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What is the Philippines like?
badaboom10
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What is the Philippines like?
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My family and I live in Davao City, the biggest city of Mindanao, which is the second largest island in the country. The Philippines has more than 7000 islands. There are three main island groups in the country: Luzon (the largest among the northern islands), Visayas (a group of islands in the middle part) and Mindanao, which is in the south. Most people live in Luzon. If this is the first time for you to hear or read about the Philippines, I hope you will be able to find some helpful information here about this Asian country. But if you’re quite familiar with the country, I still hope that you’ll find at least one interesting fact in this answer. Let me say, first of all, that the culture here is quite varied. We have over one hundred tribes and also over a hundred languages. So with that in mind, you could imagine that we have many different ways of living and speaking. We are thankful for one national language, Filipino (which is based on Tagalog), that almost every Filipino (as what the people of the Philippines are also called) can understand. Interestingly, many Filipinos are also English speakers. We learn English early from school and from watching TV and movies. We have a tropical weather, which is almost always hot and humid throughout the year. Our average temperature ranges from 80-95 degrees Fahrenheit each day, except during December to February when the temperature drops at about 70–75 degrees Fahrenheit, especially during the night to early morning. We only have two seasons – the dry and wet seasons (we have no summer, winter, spring and fall). Thus our trees, flowers and grass are green all year round (No white Christmas for us). Philippines is a typhoon belt country. There are about twenty typhoons that enter the country each year. Some are really destructive, like Typhoon Haiyan (local name: Yolanda) that struck the country in early November 2013. One characteristic you might see in many Filipinos is that they are usually cheerful and friendly. Many would greet you with a smile. Most Filipinos are also hardworking. Sadly, more than half of the population here are poor. A normal worker might earn only US$8 dollars a day. Some can’t even afford to eat at a fast-food restaurant like McDonald’s or KFC or even in our very own fast-food chain, Jollibee. Poor man’s house The houses of Filipinos differ greatly. The rich and middle class have big, modern houses, and they usually live together in a gated village called subdivision. A common house might be made mostly of concrete and wood. A poor man’s house may be constructed mostly or entirely of wood or bamboo. But you could also see some homeless people walking and sleeping on sidewalks especially in big cities like Manila, Quezon, Makati, Cebu and Davao. Our main religion is Roman Catholicism. This religion is practiced by about 80% of the Filipinos. Protestantism and other Christian sect make up about 12%. Islam and Buddhism pretty much takes the rest of the 8%. There are a few very small tribal religions mostly in the remote and mountainous areas of the country. The majority of the Filipinos aren’t very serious about religion. Others take their religion very seriously (sometimes too seriously). Tricycle The jobs of Filipinos are as different as the jobs of Americans and Europeans. Most Filipinos go to college to earn degrees like education, nursing, engineering, accountancy, information technology, and other business- and computer-related degrees, but not all get successful. Others work as construction workers or jobs that concern building. Still others work as computer specialists, technicians or call center agents. Most find extra ways of earning money such as selling food that they cook or things they made. Of course, there are a lot more jobs, but it’d take the rest of this article to write them. Three more examples are these: taxi, tricycle, and jeepney drivers. With the exception of the taxi, I doubt that many of you in the US, Canada or Europe know what these are exactly. Jeepney A tricycle is, usually, a motorcycle with a kind of one-wheeled sidecar attached to it, and people pay the drivers (the fare is usually about US$ 0.20 for one ride) to take them where they need to go (tricycle drivers almost always take passengers in one area only). A jeepney, as you could tell from the name, looks like a jeep, except that it’s very long and usually colorful. One jeepney could take about 12-16 passengers at one time. A jeepney goes on only one certain route, and there are many routes with many jeepneys that take each route. A passenger rides it and drops off after paying his or her fare, which is usually more than US$ 0.20 cents. There are still many things that I could share with you here about my country but I would rather stop.
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I’ll instead show you what my country is like: Blessed with more than 7000 islands, we do have some nice beaches making it a popular tourist destination. Cebu: Surigao: We eat often, typically 5 times a day (snacks in between lunch and dinner), with rice as our staple food. Palette is more on the sweet side (who would put sugar in spaghetti, right?). However, we do have a lot of cuisines available (american, japanese, indian, italian, you name it!) Cost of living is generally low. 1 USD can buy you a lunch at your nearest canteen, meal from a fast food would be around 3 USD, 10 USD when dining at a restaurant. My 10 USD dinner as seen below. Our serving size is typically smaller as compared to western countries. Religion is predominantly Roman Catholic, you can see a lot of churches everywhere. This was influenced by the Spaniards who conquered us for 300 years. Generally speaking, the country is still conservative and traditional. (image c/o google) Politics is often an interesting discussion because of current president, Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs. There are also war on religion somtimes especially on the southern island of the country, Mindanao. People are generally friendly and optimistic. Here is a picture I took last week when we had a typhoon, streets were flooded and yet these people are still smiling! We have beautiful tan skin but most of us want to have whiter complexion. Glutathione and papaya soaps everywhere! Family ties is strong so it is still common to have an extended family living in one roof. There is such thing called “filipino time”. If the appointment time is at 12noon most of us will be there by 1230 or 1pm. Traffic is bad, drivers are creative especially those who are driving jeepneys and motorcycles. The train and bus system is not that good as well,l. There is no regular schedule of trips as opposed to other countries, no defined stops as well for public transportation. (image c/o google) Most of us can speak english, which contributes to the growth of the shared services industry in our country. Overall, a good mix of crazy yet awesome country!