"So...What Do You Do on the Weekends?"
First time playing host to a friend in Manila, the author was probably most stumped by this particular question. After a day of giving the usual tour of the city, from the old walls of Intramuros, the hectic business activities of markets and shops around Chinatown and Quiapo Church, and ending the day with a dinner and few drinks in restaurants, bars, and clubs of Bonifacio Global City, Greenbelt, and Resorts World Manila, the author was genuinely out of ideas on what else can be done in the city limits of the Filipino metropolis.
It was a question for both the tourist and the long-term resident, and perhaps not only expats but also locals. People speak of the beauty of Tagaytay's volcanoes and resorts, the beaches of Subic to the north and Mindoro to the south, and historical relics of World War II sites, but it seems like everyone just brushes over what Manila ITSELF has to offer. And after residing in the city for more than four months now, the author was, at the moment when the question was asked, forced to ponder hard to create a more comprehensive travel itinerary for the city.
And ultimately, the exercise proved to be quite futile. The ideas ended up becoming visits to more and more shopping malls, each of them trying to outdo others in scale beauty, but in the end presenting the same institutional, unemotional feel of man-made cleanliness. And at night, it would be more and more visits to bars and clubs, most of which - you guessed it - are themselves based around or in those institutionally clean shopping malls. And with most museums shut down due to the Holy Week vacation, the pickings for the rest of the city were really really slim.
Of course, to be fair, the author is not trying to blame Manila 100% for her monotony. She may just seem so boring because she is being viewed through the colored lenses of a particular person, someone who regularly spends six days a week at work, and spend half of the seventh day doing home-office and other half running errands out of necessity. Yes, Manila is boring because the author who is judging her is himself boring. After the initial stages of adaptation to a new environment, the factors for continued excitement seems to not have kept up well.
For that, perhaps the author should apologize to his friend and any future first-time visitors to the city. Manila is fundamentally not a "place" kind of a city, but a "people" kind of city. It does not possess prominent landmarks, historic or modern, to wow new arrivals at first sight, nor does that espouses a proud personality that dazzles visitors with initial culture shocks. Centuries of foreign influences have indeed reduced the people here into a non-distinct bunch carefully balancing different foreign cultures rather than proudly holding onto its own.
Yet, perhaps in a bit contradictory sense, those very people who cannot keep a distinct culture for themselves are the Philippines' greatest travel assets. Their timidity in stepping across hierarchical boundaries of a highly familial society creates massive social inequality that almost exclusive defines the face of the nation, both physically and emotionally...but their equally strong attention to self-respect and personal "face" create glaring spots of peacefulness, wealth, cleanliness, and orderliness in a general environment that is the complete opposite of such.
That sense of contradiction at every corner, created by the Filipino collective character, is perhaps what would fascinate a first-time foreign visitor more than anything else. In news, they hear of violent crimes with liberal use of firearms, but in reality, they are faced with self-depreciating "friendliness" that displays respect by following directives and orders to the point of complete irrationality. What to make of such people, and the society created by such people, should be much more interesting than what to make of any historical relic or modern architecture.
However, of course, getting to know the people is a much more arduous task than snapping pictures at cute buildings or museum exhibits. And as a expat residing for sometime here now, the author continue to find interactions with locals in direct way next to impossible on a holistic, unbiased way. So, as tourists then, the least foreign visitors can do is to stay longer or come back often to figure out the human story behind the Philippines. To say it is "charming" would be a complete lie, but it is still very much worth certain amount of monetary investment and social research.
It was a question for both the tourist and the long-term resident, and perhaps not only expats but also locals. People speak of the beauty of Tagaytay's volcanoes and resorts, the beaches of Subic to the north and Mindoro to the south, and historical relics of World War II sites, but it seems like everyone just brushes over what Manila ITSELF has to offer. And after residing in the city for more than four months now, the author was, at the moment when the question was asked, forced to ponder hard to create a more comprehensive travel itinerary for the city.
And ultimately, the exercise proved to be quite futile. The ideas ended up becoming visits to more and more shopping malls, each of them trying to outdo others in scale beauty, but in the end presenting the same institutional, unemotional feel of man-made cleanliness. And at night, it would be more and more visits to bars and clubs, most of which - you guessed it - are themselves based around or in those institutionally clean shopping malls. And with most museums shut down due to the Holy Week vacation, the pickings for the rest of the city were really really slim.
Of course, to be fair, the author is not trying to blame Manila 100% for her monotony. She may just seem so boring because she is being viewed through the colored lenses of a particular person, someone who regularly spends six days a week at work, and spend half of the seventh day doing home-office and other half running errands out of necessity. Yes, Manila is boring because the author who is judging her is himself boring. After the initial stages of adaptation to a new environment, the factors for continued excitement seems to not have kept up well.
For that, perhaps the author should apologize to his friend and any future first-time visitors to the city. Manila is fundamentally not a "place" kind of a city, but a "people" kind of city. It does not possess prominent landmarks, historic or modern, to wow new arrivals at first sight, nor does that espouses a proud personality that dazzles visitors with initial culture shocks. Centuries of foreign influences have indeed reduced the people here into a non-distinct bunch carefully balancing different foreign cultures rather than proudly holding onto its own.
Yet, perhaps in a bit contradictory sense, those very people who cannot keep a distinct culture for themselves are the Philippines' greatest travel assets. Their timidity in stepping across hierarchical boundaries of a highly familial society creates massive social inequality that almost exclusive defines the face of the nation, both physically and emotionally...but their equally strong attention to self-respect and personal "face" create glaring spots of peacefulness, wealth, cleanliness, and orderliness in a general environment that is the complete opposite of such.
That sense of contradiction at every corner, created by the Filipino collective character, is perhaps what would fascinate a first-time foreign visitor more than anything else. In news, they hear of violent crimes with liberal use of firearms, but in reality, they are faced with self-depreciating "friendliness" that displays respect by following directives and orders to the point of complete irrationality. What to make of such people, and the society created by such people, should be much more interesting than what to make of any historical relic or modern architecture.
However, of course, getting to know the people is a much more arduous task than snapping pictures at cute buildings or museum exhibits. And as a expat residing for sometime here now, the author continue to find interactions with locals in direct way next to impossible on a holistic, unbiased way. So, as tourists then, the least foreign visitors can do is to stay longer or come back often to figure out the human story behind the Philippines. To say it is "charming" would be a complete lie, but it is still very much worth certain amount of monetary investment and social research.
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