Santo Thomas
January 17, 2009
My Roland Isla invited me to go in this little excursion out of the city today. If anyone who understands the difficulties of living in the city it would be my friend Roland. Coming from Canada as well as growing up there he knows the hardship with the Filipino mentality and their ugali. And last year around Christmas time when I was ready to throw in the towel he understood. He knew that Manila was a contaminated city that would eventually suck you dry. The people in Manila are rude as well as the pollution and congestion in the city can dry anyone mad. Including Roland, but he did say that don't judge the Philippines by Manila.
Well today I went with him to look at two possible sites for their next home. He is desperately ready to leave the city but with his wife's practice it' difficult to just uproot and move. So he is trying to find something close enough where they can go back and forth while still be far enough from Manila to have some peace and quiet.
The first place we looked at was called TREVIA an AYALALAND company project and it was nice. The actually neighborhood is a few miles down the main highway but the land is flat. The design theme is contemporary edge generation y kind of a thing. Beautiful area. But no matter how great that place is, no matter how much I love the more urban lifestyle, no matter how cool that lake is. It does not hold a candle to Westgrove Heights. Put together by the same developers your up on this hill where it's 400 Hectares of land and 50% is dedicated to foliage or trees. And the lots are like 1000 square meter. But the best part is the view from the place where Roland was looking into. I could not but help and hope for myself to live there one day. The land is absolutely gorgeous. And the air is clean and the area is secure. Holy, I found a place better than hawaii.
But all is this is to say that Manila isn't the place to look at when you want to live in the Philippines. So Lord I'm praying...
1 comment:
Hello Francis.
Thank your for sharing that day with me. It certainly allowed the long drive to pass more pleasantly. Westgrove was wonderful. Wasn't it? Actually the word that kept singing through my mind was "blissful." With any luck, that's where I'll set up the Isla homestead. Who knows, I might even tell you the address.
With regards to Manilenos, like everything else here, it's complicated. When forced to reveal my feeling about my country and people: I am at once proud and defensive, feel both affinity and repulsion, and often times suffer great embarassment but also admit to sincere admiration. Take those emotions and multiply them exponentially to the nth power in intensity, and thats how I feel about Manila.I can't deny that it is dirty and polluted, and the people more often than not can be very crude and rude. You and I are both foreign raised Filipinos. Our values are bound to clash with those homegrown. When it comes to polite behaviour, foreign raised and homegrown find each other rude because we have different ideals as to what constitutes polite behaviour.Our sense of distance is different. You and I need our space. Locals prefer the intimate company of lots of friends at closer than arms reach. You and I believe that politeness and proper behaviour should extend to any individual we may run into. Local Filipinos are more group oriented, they'll do anything to help anyone in their group, for others outside, bahala na. You can see this behaviour in everyday life, from the driving, to how people walk on the sidewalk (in groups arm in arm, side by side, completely oblivious to others who may also want to walk on the sidewalk), to how they save seats for friends they're waiting for in movie theatres and even in Churches (you don't know the number of young men and women I've seen in church tell a pregnant woman about to sit down, that they're saving that seat for a friend). They don't see that total strangers have as much right to expect certain behaviour from them as their friends do. We on the other hand, tend to take for granted what friendship means. I'm not the quickest person to volunteer to help a friend out because I figure they can take care of themselves. I've had local friends drive across the city to bring me medicine and make sure I was okay when I got sick. Honestly, I wouldn't normally inconvenience myself in that way.
With regard to your experiences here. I can't explain them away as anything other than rude boorish behaviour from my fellow Manilenos. You certainly weren't deserving of them. I know that living here has changed me. Some of it for the better. Hopefully, I'll be able to change some people as well and one of them will go out of his way not to be rude to strangers like you.
Roland
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