Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

It is 10:30am on one of the main thoroughfare of Metro Manila heading to the southern suburbs.  Except...the thoroughfare was no longer a thoroughfare for cars, but for seemingly endless amount of people and goods moving up and down the slim middle path still left over after informal shops and stands took over most of its two paved lanes.  Hawkers hawked and shoppers shopped, all the way down to the main church of the community at the end of the road, where repeated session of what seemed to be a widely celebrated phenomenon of "Wednesday Mass" is now in full swing.

From almost the day a person is born, s/he goes through a relentless regimen of moral education that that gives her/him a set of guidelines on what is supposed to be the correct behaviors of a person that is integrated into the mainstream society as a law-abiding citizen.  While some of the teaching do lead to a certain degree of rebelliousness where indoctrination actually lead to unintended contradictory effects , the vast majority of people do seem to accept the most obvious of the guidelines (such as that murdering or theft are criminal and rightly punishable) without hesitance.

It has been nearly one and a half years since the author first took up those mysterious Skype calls (and then a dubious-looking employment offer) from Malaysia , and flew on a three-day notice from London to Kuala Lumpur .  And it has been nearly one year since taking up the post of Vice President of Operations at the Lazada Philippines office after another one-week notice to fly to Manila .  And as the employment contract finally draws to a close, perhaps it is a time to evaluate the whole journey before the last goodbyes.

Surrounded by the elated parents, godparents, friends, and relatives, the priest in charge of the baptismal ceremony simply cannot hide his dismay throughout the whole fiasco.  Standing awkwardly to the side while the adults continue to take their turns having their pictures taken while cuddling the baby to be baptized, he calmly hid his annoyance at the continued delay to the ceremony that should have started almost have an hour ago.  the author, even as a devote atheist doubting the very meaning of organized religion , felt embarrassed by the lack of respect in a supposedly sacred occasion.

"Welcome! 오서오세요!! いらっしゃいませ!!!"  As soon as the author and his friends stepped inside the purposely dark-tinted and heavy metal doors of the karaoke lounges surrounding Malate's Remedios Circle, dozens of girls, dressed in various themed costumes for the night (ranging from schoolgirl to maids) surrounded them, putting on their best smiles in front of the potential customers lazily scanning each girl up and down before deciding to stay or go.  Outside, male representatives of each competing lounge shove pictures of their best girls in front of passersby, hoping to get more customers.

"You know, there are not that many Japanese people who come to the Philippines, and even among those few Japanese here, only the tiny minority is willing to explore different places and try new things.  I think, as member of this tiny minority, I have the duty and obligation to broadcast my experiences and newly gained knowledge via my blog."  This is perhaps the most genuinely and agreeably righteous comment the author has ever had the fortune to hear firsthand.  It is as if the comment suddenly opened up a whole new understanding of what blogging really means.

Let's start out with a bit of stereotyping: Asian culture is a culture that frowns upon outright, declared refusals.  Because people are taught, in schools, in homes, and social occasions, to focus on maintaining harmonious, non-intrusive, and non-confrontational relationships, people have tendency to say "maybe," "I will think about it," or even "yes" and they play along with the situation uncomfortably just to avoid awkward situations in which they have to openly reject the what they interpret as well-meaning offers made by others.