impressions of an American

in the Philippines

Even small towns in the Philippines could be almost as noisy as a large city. Motorbikes and speeding automobiles, diesel engine jeepneys and older model trikes. The sound of a revving bike could pierce most any wall.

Watching traffic was very much a treat. A guilty pleasure or something. Because most of the drivers, whether bike or vehicle, were not kiddin’ around. It was like baby New York with rougher cars. People had somewhere to be, and the old motto of lead, follow or get out of the way was in effect. Woe to the slow of foot.

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Discos and bars could be loud, along with random civilians in their homes. Even the churches in the area had loud PAs. I wondered if any unsaved people ever got convicted by hearing the preacher’s message from ten houses away.

Neighbors regularly threw get-togethers… late night impromptu discotheques. There were times it was near-impossible to rest, because someone was singing a Backstreet Boys or Adele or Sir Mix a Lot song. Some of the videoke and karaoke machines I saw were professional-grade, sitting in the front room of someone’s house.

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AS-TOLD-TO [Merriam-Webster]: “created by a process in which a person’s spoken remarks are recorded (as during a series of interviews) and then edited and revised for publication by a professional writer”

This is a fictionalized account of real people, squashed together into a single POV.

One American expat wrote: It’s a quality I have seen and admired in the Philippines; a ‘life is short, enjoy it now’ type of quality. It’s also a quality that some expats living in the Philippines do not admire. It drives them crazy to see people smiling despite their circumstances, despite their poverty, despite scams and corruption, and even despite slow service at Jolibees.

Another man, who was Philippines-born, raised in the United States until the age of eighteen, and then returned, was clearly angry at the state of his native country. He described himself as “shocked” at the state of the Philippines intellectually, socially, and in other ways.

by Chris DeBrie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, the issues of that Filipino seemed like a personal problem. Somehow he couldn’t see the insanity in America was, in its own way, just as baffling. Maybe the outward appearance, the shiny-apple-rotten-worm reality of the U.S., had blinded him.

Some of us didn’t need to explain or understand the Filipino idiosyncracies. We could actually discern why some of the things so different about the Philippines (or anywhere outside the States) were best accepted and absorbed, rather than despised.

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