Rogue Expat Gone Berserk

Or Culture Shock Part 3. (Part 1 , Part 2)

I burst in from a shopping trip yesterday afternoon, in a state of extreme agitation and, heaving a huge sigh of relief at being home,  announced "I am not going out into the stores again. Ever. How much time do we have left here?"

15 months. This might be a problem.

I had gone out to buy nail polish remover and, if I was lucky, to pick up a particular OPI polish color I wanted (I wasn't). Simple, no?

No.

I walked into the shop that sells cosmetics and other beauty (!) supplies and knew immediately I was in trouble. In front of me were at LEAST 10 salesclerks per customer hanging around doing nothing, trying to look busy and they ALL want to talk to you. I tried to make my way through the singsong lilting voices "Hi Mam, Hi Sir, Hi Mam/Sir" (those are all directed at me), feeling my anxiety levels rising with each greeting. If you make eye contact, people will greet you, even the guy sweeping the floor. If you don't make eye contact, they STILL greet you. The Mam/Sir thing is interesting. I can't count the times I'm called Sir. They say "Hello Sir", then, sometimes, correct themselves. In Tagalog the word is "po" and it is not gender specific. That could be some sort of explanation. Of course, perhaps I'm looking more like a drag queen these days and their confusion has merit.

I fought my way through this cacophony of friendliness to the nail polish display, where of course, it got worse. Someone comes and stands beside me, one foot away, just waiting to do something, anything. Just stands there, watching my every move. I try my best to ignore her, but I'm just about over the line now. Other people hail me - "Cosmetics Mam", "Sale on face goop, Mam", " Over here Mam, perfume Mam". Blah blah blah. Every time you move, in any direction, someone is in your way. Sounds like a busy store, no? No. These are just the sales people. I think there might have been two other customers besides me.

Now Expat Gone Berserkism, doesn't hit suddenly - you always can feel it coming. The sunglasses are removed from the top of the head and put back on the face to cover the eyes, which no doubt look like little angry pee holes in the snow, the lips purse, the back hunches, steam starts to rise from the body. You start silently talking back to all these noisy little people,  in your mind, not out loud thank goodness, but the inner voice gets noisier and noisier, as you get angrier and angrier. You feel like screaming, and hitting people, batting all these irritating, babbling little creatures out of the way. "Move", "Stop blocking my way", "Shut up", "I don't want any cosmetics, creams, perfume", "Go away", "I don't want that", "I just want to look at the colors in peace", "Get out of the way", "LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!!!" Store Rage.

Grabbing my nail polish remover, I go through the human obstacle course to the cash where, of course, there are no less than 3 people to process the order. One to put the bottle on the counter, one to take the money,  another to put the bottle in a bag, which turns out to be a huge plastic (of course) shopping bag. "This is too big", I say, which prompts another flurry of activity and babble as they make a show of searching for something smaller, resulting in a sad shake of the head, "Sorry Mam, out of stock".

By this time, in great danger of being arrested for manslaughter (justifiable), diplomatic immunity notwithstanding, I grab the bottle, stick it in my purse and, there's no other word for it, flee. Fuming, losing it, berserk and feeling like an idiot.

On more charitable days I think, well, at least these people have jobs and an income of sorts. Every single store here has far far too many people "working" there. They all must be bored right out of their minds. This is a land of rampant underemployment as well as unemployment. Too many people, not enough work. I try to be sympathetic but as a harassed customer, it can make me crazy.

Sometimes I too long for the days of the non-existent customer service of a Canadian Tire.

 Be careful what you wish for.

Sights and Signs

Still deleting my way through 5000+ photos on my overloaded hard drive. Among the following are some memories that make me smile.

A propos of nothing, I just like this picture. Saw the movie last weekend.

The garden of Wat Bupparam in Chiang Mai. Bless all creatures, including Donald Duck eating a bowl of noodles with chopsticks.

On our return visit last month to the White Temple in Chiang Rai, I found this sign, which I don't remember seeing when last there in July (see Buddhism on Acid). Tourists behaving badly? Surely not!

