Filipinas - Opinions and Advice

[QUOTE=Gamahucher]Why live on 500 pesos a day if you have the means to live a much more affluent lifestyle? Unless it was a social experiment or you anticipate poverty as an option in the future. Maybe you are the new Chris McCandless? Sorry, I am been facetious.
[/QUOTE]Surely you jest! Probably all of the above could be right. Curiosity mainly, I wanted to see at what level I could live on and be comfortable with. I lived in a 275 peso room had a cold shower, fan and cable TV. I didn't need the fan. I wasn't allowed to cook in the rooms but I could make coffee. You could eat three meals at the carinderia for about 150 pesos a day or less if one had to, I didn't get sick my friends showed me how to do it all. The room was clean the only discomfit was the cold shower but it was doable. I bought fruit from sidewalk vendors for 10 to 15 pesos and cakes etc for 5 to ten pesos.

I have a little money not a big money and it recently became smaller so poverty in the future is certainly an option. I was a lot wealthier before the divorce and before the market dive. You can lose your money as easy as blinking. If I want to make my money bigger I have to cut costs. Now I know some ways I can do it and still have a holiday in a foreign country.

I found out I don't need much and the answers to the questions what do I need to be happy and what is luxury? If I am careful with my money now I will always have the freedom of choice which is what wealth brings and what true luxury is. Another Chris McCandless? Maybe? I want a simple and uncomplicated life after the stresses and strains of my past. Maybe I will skip the solitude. I could see myself being like that Scandanavian (what 60 year old man would complain about having a 25 year old girlfriend?) except I wont have a dwindling capital if I budget right it should keep growing. I am free thanks to my divorce and I am choosing thanks to some money.

[QUOTE=Gamahucher]Incidentaly, one of the happiest foreigners I ever met in the Philippines really was [url=http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord140][CodeWord140][/url] poor. He was a Scandanavian, about 50ish and living in cheap local style accommodation with his 25 year old Pinay girlfriend. He had no income as such and appeared to be living on his rapidly dwindling capital. But he always seemed content with his lot and as happy as a pig in shit. Often wonder what became of him, maybe he had a lifeline like wealthy relatives back in the west. An option local indigents do not possess.[/QUOTE]One of my friends, a pilot, retired here & did exactly this. Every day was a fiesta. Eventually he arrived on my doorstep utterly penniless. Yes he blew his entire pilots superannuation in a couple of years.
He begged a fare home so he could go live off friends & relatives back home until he could get some social security to live off there. He still bores us with stories of every night in bed with 3 women & non stop partying. He lives in a dump in Australia & takes medication for chronic depression. Some life...

AV

[QUOTE=Gamahucher]Very nice AV. But take care you don't leave yourself open to some more attacks from our green eyed resident troll. First rule. DFTFT :D[/QUOTE]Thx, DTFTFT sure buts its ok to tease them a little hehehe ;)[QUOTE=Gamahucher]One of the many things that amuse and me about life in the Philippines is the number of pawnshops. Also means that the cheapest place to pick up a second hand phone is from the nearest pawnshop.[/QUOTE]Oh yeah & are'nt the girls offended if you suggest getting them a secondhand one from the pawnshops! hehehe :)[QUOTE=Gamahucher]About recent technology I've just picked up one of latest ultra portable laptops called the Asus eee... perfect for a travel laptop.[/QUOTE]I just bought one for my nephew who is 8 years old. Getting it connected to a wireless network was trivially easy compared to Windoze. I could do everything i needed EXCEPT Yahoo Instant Messenger. Damn!
All my family & friends use YM. I use a 13" Macbook for traveling. I have a 17" MacBook Pro at home & my wife & kids have mac mini's. no viri, malware, adware & virtually no maintenance. Most of my family back in Oz have gradually switched over to Mac's after I stopped volunteering to reinstall Windoze for them over & over again..[QUOTE=Gamahucher]Just have to work out how to put XP on it as the installed OS is Linux Xandros[/QUOTE]You can buy a model with XP on already, god knows why you want to though.. There is a model of HP simmillar to the eePC with Vista on it, my god imagine how slow it must be.. Cheers GH[/QUOTE]

Ingat!
AV

[QUOTE=Bilbo Baggins]I found out I don't need much and the answers to the questions what do I need to be happy and what is luxury? If I am careful with my money now I will always have the freedom of choice which is what wealth brings and what true luxury is. Another Chris McCandless? Maybe? I want a simple and uncomplicated life after the stresses and strains of my past. Maybe I will skip the solitude. I could see myself being like that Scandanavian (what 60 year old man would complain about having a 25 year old girlfriend?) except I wont have a dwindling capital if I budget right it should keep growing. I am free thanks to my divorce and I am choosing thanks to some money.[/QUOTE]Yeah I was part in jest, Bilbo. I am sure that readers of this board are not interested in philosophical ramblings from an old fool like myself. But I must admit I am seriously interested in the motives that drive people like you and me to abandon their comfortable lives in the west and settle in places like the Philippines. The cynics will say the easy availability of pussy is sufficient motivation but there has to be more to life than that (did I really say that. I think I'll go lie down in a darkened room! ). Like you I want a simple, uncomplicated lifestyle and am willing to put up with some hardship and forgo lifes luxuries to get it. Also having a vagabond nature, I get jaded if I'm stuck in one place too long. Guess I've got a bit of the Chris McCandless in me but I definately don't want to end up like him!

