly appreciated.

I'd certainly like to visit Medellín but I probably wouldn't want to live there. I've seen videos about the influx of foreigners resulting in costs of rent being jacked up and people getting pissed off about it. I'd rather not be part of that and go to a different city instead.

Another solid slice of hypocrisy pie, from our Paisa friends. When I was in Medellin about 10-15 years ago, with my ex-wife, all I could hear from her friends and former colleagues, all engineers and judges, doctors and businessmen, was how much everybody looked forward to leaving Medellin and move to the US or to the Middle East, where they could get those fat $200K salaries for doing "exactly what they were doing". No more crime, no more brutal nightlife, no more "you are what you carry in your wallet", no more 14 hours a day for peanuts.

Ironically, most of them would top up their invectives saying that, "if ever, they might be buying a condo in the Poblado or a finca (farmhouse) down in Sabaneta, and retire there 30 years later". These were the final years of the US-Colombia special trade relationship. As soon as the bonanza was over, it became a lot harder for this ambitious, ungrateful snowflakes, to get a Visa for those countries. They had no other choice than staying in Medellin and, hey, by then the inflow of foreigners wanting a bunch of cheap, Instagrammable places to show off their happiness, started to hike up the rental markets right in the only areas where their zealous arses' lives would be more bearable: Poblado and Laureles.

Those billboards against the gentrification of Laureles and Poblado are definitely not put there by Marxist Universidad de Antioquia students. Those people wouldn't even be able to afford living in Belen, or Itagui or Envigado. It's the radical chic hypocrits that all these digital nomads are hurting. They were the first to spit on their city because "muh nuebajork" and now they're being priced out, they cry "colonisers".

I have been to Medellin a grand total of 4 times. By the 4th time, my impression of Medellin and its people reached its most realistic, and cynical point. Yes, it's true that Paisas are industrious people and should be proud of their past and present. At the same time, putting any country who will - allegedly - give them the "get rick quick" dream (mostly US, UK, sometimes Dubai and the Gulf States) without actually having lived there, makes them a lot more naive and provincial than they think they are.

I have found the same attitude in the Filipinos, only, the Philippines have a lot not to be proud of, compared the ciudad de la eterna primavera. At the same time, Pinoys' inner innocence towards this is almost a redeeming quality. With Colombians, all you feel is a sense of entitlement and misplaced frustration, due to ignorance.

[MrMan]

When in "husband-hunting" mode, Filipinas have very, very, VERY low standards when it comes to physical appearance. You can have congenital or accident-caused deformities, you can be more in "the spectrum" than a rainbow, you can be short for most women in the civilised world. So long you are a "good guy", you turn up to the girl's home and vow to give financial the girl and the parents (and siblings...and a couple of inlaws...), that's automatically more than what those girls would receive from 99% of the local prospect they might receive.

I got this off a Google search
Philippines
"The average person in the Philippines is 156.41cm (5 feet 1.57 inches) tall. The average Filipino man is 163.22cm (5 feet 4.25 inches) tall. The average Filipino woman is 149.6cm (4 feet 10.89 inches) tall."

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/ ... -whos-no-1,

A man who is 5'5" in the US would be taller than average in the Philippines. Indonesian women are about an inch taller than Filipinas. I didn't really think of my wife as tall. She is in the average range in the US. I think people in the city might be taller. I have a son who was in Indonesia when he hit 5'6" or 5'7". When we went out to the mall, I noticed that he was adult-sized there.

I think Indonesians are a lot more economically mobile than Filipinos based on what you have shared. There are rich families in Indonesia. But my wife's has a lot of relatives who are farmers. Some of the children went off to get college degrees. I can see economic progress across generations in some cases.

For looks, it sounds like the very pretty Filipina from a poorer family sounds like easy pickings for a lot of foreigners to marry. Is that the case, or is the competition still tough in that case.

[MrPeabody]

A fool and his money are easily parted.

Well I thought the Philippines is a paradise, but I was wrong.. SO many people end up disappointed even Winston himself.

@Natural_Born_Cynic it's a world governed by few simple rules. One (or a subset) of them is: if you're good looking, have some money and are willing to support her (and her family!), you can find a cute and decent woman. The rule is more or less the same in other parts of the world.

What makes the Philippines special is that the threshold of "being good looking" and the threshold of "having some money" are much, much lower than in the rest of the world, and I include South America and even Africa.

That sounds logical, i.e. that you don't need as much money for the filipina, but according to the old foreigner that isn't the case. He gives several example of friends of his who lost more than $100,000 on a filipina. After she gets her hooks in you, the family uses you as an ATM machine and their demands become quickly unreasonable. You are dealing with poverty mentality trash.