A couple of bars in Chiang Mai. Why Not, indeed!

A quiet temple in Chiang Mai, filled with carved jade buddhas. These three outstanding carvings in the middle are about 4 feet high. Solid jade.

These next two from Hoi An, Viet Nam

It was very hot last July when Maristella and I were in Chiang Mai. We'd wander around in the morning and then would retreat to this place, an oasis of a hotel in the middle of the Old Town, to pass a couple of hours in their cooled restaurant overlooking the pool, for a plate of Northern pan-fried wide rice noodles and vegetables and a Mojito (or two). Walking through the entrance lane, shielded from the noonday sun, under the bamboo was like walking into a very special retreat. When we came back last month we stayed there for two weeks and it was wonderful.

A common sight in Chiang Mai - the world capital of foot massage. This is at the Sunday evening street market. I prefer my daily hour-long reflexology foot massage around the corner, indoors in air conditioned quiet. 6 bucks.

Get those helmets on!

Also a propos of nothing, just because I like it, this cartoon of Google and its plans to digitize every book ever made (Asaf Hanuka).

Ivory Tusks

Last May, Philippine Bureau of Customs seized 793 kilos of ivory elephant tusks that were being smuggled into the country in a couple of containers coming from Tanzania (where elephants are an endangered species). Coincidentally (?) that same month hundreds of elephant tusks were also seized in Viet Nam, also coming from Tanzania, the equivalent of 700 elephants. The tusks trade for up to $1500 a kilo.

Today we hear that the Philippine government storage facility where the tusks were being kept is missing part of the seized shipment. Only two staff members had access to the storage area and there were no signs of forced entry.

News had been going around that one of these two employees had just bought two new cars and a beautiful house. He has not reported to work since Saturday.

By the way, don't ever do a google image search on "poached elephants". The images of slaughtered, hacked up elephants are hard to bear.

African elephant drawing from Rowland Ward.

Estero de Paco

The local newspapers are depressing things to read these days with their usual diet of almost daily murders of "whistleblowers", journalists, politicos and ordinary folk. Today we read that a woman breastfeeding her infant in her home was shot twice by some guy who burst in. The upcoming election campaign bullshit is prominent of course with the candidates doing their thing. One of the Presidential candidates was taken to task recently for passing out 20 peso notes to children in the poor area of Tondo.  Apparently there is some kind of rule against buying votes (ha!), but this guy claimed indignantly that he was doing no such thing. Instead he was providing funds for the children to eat kamote (sweet potato). Right. Doom and gloom also about the climate. Summer has come early, there has been no rain for some time and things are very dry. Stalks of corn are turning brown, crops are being ruined and fish farm water is evaporating, killing large numbers of fish stock. We are warned of "brown outs" coming as reservoirs are low.

It was a welcome relief this past weekend to see a good news story on some progress being made on the clean up of the Pasig River waterway. The esteros which drain into the Pasig are a mess. Squatters line the edges using the waters for toilets and garbage disposal. Industry and local markets with clogged drains dump their waste into them. From time to time driving through parts of the city you catch glimpses of these awful scenes, but where I travel, this is very rare, for me.

There are some groups of people - not led by government - who are seriously trying to make a difference and have created an ambitious seven year plan to save the Pasig. This is one of the stories of progress that has been made. A thousand families on the Estero de Paco have been moved to a resettlement area where they have been provided with proper accommodation and livelihood opportunities. The shanties have been torn down, eliminating a major source of the problem. The market is being renovated and the vendors and local neighbors are being educated in proper maintenance and waste disposal.

This Estero is one of hundreds that drain into the river so obviously there is a very long way to go. But it's good to see the beginnings of progress - on these bad news days.


The picture of the boys trawling for recyclable garbage is from Dennis Villegas, taken last year. These boys apparently did not go to school but spent their days scavenging to support the family. I hope they are now among those who have been moved to a better place. But there are still many more children and families in similar esteros, still to be cleaned up, throughout the city.