For People which move to the Philippines, and what they can do to get integrated fast

I have not found a proper Forum, so i just post it in "Travel"

Many expats moving to the Philippines ind themselves in a very new surrounding, very different from their former "vacationtime" experience. Naturally after a few weeks/months this is due to happen.

Since we (expats) are usually social animals, we miss the multiple contacts we generally enjoy, no to mention the problem of having left behind long time friendships and other social affiliations.

Now the family of our wifes may be a great new social surrounding, but it is just not enough for many of us.

Unfortunately many expats only seek company of other expats, which shoud not be the case, since they live in a new world and should quickly try to integrate. (as we expect from foreigners living in Europe too, right?)

How to meet people in the Philippines with good or similar educational background and experience to share ?

Simple, join one of the civic clubs, such as

Rotary (widely spread and for everybody)
Kiwanis Club (a bit more elitarian, and not so widespread)
Lionsclub (mainly for the business oriented type)
Philippine Coastguard Auxiliary (for boat people)
Order of the Knights of Rizal (Worldwide, and a bit more Philosophical, depending on the chapters)

Plenty more, catholics find a lot of organizations, as well as environmentalist. Not to mention Masons, but they don't need above advise.

Now my tip is to join for a while back home and later simply change to the local club. this could also help in finding new and good friends right from the start and avoids a lot of problems due to inexperience.

The costs of the annual membership fees are small in the hindsight of money and bad experience saved.

Now that you said that it sounds logical and simple. Thank you guenther, for the idea.

Just for the record, I have a plan to finish up my days in the Phils. Most likely end up somewhere close to Davao. We have family all around that area, so the idea is to be close enough but not close enough, if that makes sense. That's my reason to be on the forum. Pick up the experiences of those who are doing it or have done it.

makes perfect sense to me. it is nice to have family, no doubt about it, but sometimes its just too much family and that cause discomfort.
This is why some of us Westerners rather seek some other activities. davao city has got all the above organizations. the PCGA has even a few very prominent members such as the Mdm Mayor Duterte. Which comes in handy when other problematics arise in daily life. Now you can google a little with the names given and make yourself comfortable with the idea to join them eventually. Mostly also many of them like "guest" peeping into their meetings, so you can visit them even when 'only" on vacation. Without the duty to join right away.
Connections is what this country runs on, whether we like it or not, we have to play their game too otherwise we will be very unhappy.

That's one thing I learnt very early on, even though I mostly go only on short trips (between 1-2 months).
Another lesson I learned is not to trust anyone too much. The only person I trust with my 'life' is me.
Here's a quotation that helps me "You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don't trust enough"

maybe,l maybe not. it all boils down to common sense and experience. i have never been cheated, except by the ones close to me. People tried, but with a smile on my face i overlook their attempts and don't give it much thought. as a matter of fact, the Pinoy i meet in this organizations are extremely generous to me and don't expect anything in return. naturally they are all quite wealthy too, wealthier than me, that is. this is mainly why i suggest to do (join them)this, because the chances that one gets abused is generally much lower. But one must of course realize that he is living in a very poor country where the future is never secure for anybody. Hence the higher rate of "crooks" which try to help one spending its hard earned money.

Solely from my experience the trust problem appears to be cultural

If there is an opportunity available for quick gain then most people in the Philippines will take advantage of the situation.
Most people in the Philippines live in the moment without too much analysis of thought to the future or future ramifications from there actions.
If caught stealing from you, for example, or over charging for services, then when confronted they will either deny they were at fault, blame someone else
or, on rare occasions say ther're sorry and expect you to forget all about it. They will always act as if they are the victim, this view seems to apply
quite often.

I still maintain as MY personal observation that you need to look long and hard to find someone you can really trust in the islands of paradise.

No offence to anyone.
My personal observations

I found that when I moved to the Philippines, the main problems were these:

My presuppositions of what Filipinos are like was wrong, and I was stereotyping. By that I mean - the Filipinos we get here in Belfast tend to be the highly educated, and middle class ones - or with aspirations of being such. Whereas in the Philippines I wasn't expecting to see people pee in the streets, just yards from their own house (which has a toilet). I will never understand that one. I also didn't expect the staring and pointing, like I am some sort of freak show. But, I learned to live with it, and even after living in the same tiny city for a year (where everybody knew my name {Norrrrm}) they still yelled "Joe" after me every day! grrr


Another thing was the lack of social interaction. It is totally true, it's really hard if you're living in a tiny city in the Philippines as a foreigner to get friends. I am in my 20's and I wanted to have friends in their 20's, but then it turned out that my other friends were old men expats (average age would be 65-70). These were my friends by default, as they were the only people (other than theirs and my wives) who could speak English with any degree of confidence. Even though I was learning Bisaya, still the local people of my age were hesitant (and seemingly scared) of being my friend.

So, I ended up drinking lots of pula kabayo (Red Horse) and I gained about 5 stone (it's damn true sadly).

MORAL OF THE STORY? If you want to go and live in the Philippines as an expat, make sure you do your research first and talk to people who've done it before who won't sugar-coat the issue.

Truth be told, I'm looking forward to my holiday there come December!

Cheers,

Tom.

Yeh, it's hard to realise that there are people who will just assume that just because you're a certain colour that you are perforce from a particular country. I am white, therefore I am American. If I were Black, I would be an African. It's not so cut and dry.

Also, there seems to be this perception of wealth that they don't grasp. I had taken to carrying around my bank statement to show everybody my 200,000 PHP Utang!!!!!

Also, being from Northern Ireland ... it's very weird having people asking what part of the states I'm from?!?!

yeh, I ask them ... "look, you're begging off me ... how much money do you have?" ... they reply "wala" ... "Zero" ... "yes zero" ... well, I tell them "you have 200,000 peso more than me since I am that much in debt!"! lol

you're welcome!!

cheeky.. bloody you are mate yet you cant denie you are from UK? and when you talk about UK pound streling catches everyone brain hehehe

But Minus Pound Sterling is no good thing

hmm if you tell so...lolz..but still you cant denie even you are the most poorest that will be a balut vendor:boing::shock::shock::beat::wow: in the Philippines hahaha

Tom

Similar situation to me. I used to go out to see my wife when i was home on leave and intergration at the local level was difficult. The vast majority of expats in olongapo seemed to retirees of mids 50's onwards. i too started to crave people my own age which is natural isn't it. Trouble I found was that those that where closer to my age group tended to go out the phils for one reason only and I don't think my wife would have like me trolling round the seedier parts subic / olongapo with blokes after a "good" time. It did become difficult and as we are seriously considering emmigrating out there soon (12-18 months) it is going to be a major problem for me.

Stu, are you planning to go "forgoods" or just a long stay?