Manila, Philippines - February 16, 2006
Another day in Manila. Well, we changed hotels today. A pet peeve of mine, but throughout the Philippines nearly everyone appears to speak English. But so often when I'm with my girlfriend, and even though I'm negotiating the hotels, the taxis, the whatever else in English.. suddenly they tell my girlfriend the answer in Tagalog to which I have to ask her to translate to me in English. It happens time over time, and I have absolutely no idea why that is. If I were by myself, it would definetely entirely be in English, but when I'm with her, they almost always finish our discussed transation in Tagalog with her to which she must translate into English for me. What is up with that anyways? I had the three whammer today - we changed hotels and it happened, we got lunch and it happened, then we got a taxi and it happened again.
Actually thats always been a pet peeve as well as Filipinos themselves sometimes. In general, they have no real sense of what you are really asking when you ask something. For example, if I go somewhere and its not open, they just tell me its not open. But naturally I will ask 'well when will it open?'.. and time after time, the majority of Filipinos seem to have no concept of the obvious follow-up question coming to anticipate it. Maybe I'm just use to westerners who automatically say 'well, we open at 10am today' rather than just a 'no, we're closed' response. But I notice that as extremely common here in the Philippines.
Anyhow, now that I made my complaint for the week, I can go into what I actually did today. For one, we went to Intramuros. This is where the Spanish first built in the Manila area during the 1500s. Overall a very nice place. I was thinking how nice Manila really is, but sometimes its too bad so many people are constantly walking around asking you to buy stuff from them every two seconds. We even went into the famous Augustine Church (I think thats the name?!? - but supposedly its extremely famous). But even there, tons of people trying to make a buck from you. Reminded me of that biblical story where Jesus goes to some synagogue and got pissed at all the people turning the place into a marketplace. But anyways, I liked walking around the area, and that kind of experience is quite common just about everywhere I've ever been that isn't an economically wealthy country.
From there we went to Rizal Park. There is a Japanese Gardens, Chinese Gardens, lots of monuments to Rizal and other people, and of course, people. Had a few kids saying 'yo whats up?' and other stuff. Had a guy at the chess place try to hussle me into playing a game against him. Went to the waterfront and had some kids pointing at me. All of these little things kind of get to me. Whats the big deal about being white. Why do so many people act so strange and weird around a white person. Can't they all just be normal? Anyways, its always my complaint whenever I'm in Southeast Asia, so definetely nothing specific with Manila. But honestly, outside of Manila, I did feel a lot more comfortable in general. Well, I take that back, the most comfortable place by far in the Philippines is the Makati area of Manila. Its wealthy and rich and people are going about their real jobs in the shopping businesses and corporations and whatever else is there. Its extremely comfortable there. People don't act weird or strange at seeing a foreigner there.
We also walked along the U.S. Embassy along the waterfront here in Manila. I was amazed at how large and what prime real estate they have in Manila. However, as soon as you get past the Embassy, you have a little beach front area along the river which is just filled with garbage absolutely everywhere. I was discussing this with my girlfriend who was saying the government doesn't care about that stuff. But seems like such a shame. If they gave a guy US$10 a day to clean that everyday, it would be immensily invaluable to the city as opposed to yet another government person's probably US$50 luncheon out entertaining other rich people. I guess it mainly bothered me because that little bit of beachfront is in a major tourist area that everyone walks by and enjoys who goes to Manila Bay and the waterfront in general. It seems like that would be high priority to keep clean and the area is so incredibly small. If anyone is in Manila, its along the waterfront right next to the US Embassy where there is a sandy area of beachfront riddled with every kind of trash about six inches thick covering up most of the dirty sand in that spot.
Well, anyways, enough complaining about Manila. It just seems like it has such potential to be a nice city with lots of interesting things happening, lots of English everywhere, nice lanterns everywhere for pedestrians (which look really cool), and lots of nightlife options of everything you'd ever want. But the city just seriously fails in the most important things. That is keeping locals from harrassing foreigners day and night, as well as trying to keep things clean and presentable. I've met very few if any traveler or even Filipinos who like Manila, and its hard to understand because it has so much to offer, yet on the other hand extremely easy to understand because being annoyed by every two-bit hustler born in the Philippines day and night can really get on the nerves of any visitor or local who comes to Manila. Anyways, I still really do like the Philippines, but it seems like the true beauty of the country exists in the provinces. Manila should be a great city, but severely lacking somehow in ways I don't know if I'll ever understand.
Perhaps they need a guy like Rudolf Guiliani in Manhattan who made laws against harrassing tourists and soliciting and just general vagrancy and annoying people. I heard they somewhat did that in Manila by getting rid of the overt prostition in Manila proper, but actually its still indirectly there everywhere even if the obviousness to it isn't there anymore. But another step and getting rid of all the people who make their entire existance on getting stuff from others as they walk through the streets would be another great exercise to do.
Anyways, tomorrow we will go to the city of Lucban a few hours away from Manila. My girlfriend's sister and her 6 other female musicians are performing there. I'm looking forward to that.
More on the Philippines..
February 18, 2006
You can email me at:
Wintermoon2@yahoo.com