Hmm... I think I should write something interesting about Manila instead of just complaints, and so, here we go. One of the most interesting things about the Philippines, and Manila, is that it was influenced by so many cultures, so many races.. Hence,the resulting cultural amalgam is worth spending some time to tease apart and understand.
A bit of a history lesson: the indigenous Philippines people were very closely related to Indonesians, especially those from Sulawesi, which is just below Southern Philippines. Then came 400 years of Spanish rule, after which the Spaniards sold the Philippines for US$20 million to the Americans.( By the way, the name Philippines came about because the Spanish conquistadors dedicated the islands to King Philip II of Spain.) During World War II, the Japanese took over the Philippines, and after 3 years under Japanese rule it gained independence. (Disclaimer: bits and pieces assembled from conversations with people, including those responding to my very limited Tagalog, so take with a pinch of salt.)
Well, the presence of all these cultures can be seen in today's Manila. Philippino language has quite a number of words similar or almost similar to Indonesian, for example, 'mahal' also means expensive, 'pintu' (door), 'lelaki' (guy), 'anak'(child), 'nasi' (rice), 'gandum' (wheat) all mean the same things. 'pasuk' = 'masuk' (enter), 'kris' = 'keris', etc.. and they also have a musical instrument they call 'kolintang', the exact same thing as ours. In terms of food.. the snacks and cookies are very similar to Indonesia.. people eat a lot of chips (kerupuk, which here they call 'chicarron') made from rice, cassava, tapioca, corn, jackfruit etc. When I was walking past a market that sold traditional Philippines cakes (kue!) I felt I was right back in Indonesia, it was kinda surreal hahaha...
The Spanish influence is also present in food.. It's common to find people selling 'turron', which is a typical Spanish snack (that I had a good time trying out when I was backpacking in Spain.. aah.. those Gaudi and Calatrava buildings..). Their marks are also imprinted on the design of the Philippines traditional costume (Go ahead, you want to google it don't you), which doesn't look like it belongs to a Southeast Asian nation at all, if you ask me. Until 1985, Spanish language was a compulsory lesson in school.To say "bye" , you can say "adios", and to this day people from Manila are called 'Manileños'.
The Americans.. thanks to their reluctance to learn any other language than English (just a little joke here..) left a very useful legacy: that the average Philippino / Philippina has a decent level of English, with reasonably good pronounciation. From the jeepney driver, waiter, people on the street and even people in the slums, there is no problem communicating in English. Ah yeah, and today when some people saw my totally ang-moh (that's Caucasian for those who don't speak Singlish..) looking German tutor pass-by, they shouted: "Hey Joe! Joe!" hahahaha... (I think it refers to this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Joe - but I'm not sure)
Lastly, the Japanese.. in some parts of Manila, the shop names and advertisements include a lot of Japanese writings.. and Japanese food seems to be quite popular.. but so far that's all I managed to gather....
As for Philippines culture itself, I'm still learning, though actually several incidents convinced me it's just the same as in Indonesia. One interesting point might be, here popular eateries are called 'turo-turo', which means 'point-point', where several containers of dishes are arranged and you just point to what you want. That certainly saves me from learning the Tagalog names of dishes!
And for now, babay! (that's 'bye' in Tagalog)
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