[Lucas88]

Another solid slice of hypocrisy pie, from our Paisa friends. When I was in Medellin about 10-15 years ago, with my ex-wife, all I could hear from her friends and former colleagues, all engineers and judges, doctors and businessmen, was how much everybody looked forward to leaving Medellin and move to the US or to the Middle East, where they could get those fat $200K salaries for doing "exactly what they were doing". No more crime, no more brutal nightlife, no more "you are what you carry in your wallet", no more 14 hours a day for peanuts.

Ironically, most of them would top up their invectives saying that, "if ever, they might be buying a condo in the Poblado or a finca (farmhouse) down in Sabaneta, and retire there 30 years later". These were the final years of the US-Colombia special trade relationship. As soon as the bonanza was over, it became a lot harder for this ambitious, ungrateful snowflakes, to get a Visa for those countries. They had no other choice than staying in Medellin and, hey, by then the inflow of foreigners wanting a bunch of cheap, Instagrammable places to show off their happiness, started to hike up the rental markets right in the only areas where their zealous arses' lives would be more bearable: Poblado and Laureles.

Those billboards against the gentrification of Laureles and Poblado are definitely not put there by Marxist Universidad de Antioquia students. Those people wouldn't even be able to afford living in Belen, or Itagui or Envigado. It's the radical chic hypocrits that all these digital nomads are hurting. They were the first to spit on their city because "muh nuebajork" and now they're being priced out, they cry "colonisers".

I have been to Medellin a grand total of 4 times. By the 4th time, my impression of Medellin and its people reached its most realistic, and cynical point. Yes, it's true that Paisas are industrious people and should be proud of their past and present. At the same time, putting any country who will - allegedly - give them the "get rick quick" dream (mostly US, UK, sometimes Dubai and the Gulf States) without actually having lived there, makes them a lot more naive and provincial than they think they are.

I have found the same attitude in the Filipinos, only, the Philippines have a lot not to be proud of, compared the ciudad de la eterna primavera. At the same time, Pinoys' inner innocence towards this is almost a redeeming quality. With Colombians, all you feel is a sense of entitlement and misplaced frustration, due to ignorance.

Oh I see. So the whole "gentrification is colonialism" thing is just one group of snobbish, money-grubbing prima donnas getting pissed off at another group of snobbish, self-absorbed prima donnas moving in on their turf? I guess that sets the record straight then.

Thanks for your insightful comment based on your real boots-on-ground experience of Medellín. I suppose that's why regular humble Colombians were always nice and friendly towards @kangarunner since the recent influx of gringos gentrificadores doesn't really affect them in any negative way.

[MarcosZeitola]

For looks, it sounds like the very pretty Filipina from a poorer family sounds like easy pickings for a lot of foreigners to marry. Is that the case, or is the competition still tough in that case.

It depends on how one defines "very pretty". The way Filipinas are often incredibly forgiving for the physical flaws of their foreign mate, it should be noted that the average foreigner marrying a Filipina, likewise, is quite forgiving of her physical flaws. As in, she may not be that great looking in the grand scheme of things but to her foreigner husband, she's miles ahead of women from his homeland because at least she cooks, cleans, she's slender and in decent shape and she's young and clear-skinned.

From personal experience, it's incredibly rare for your average run-of-the-mill foreigner to marry a Filipina that is truly exceptionally beautiful. I have personally never seen this happen. The "very pretty" ones always end up with a man who's either quite handsome even by foreign standards, or who's wealthy, successful in his professional life. Even then, I've seen plenty of mediocre looking Filipinas with men who looked decent, or earned good cash. It's incredibly rare for a foreigner to get a truly beautiful, model-esque Filipina with great facial features. Even if she's from a poor family, it just hardly ever happens.

[Natural_Born_Cynic]

A fool and his money are easily parted.

Well I thought the Philippines is a paradise, but I was wrong.. SO many people end up disappointed even Winston himself.

@Natural_Born_Cynic it's a world governed by few simple rules. One (or a subset) of them is: if you're good looking, have some money and are willing to support her (and her family!), you can find a cute and decent woman. The rule is more or less the same in other parts of the world.

What makes the Philippines special is that the threshold of "being good looking" and the threshold of "having some money" are much, much lower than in the rest of the world, and I include South America and even Africa.

When in "husband-hunting" mode, Filipinas have very, very, VERY low standards when it comes to physical appearance. You can have congenital or accident-caused deformities, you can be more in "the spectrum" than a rainbow, you can be short for most women in the civilised world. So long you are a "good guy", you turn up to the girl's home and vow to give financial the girl and the parents (and siblings...and a couple of inlaws...), that's automatically more than what those girls would receive from 99% of the local prospect they might receive.

