Many people like to move to another country and all have their own reasons. As for me, I wanted to leave the Netherlands for several reasons. First of all, I didn’t like living in a Western country because of the way of thinking there and second (but not less important), I never liked the cold weather.
Having a car when living in the city is no fun. Traffic jam is everywhere and I remember how I moved much faster on my bicycle, leaving all cars far behind me waiting in long lines. Most of them by the way only having one passenger; the driver. For a few years, I worked in a hospital in a small village only a few kilometers away. I can assure you I overtook many cars and never saw them back again on my way to work. Amongst them, many colleagues who, funny enough in a way, didn’t like the idea of carpooling. That’s why the long lines will be there forever.
Well, at least that’s my guess. The same colleagues by the way always felt the need to tell me how unhealthy my smoking was. I simply replied telling them that all their cars that I had to pass every morning were not very healthy as well, spraying around more dangerous stuff each and every one of them than my single cigarette. That of course, was something nobody liked to hear.
Anyway, in 2006 I met this man on the internet, living in the Philippines. After a few months of chatting, I got myself a ticket to Manila and I had 3 wonderful weeks in this beautiful country. “I wish I could live here” was a line I let out very often and my friend made it very clear that I could. Since he lived about 5 hours driving from his relatives and friends he also could use the company. I went back to Holland, closed everything and so it happened that on February 24, 2007, I set foot on Philippine soil again.
After almost 9 nine years I honestly can’t encourage people to move to another country with a completely different culture this way. Mind you, I literally knew nothing about the Philippines. I came in the blank as a waterlily so to speak. But then again, this has always been my favorite way to approach new situations.
My friend Joe liked to speak English (he studied a few years in Sydney), not only at home but also when we met friends. Of course, this was all fine by me but this way I never learned to speak the official Philippine language Tagalog. Joe tried a bit but he’s not a teacher in languages so I did learn some words but not how to make proper sentences. I
n the market, I soon enough knew exactly how to name the vegetables I wanted. But we can’t have nice conversations by naming veggies, can we? “Oh, I like Bitter Gourd very much with ground pork and eggs” Yes’ that’s nice. How about Laing?” Ahhh, that’s my favorite dish!” Really? You also like adobo? Sinigang?” “Yep, I love adobo much more than Sinigang”. Well…this of course, ain’t the kind of conversations that can make us happy, right?
Another problem I faced (and I was to find out only 6 years later how important this really is) was that Joe’s formal American partner had bought the house and supported us. We lived a rather luxury life. That ain’t exactly the way of living like the majority does. Joe turned out to be more Western thinking than most people do. What I’m trying to make clear is that after 6 years I still didn’t know much about the Filipino way of living and that became, in a way, disastrous.
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