I came to Manila, Philippines. It is a trip from November 27th rough December 1st.After being occupied by Spain, Philippine was occupied by the United States, so their cultures are not like typical Asian. Their original religion was Islam but now most of the people are Catholic. According to my colleague, Philippines are pretty much religious. Also, Manila is an international city, so everybody can speak very good English. I don’t think it is limited to Manila, but the entire Philippines. Therefore, those jobs which were relocated to India are nowadays come into Philippines. Philippine’s English has American accent, so call centers prefer to employee Philippines than Indians because of the Indian accent. It seems Indians immigrate to Philippines nowadays. Depends on jobs, some of them are from Britten, so there are schools that teach British accent in Philippines. I respect their seriousness in their work.
On the way from the airport, Manila looked more like Jakarta. But the next morning, Manila was different in daylight. It is much more developed than Jakarta. I haven’t seen any other areas of Philippines, but I don’t think this country can qualify for the third world. Their shopping malls are as big or even bigger than Americans and very fancy. Their Christmas decorations are everywhere. I think it is as much as the ones in New York City.
However, I can see some of the Third World sides; for example, children staying outside until late, many skinny street dogs, terrible traffic jams and ignore traffic lines on the streets, the programming of traffic lights is not efficient enough, coffee at work is instant one, it is not allowed to flush toilet paper in the restrooms and so on.
Usually, the hotels in those cities are excellent compared to the price you pay, plus something like massages are relatively good price, too. That’s my best luxury.
I’m not sure about Filipino food. The first night, to celebrate that I was in Philippines, I ordered Filipino food. I had two bites, and I couldn’t eat the rest. The menu said it was rice noodles with seafood. I thought the rice noodles were like Vietnamese or Chinese, but Filipino ones were thicker and clear and rubbery. However, the Filipino restaurant that I was brought to the last night was very good. Maybe it is depending on the meals.
Speaking of hotels (or anywhere else), I realized that in Asia or at least in Philippines and Indonesia, people call your name with “Mr” or “Ms”. Also, when they say something, they attach “sir” or “ma’am” in every sentence. It is amazing. I can see that they are showing the respect, but I’m not better than them. I guess being customers is something to do with that…? In Japan, we say customers are God. They may have the same attitude, perhaps. But listen to this. The first morning, when I left my room, I saw a housekeeper in the hall way about 5 doors down. When I passed by him, he goes “Good Morning, Ms. Nakazawa.” I was very surprised the fact that he knew who I was. Remember, he could not see my room number from where he was! But I think he had a list of guests, so he could check it up before I passed him. Okay, understandable. The next morning, I saw him again and passed by each other. He again goes “Good morning, Ms. Nakazawa” with full smile on his face! Amazing! He didn’t even have anything in his hands. Services are excellent anywhere in Asia! Loving it!
 | The second night, I was brought to a crab restaurant. The food was fantastic, and this is one of the dishes. It is 1.5 kg crab! And that is the only crabs they had, so we had no choice but left with a good one! This was cooked in Szechuan style, so I guess it was not Filipino food. |
 | The work I did in Manila was training. The company I worked with created this banner for the week. It is about 2m x 50cm standing on the floor in front of the building entrance and in the training room. Ok, my last name is misspelled (bottom), but I felt like I became a star! This was the first time to see my name on a banner, so it was pretty cool. They even gave it to me for souvenir, but not sure what to use it for or when. Usually, we accept only maybe up to eight attendees in training course, but this time there were max 35! That’s a lot of people. And we were in this amphitheater room, so I totally felt like a professor. Besides, I had to use a microphone; the heavy duty, real microphone, not a pin-microphone. I hadn’t held that kind of microphone for 15 years since Karaoke century in Japan. Actually, I sounded good, so I kept talking for the whole three days! I even did standup comedy for 30 minutes (seriously)! |
I am not sure if there are Philippines traditional sightseeing places, but when I asked my coworkers, she told me about shopping malls. They are not sightseeing places to me! Anyways, I did not get to see any traditional Philippines this time. Manila started being developed about 10 years ago, but most buildings started creating the skyscraper for the past few years. It is amazing how big the city is and built in such a short period. And more and more new buildings are being built as of now. The next time, I would love to see country side of Philippines.