The Philippines have one of the world's lowest socio-economic mobility in the world. If you are born rich, chances are your Jesuit or Harvard education, your vast network of scion of equally rich families will make maintain, or even multiply your family wealth as easy as eating a ripe mango with a spoon. If you are born poor, expect to remain poor for the rest of your life. The only existing escape hatch might be if a girl is so extraordinarily beautiful, that a middle or upper class young man will choose her as her wife. And I say "might" because said middle or upper class young men would still marry women from their stratum and then maybe keep the gorgeous but poor girl as their "kabit", "attachments", mistresses.

And, rest assured, those girls who pursue and are pursued by us foreigners, especially the adult, once or twice divorced type, are not even the "poor but beautiful" specimen. They're the "poor and mediocre", at best.

So, what is a foreigner to do, in the Philippines. Either he grows a thick skin and meets different girls just for fun, knowing that it's a "eat or be eaten" situation, not caring about breaking hearts, so long their bank stays unbroken.

Or, he stays the romantic and gullible type and, if particularly lucky, he will get his piece of poor, dark-skinned, uneducated Filipina who will vow eternal love. If he complies and gets the girl and the family what they want (which, truth be told, is not a lot in most cases), then he will be actually set for a relationship far better than anything he would have gotten - everything else being equal - in the US or in Medellin.

Thanks for your deep insight on the Philippines... Since you live in Davao? running your IT company there?, I believe, I'll take your word for it.
It's quite sad that the social positions has become more entrenched and it became really difficult for an average Filipino to move up in the social hierarchy. In addition to their poor and lazy family members dragging average Filipinos down from accumulating wealth... It's quite sad.

But even if a foreigner can "wife up" those lower class Filipino girls, the foreigner have to support her entire family! I really hate that.
Personally I don't think Philippines is right for me.. I'm also frugal, borderline cheap stake guy just like Winston despite making good salary. I don't spend a cent on expensive furniture, clothes, cars, always use coupons for groceries just like grandma, no latest gadgets, cook at home, no eating out, no clubbing out, living in one room in Korean town, always haggle for "discounts" and always put my money in investments. My room is bare bones, Spartan white walls, no posters, a computer and a desk from IKEA for $20 and one of those metal folding chair donated to me from my church. I am sure even lower class Filipinas later on will be shocked and reject me because I'm such a cheap bast@rd who refuse to support her entire family.

[publicduende]

Oh I see. So the whole "gentrification is colonialism" thing is just one group of snobbish, money-grubbing prima donnas getting pissed off at another group of snobbish, self-absorbed prima donnas moving in on their turf? I guess that sets the record straight then.

Thanks for your insightful comment based on your real boots-on-ground experience of Medellín. I suppose that's why regular humble Colombians were always nice and friendly towards @kangarunner since the recent influx of gringos gentrificadores doesn't really affect them in any negative way.

No problem. Medellin is part of my distant past, just like my ex-wife. From what I read, Medellin is a city that might well benefit more from organic growth, spurred by specific national or local government policies, than the fleeting boosts of popularity from the influencers-cum-travel-vloggers community.

[MrPeabody]

Another good video by Old Foreigner. He talks about why a younger filipina is better than an older filipina.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VopHg95sRfw

Old Foreigner seems to know what he is talking about. If he his correct, all these other guys urging men to go to the Philippines are simps or liars.

[galii]

Another good video by Old Foreigner. He talks about why a younger filipina is better than an older filipina.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VopHg95sRfw

Old Foreigner seems to know what he is talking about. If he his correct, all these other guys urging men to go to the Philippines are simps or liars.

One comment was:

When you do the video about the 4 Ms,, do a follow up about the 4 Fs..
Find "em
Feed 'en
Fu$k 'em
Forget 'em..

That's interesting. So Colombia is even worse? What was their story?

It seems that it should be possible to find an honest woman in one of these countries. But the reality is that it is damn difficult. And if you are a foreigner you attract vultures who see you as a comodity and a source of income. The honest women tend to stay away from you and stick with their own. It's really a hard nut to crack and you have to have your head clear and free from delusions. Most of these men are full of delusions including me.

I don't know the details but probably their value was much lower there compared to the PI.

[ladislav]

That's interesting. So Colombia is even worse? What was their story?

If you go to a city infested with (s)expats, hang around mostly with (s)expats, speak little or no Spanish, and make no effort to learn about or integrate into the local culture, then you're most likely going to attract vultures who see you as a commodity and seek to extract whatever benefits they can from you. Remember that there is a subset of women who specifically target tourists and foreign (s)expats in search of their next meal ticket.

However, if you relocate to a city where there are very few tourists or (s)expats, don't act like a (s)expat yourself, speak fluent Spanish and have a certain level of cultural savvy, you can certainly meet a simple and honest Latina who is serious about marriage and isn't looking for a foreign man to begin with but who might be willing to go out with you if you appear serious enough. You have to look the part and not come across as a hedonistic sex tourist in any way (otherwise you only appeal to the vultures).

