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Culture Shock for Americans
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As an American moving to the Philippines, what are the biggest culture shocks to be aware of?
pillai7
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There are several gestures and words you MUST avoid! One, never ever crook your finger at a Filipino to say “come here”. You just treated that person like a dog—literally. That is the gesture to call dogs to you; to ask someone to come to you, flap your hand (can’t explain this too easily in words). NEVER NEVER NEVER say “damn you” or “god damn you”. Avoid “god damn” altogether! You just literally told them to have God send them to hell! You will be charged “American prices”. For example, when I lived in the Philippines my wife’s cousin was our maid. If I went to the sari-sari store to buy beer (and the Philippines has good beer), I was charged $1/bottle; my wife’s cousin was charged $0.25/bottle. Many Filipinos are quite poor. When I would roll home at dawn from a night of partying, I would see many people sleeping under their hand carts. I was in a few apartments as a guest, and many had bathrooms down the hall and no sink at all in the apartment. Do NOT, when you first go into a Filipino town, give children money. They will ask as you are obviously not Filipino, and are assumed to have excess cash. If you do, you will NEVER be rid of children asking for money as long as you are in that town. Despite the poverty of the country, many Filipinos are multi-lingual, educated, and world travellers. Multi-lingual is assumed. Filipinos, in my experience, speak multiple Filipino languages. Just in my ex-wife’s town, you had to speak the national language, Tagalog; the language of the province, Pangasinan; and, to go to church or watch popular television shows, English. She added a fourth, her birth language, Ilocano. the tragedy of the Philippines is the smart, educated ones leave to work overseas; thus, their work enriches another country and not the Philippines. It’s not only the educated ones; many Filipinas work overseas as maids. There is an entire government department that tracks Filipinos working overseas, and keeps track of their employers. If they get a validated complaint about an employer, they are banned from hiring Filipinos. My brother in law is a heavy construction operator, like my cousins in New Jersey. Does he work in the Philppines? No; he works overseas. He has worked, to my certain knowledge, in Kuwait, Saudi, and Bangladesh; he also speaks Arabic because of his work in the Gulf. When I was in my ex-wife’s home, I could not believe how many people spoke different languages—English, Arabic, German, French, Chinese… If you are in the USA, you can easily find Filipinas; just go to the nearest hospital—many nurses will be Filipinas. Filipinos, to my knowledge, work as sailors, priests, nuns, and entertainers. One Filipino, Arnel Pineda, is now the lead singer for Journey as Journey needed to replace their lead singer, and they found him on Youtube. One other thing: Do NOT try to be PC and say “FilipinX”. Tagalog is an inflected language like Spanish. Filipino is used to refer to males, or the whole Filipino population; Filipina is used to refer to females. In fact, my ex-wife, when she saw a woman who looked like her, would say “Filipinaaaa?” as the first word to start a conversation. Filipinos are warm, welcoming people. Their culture is different, but their human emotions are the same. And by the way, Filipino food is excellent!
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-Verbal agreements have no value. Don’t fall for ‘gentleman’s agreements’, they’ll promise a lot but on the day of a deadline the person you thought you had clear arrangements with, is unreachable and weeks later you hear some vague story about his supplier having some family issue. The consequences for their reluctance are for you alone to pay of course. -People can be very quick to assume and than close themselves off for new information. If you drop by the laundry shop (the same where you were a few hours before to drop off laundry) to ask for directions to the nearest atm, they will say ‘your laundry is not yet ready, tomorrow sir, we told you.’ No matter how you will try to explain to them that you are not there for your laundry but to ask directions they will not listen and get annoyed with you for not understanding that the laundry isn’t ready. You’ll have no choice but to leave with a kafkaesque frustration. -In general business integrity is lower. Selling ice cubes made of unfiltered water so that dozens of people throw up? A hotel telling you that the cheaper rooms are occupied so that you taker the more expensive suite?…nothing special. Lie here, lie there, overpricing, telling a tenant the airco is broken to save electricity he pays for? Charge someone for damage he didn’t cause? All part of the game. -A lot of potential buyers are in fact not buyers at all, they were just chatting so be careful to drive around town to inform what you think is a potential customer. -When a person says ‘yes’ or ‘no’ it could also mean ‘man, I have no idea what you mean’ so make sure they understand the question. Sorry to say that people can be lazy and short term planners so they’d rather get rid of you now with the possibility that their wrong info can backfire. In general people in the Philippines can be quick to bring ‘information’ which is no information at all. ‘I heard’ or even ‘I hope’ or ‘I suspect’ is considered to be the same as ‘I know’ or ‘I saw’. -People can however be reluctant to giving information they are sure of. Besides the previously mentioned ‘yes’ when it is actually ‘no’ or ‘I don’t know’ out of some sort of humbleness will people sometimes not give you the information you need to know because they don’t consider themselves to be the right person to tell you (‘i didn’t tell you that there are crocodiles in the river because you didn’t ask’) The same way they can send you to a store of which they know has been closed for a year. -When going out with people who are not well off, be careful with them going on a drinking and eating spree before you find out that you are presented the bill. -Sooner or later you might get to hear that you did something awful, a woman attempted suicide because of you or she is in the hospital cause of a heart attack that you caused….Calm down, these are lies in order to get revenge or money. -Some women have a source of income out of making babies with foreigners. They try to get pregnant. If you offer to take care of the baby they will have the baby born and you will be financially supporting the whole family including your child, if you run of, the child will be aborted and they’ll try again with the next foreigner. This is how women can have a number of kids from different foreign fathers altogether providing a decent income. -Conflicts are not spoken out but the upset person will be avoided no matter how calmly he tries to communicate with the culprit. If there is a little misunderstanding the typical Filipino will avoid you at all costs rather than coming face to face with you. I never found a solution for that problem. In the Philippines it is much more accepted to ignore a person who tries to communicate with you even though they should respond. Both on personal as well as on business level even a high ranking person can go to the furthest extend to avoid talking to ‘the American’, they might have someone to tell you that they migrated to Hong Kong only for you to see the guy leave the office in Manila the same day. -Be careful with the very rich and spoiled, some grew up very protected and they are a reminiscent of colonial days when the rich man/woman’s demand is the law. They expect you to see their wish as your law because their servants do too. Also may I remind you that they are always right, even when they are not. Don’t expect an apology from them when their wrong is painfully obvious, instead you should apologize for bringing them in this embaressing situation by being right. -When it comes to intimacy, be careful to get intimate with people with whom you feel to much of a cultural barrier.