Cuture Shocked and Too Many Fiestas!

Cuture Shocked and Too Many Fiestas!

September 4, 2007, 3:49 pm
Filed under: your template is ugly hon

It is the people that make a nation great. And I don’t mean any specific country, lest some of those Filipino megalomaniacs come with their priest to exorcise me again. Dang. It’s not that I feel some disenchantment for the ‘typical Filipino”, but I was never typical. I was never a typical person either, anyway.
The fact is that there is nothing as quirkey as third world nationals showing OFF their illogical sensitivities ONLINE calling their exported workers “heroes”. Oh yeah, that includes their rabid veneration of their winning lightweight boxers too. Uhuh, also “imported”. Note too the annoying tourism ads that laud EVERYTHING as “world class”. What the heck is world class anyway? First World nations do not announce that they ARE “world class” — they don’t have to. I know it, you know it.
The problem with Filipino culture is that it has never gotten over its inferiority complex over the Spaniards and the Americans. They also have never gotten over their inferiority complex over ANYTHING or ANYONE or ANY IDEA so they go harping ‘hey, we’re world class’ to convince themselves. After all, there was this guy named Flores who invented the Flourescent bulb. So you HAVE to say they are the BEST OF ALL PEOPLE. Add their claim that they’re the only Christian country in Asia,despite the FACT that they have the weirdest cults and they have numerous “fiestas” in honor of saints to watch over their towns and cities as if God is not enough to secure their place.I guess that’s how they are SO INSECURE -they even need EXTRA DIVINE PROTECTION.

This is not to say that I am bashing Filipinos, but I am bashing some of their typical attitudes. I was born in Manila, so I know exactly what I am talking about.

In fact, looking back,I recall when I first came to Manila (after Europe) and there I was sitting on the school desk at grade school and I tried pointing out to some nun that the United Nations calls Palestine — Israel.

Nun went : ” No, because God is angry at Israel”
I went : “But the United Nations calls it Israel”
Nun : ” The United Nations is not God”
Me : “I know, but the United Nations still calls it Israel!”
Nun: “Why are you shouting at me? You are not supposed to do that in this country!”
Me: “I wasn’t shouting, I was telling you the United Nations calls it Israel !:”
Nun: “Oh no, you were shouting!” (but she was shouting)

Then the nun calls my grandma and claims I utterly disrespected her and “this is the Philippines”

Not that I really cared then much as I really care NOW. Since then, I have always been suffering from some strange sort of “culture shock” anyway. But then again, typical attitudes have not made the Philippines a better country than it was 30 years ago– and guess why? Because it’s the people that make a nation. Not the nation that makes a people.

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