It is actually almost the same in the Philippines. If you learn Tagalog or Visayan well and integrate, then, you start meeting people the way locals do. It is harder but you will meet quality people. You will decrease the number of vultures and will attract higher numbers of quality people.
And it is the same in Ukraine, too. The Turks and Arabs who move there and integrate do very well.
The only problem with this is that you need time for all this.

[Maverick]

Before I respond to this, I want to make it clear that I'm a youngish guy (30s) in the Philippines. My "circle" in the Philippines consists of my wife's friends, many of whom are highly educated professionals, business owners, and politicians. My wife and her friends are/were very open to dating foreigners, but nobody would go over 40 in terms of age (some wouldn't even go over 30). So what's been possible for me may not be possible for someone twice my age.

@Natural_Born_Cynic it's a world governed by few simple rules. One (or a subset) of them is: if you're good looking, have some money and are willing to support her (and her family!), you can find a cute and decent woman. The rule is more or less the same in other parts of the world.

I've been in the Philippines since it opened almost 2 years ago. Met my wife immediately when I got there. I haven't given a dime to her family (except gas money to her father when he drives me around since I would never drive myself here).

You can avoid supporting the family as long as you pick an educated girl from a good family that has some degree of financial literacy. This is not super easy to find since the IQ in the Philippines is through the floor, but they're out there.

What makes the Philippines special is that the threshold of "being good looking" and the threshold of "having some money" are much, much lower than in the rest of the world, and I include South America and even Africa.

When in "husband-hunting" mode, Filipinas have very, very, VERY low standards when it comes to physical appearance. You can have congenital or accident-caused deformities, you can be more in "the spectrum" than a rainbow, you can be short for most women in the civilised world.

This is very true. I have a good-looking face and I'm reasonably young, but I struggled mightily in the west due to my short stature. In the Philippines, I'm just average. So I had my pick of women. Highly recommended for short guys.

So long you are a "good guy", you turn up to the girl's home and vow to give financial the girl and the parents (and siblings...and a couple of inlaws...), that's automatically more than what those girls would receive from 99% of the local prospect they might receive.

No. This is bad advice. Please don't do this. Find a girl whose family is self-sufficient. They're out there.

The Philippines have one of the world's lowest socio-economic mobility in the world. If you are born rich, chances are your Jesuit or Harvard education, your vast network of scion of equally rich families will make maintain, or even multiply your family wealth as easy as eating a ripe mango with a spoon. If you are born poor, expect to remain poor for the rest of your life. The only existing escape hatch might be if a girl is so extraordinarily beautiful, that a middle or upper class young man will choose her as her wife. And I say "might" because said middle or upper class young men would still marry women from their stratum and then maybe keep the gorgeous but poor girl as their "kabit", "attachments", mistresses.

It's possible that this was true in the past, but it isn't anymore. With the availability of online, foreign-based jobs, it's possible for Filipinos to lift themselves out of poverty. I've known people who have done this. I've also known people who grew up in bad conditions, put themselves through school and now live a middle class (by Filipino standards) lifestyle.

Now, will a person grow up in the mountains with concrete floors and become a billionaire? Probably not. But it's definitely possible to go from poor to middle class.

And, rest assured, those girls who pursue and are pursued by us foreigners, especially the adult, once or twice divorced type, are not even the "poor but beautiful" specimen. They're the "poor and mediocre", at best.

When I came to the Philippines, I specifically avoided girls who were uneducated and/or unemployed. I also made it clear from the beginning that I will not be the family's ATM. I weeded out a ton of girls this way.

From what I've seen, most foreigners just chase looks and want to date the youngest girl possible without really considering anything else. That's where they get themselves into trouble.

So, what is a foreigner to do, in the Philippines. Either he grows a thick skin and meets different girls just for fun, knowing that it's a "eat or be eaten" situation, not caring about breaking hearts, so long their bank stays unbroken.

It depends on what the foreigner is looking for.

If he wants a good time, sure, he should do whatever he wants. Go crazy.

But if he wants a loving wife who is not a financial burden, he needs to ruthlessly screen the girls and be more logical than emotional.

Or, he stays the romantic and gullible type and, if particularly lucky, he will get his piece of poor, dark-skinned, uneducated Filipina who will vow eternal love. If he complies and gets the girl and the family what they want (which, truth be told, is not a lot in most cases), then he will be actually set for a relationship far better than anything he would have gotten - everything else being equal - in the US or in Medellin.

I don't recommend this.

From what I've seen, when guys end up with girls like this, the families tend to use him as an endless piggybank. I guess if the guy is old, it doesn't matter much since he'll be dead soon anyway. But, if the guy is young, he could go through his money really fast this way.

I recommend a logical approach to dating in the Philippines (just like anywhere else).