1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.

A thread of "classic cross cultural mistakes" to help others avoid them...

Discussion in 'Culture and Food' started by Methersgate, Jan 3, 2017.

  1. Methersgate
    Offline

    Methersgate Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    You could write a book...

    In fact, people have...

    Start here...

    • Like Like x 1
  2. Bootsonground
    Online

    Bootsonground Guest


    They only really welcome positive input from us...Not negative.
    They were under the Spanish rule for hundreds of years and then of course the U.S..
    This experience of colonization has effected them..You will easily realize this if you study their constitution or even if you see how they teach the youngsters history today.. They all memorize and study books like Noli Me Tángere or El Filibusterismo by Rizal which actually are bloody great books...
    It`s too complicated to express what I have learned about them over the years in a single post but never ever forget that they are an extremely proud and defensive people that fought 2 or 3 revolutions to become independent....(kind of)
    Their cultural attitudes are Asian in many ways but their society today is far more the result of a huge multicultural melting pot which only makes your question all the more difficult to answer with any accuracy..
    Just show them respect and smile a lot (buy the blokes Tanduay,say Happy new year)...and you wont go far wrong!! lol
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 4, 2017
    • Like Like x 6
  3. Methersgate
    Offline

    Methersgate Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    That is a good summary.

    Always remember they are proud and they do know, none better, though they seldom say so, that they do not have much to be proud of, so whatever you do, don't remind them of that.

    "American" culture becomes transformed in the Philippines into something else. I have a black American sailing friend who also loves the Philippines and who remarks that "American culture" in the Philippines tends to mean basketball, boxing, beer drinking and baby fathering, in other words the black American culture that my friend goes to some lengths to avoid (he's an architect)!

    "Spanish" culture was not such thing for the first few hundred years up to 1820. because the Philippines was governed as a province of Mexico, up to the independence of Mexico, due to the Treaty of Tordesillas, so large chunks of Mexican culture (such as the Day of the Dead, etc) got grafted onto the Philippines. The Manila Galleon, built annually by Filipino shipwrights, sailed once a year, from Manila, not to Spain, but to Acapulco, in Mexico, where the goodies - Chinese silks and porcelain, jewels and pearls - were carried across Mexico and on to Spain and the galleon was loaded with Mexican silver pieces of eight (pesos de ochos reales), which became known as silver dollars, and were used to buy goods from Chinese merchants who arrived in Manila in junks. The cobblestones of Intramuros are ballast stones from those junks.
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2017
    • Like Like x 2
  4. CampelloChris
    Offline

    CampelloChris Well-Known Member

    I wonder if being a Spanish colony, then the same, but with a Mexican babysitter, then the US' Little Brown Brothers might, once independence had been achieved given the Filipinos a certain 'chippiness' when some foreigner comes along and treads all over the culture, customs and traditions that they fought so hard for.

    Some foreigners from countries with Colonial histories can be a bit overbearing at times I suspect.
  5. Bootsonground
    Online

    Bootsonground Guest

    The Philippines Barangay system was taken over and controlled by new capitans throughout the country..Usually a Spanish friar or an elite Spanish family.. The goal was to rule via Catholic discipline whilst creating a powerful oligarchy..Tax collected went back to the old country and Filipino`s were pretty much screwed.
    • Like Like x 1
  6. CampelloChris
    Offline

    CampelloChris Well-Known Member

    It's my personal opinion that the Catholic church has held back the society and development of millions of human lives, and on many occasions, the results have been maybe what you would expect when you put something good into evil hands. I wonder what someone who has lived all their life in Tondo thinks of the evil b**tards who hide behind the cloaks of respectability. It's no wonder they get a little antsy
  7. Methersgate
    Offline

    Methersgate Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    N
    I have a good friend who lives in Tondo; she is eminently middle class - she is a fifty year old clothes buyer from one of the big chain stores - but she likes living in Tondo because it's handy to her office and to be honest she likes to shock her respectable friends, and she has made friends in Tondo.

    I'll ask her what they tell her.
    • Agree Agree x 1
  8. Methersgate
    Offline

    Methersgate Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    Comments on Tondo from my friend LGP:

    "Most in Tondo are shacking up and not getting married. Around 70-80% of Boylet's friends became parents before age 22. They go to church a lot and are very superstitious but they are not averse to buying stolen goods or putting one over their neighbour

    If they could use, they will use. All in the guise of friendship. The level of envy for neighbor's wealth is beyond measure.

    They do these Black Nazarene barefoot procession stuff a lot. Worship without values and conviction and principles. Opiate. Religion without spirituality.

    Hence that Dutertard quoting of the bible and the meanness of spirit. They go to church and buy stolen goods or bet on fixed games. Spirituality is not internalized.

    It is common to become usurers or become tong collectors for policemen. Corrupt policemen are looked up to because they are considered "streetsmart" / "ma diskarte".
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2017
    • Informative Informative x 1
  9. oss
    Offline

    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    I have a good friend that I have known for the last 18 years who has a home in Tondo, used to take him 2 hours or more each way to commute to Makati where he worked as a programmer, he did say it was dangerous for westerners but he himself was comfortable enough there, his family were not poor and had a business in Leyte somewhere.
    • Agree Agree x 1
  10. SoldierRJ88
    Offline

    SoldierRJ88 Active Member

    Just had 24hr tampo!!! All done lucky it doesn't happen often mish got a right scolding off her mum this morning thou my future mother in law law loves me I guess it's a nessary evil we have to deal with but as mama said it's something I have to get used to its so hard thou she's so stubborn when she's tampo I guess that's our Filipino lady's thou.
    • Like Like x 1
  11. Bootsonground
    Online

    Bootsonground Guest

    • Like Like x 2
  12. SoldierRJ88
    Offline

    SoldierRJ88 Active Member

    • Like Like x 1
  13. SoldierRJ88
    Offline

    SoldierRJ88 Active Member

    Great read boots explains a lot.
    • Funny Funny x 1
  14. oss
    Offline

    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    24 hours, I was lucky if it was less than a week.

    Not a solution but I learned early on that I could do a male Tampo when confronted with female Tampo, I once spent a week in my bedroom (in the UK) while she sulked in the living room.
    • Like Like x 3
  15. SoldierRJ88
    Offline

    SoldierRJ88 Active Member

    Wow haha that's not a bad idear but whenever she dose her mum just jumps in and scolds her Lucky we don't argue often and lucky I have a great relationship with her mum too which helps its weird her mum just knows haha.
  16. Maley
    Offline

    Maley Well-Known Member

    Oh i need to share this to the bf. I tried to explain 'tampo' to him but to no avail.
    • Like Like x 2
  17. SoldierRJ88
    Offline

    SoldierRJ88 Active Member

    It's Deffo an experience I don't like to often but I do always get an apology which is nice there's Deffo no girl like a filipina but I wouldn't have her any other way.
  18. Methersgate
    Offline

    Methersgate Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    In K's case, it's out with the Patience cards or Clash of Clans on the iPad and "Of course I am not having a tampo!"
    • Like Like x 1
  19. Bootsonground
    Online

    Bootsonground Guest

    Filipino Women in the past have explained quite clearly to me (or so they thought) that "Tampo" is clearly a symptom of a direct lack of "Lambing" on the part of a man!!!

    Look that word up yourself...
    I had too!
    • Agree Agree x 1
  20. SoldierRJ88
    Offline

    SoldierRJ88 Active Member

    Lambing is like showing affection and tenderness and all that right its a word I've learnt already.
    • Like Like x 3

Share This Page