Anyway I hope you find the life you are looking for.

[QUOTE=Amavida] You can buy a model with XP on already, god knows why you want to though.. There is a model of HP simmillar to the eePC with Vista on it, my god imagine how slow it must be.. Cheers GH[/QUOTE]

Ingat!

AV[/QUOTE]Cheers Amavida. Wish I'd had your advice yesterday when I installed a lite version of XP. Got it working OK but it has slowed the machine quite appreciably. I just could'nt get along with this Linux Xandros with it assumption that you were familiar with gobbledegook computer codes and peculiar software installation methods (from suppositories or something). Them eee's are tidy little fuckers though. I am quite inordinately pleased with it. It is literally pocket size and provided your not trying to do any advanced graphics on it, can cope with most applications. And at the price they are nearly giving them away.

Christ your pilot mate must have had a ball if he blew a pilots retirement gratuities in a couple of years. No wonder he is now depressed but I bet he has many wonderful deposits in his memory banks.

[QUOTE=Gamahucher] The cynics will say the easy availability of pussy is sufficient motivation but there has to be more to life than that (did I really say that. I think I'll go lie down in a darkened room! ). Ingat!

.[/QUOTE]
Gamahucher

Is there another reason....:D Suggest while in the dark room you use an ice cold towel as this may make wake you up from an obvious dream (nightmare by the sound of it..)

[QUOTE=Wicked Roger]Gamahucher

Is there another reason....:D Suggest while in the dark room you use an ice cold towel as this may make wake you up from an obvious dream (nightmare by the sound of it..)[/QUOTE]Hahaha - will take your advice WR and maybe take a little poontang in there as well to wipe my fevered brow :D

[QUOTE=Gamahucher]Yeah I was part in jest,
Anyway I hope you find the life you are looking for.

The cynics will say the easy availability of pussy is sufficient motivation but there has to be more to life than that
.[/QUOTE]Haha yeah and I was playing on the word facetious its hard to be subtle in the Philippines or the forums I guess. (smiles)

There is more to life than pussy! I come to the Philippines because there is some pussy compared to none so that is a strong motivator but the adventure, the easy life style and the simple life call. I can do my work anywhere but I prefer the soft warm breezes blowing in from the ocean oh damn its the pussy by a long shot. I just love asian women and their attributes. Yeah its the pussy I am a sick man!

What a coincidence, went to Vagabond bar last night in NishiShinjuku. You walk up the stairs under the piano. Varied artwork on the walls indicate an absolutely bacchanal lifestyle of the owner....who has unfortunately died.

Yes, Gamahucher....lie down in a dark room....for as long as you like.

X

[QUOTE=Gamahucher]The cynics will say the easy availability of pussy is sufficient motivation but there has to be more to life than that (did I really say that. I think I'll go lie down in a darkened room! ). Like you I want a simple, uncomplicated lifestyle and am willing to put up with some hardship and forgo lifes luxuries to get it. Also having a vagabond nature, I get jaded if I'm stuck in one place too long. .[/QUOTE]

I don't know if any of the rest of you have experienced this, but I find that having chosen this lifestyle, and having lived outside of the US for years, you really cannot go home again and fit in. For one thing, the only women available to you are (gasp!) your own age! For another, your old friends or even new friends are basically clueless about how you have lived your life and know nothing except their own rather narrow slice of regimented reality. To over simplify, you've changed but they basically haven't and there's no common ground on which you can meet any longer.

GE

I've met an attractive girl online and suggested a romantic getaway vacation, but she says:

yah sure i can be your tour guide here..maybe you can stay at the fancy hotel like parklane hotel, waterfront hotel, marriot hotel and shangrila hotel,...maybe when we get vacations can my friends come with us????...im so excited to see you!!..take care always.

I'm not inclined to stay in these expensive hotels or drag along her friends while I'm trying to romance her.

How would you handle a situation like this?

[QUOTE=X Man]What a coincidence, went to Vagabond bar last night in NishiShinjuku. You walk up the stairs under the piano. Varied artwork on the walls indicate an absolutely bacchanal lifestyle of the owner....who has unfortunately died.

Yes, Gamahucher....lie down in a dark room....for as long as you like.

X[/QUOTE]WTF

Cryptic ..tick
Impenetable,,tick
Recondite ..tick
Incomprehensible ..tick

Oh I get it - your a froggy or a superannuated hippy. Keep taking the pills, it gets better with time!

GH

[QUOTE=GoodEnough]I don't know if any of the rest of you have experienced this, but I find that having chosen this lifestyle, and having lived outside of the US for years, you really cannot go home again and fit in. For one thing, the only women available to you are (gasp!) your own age! For another, your old friends or even new friends are basically clueless about how you have lived your life and know nothing except their own rather narrow slice of regimented reality. To over simplify, you've changed but they basically haven't and there's no common ground on which you can meet any longer. GE[/QUOTE]My period in RP was a mere five months, much less than the five years you’ve had, but even in that short period I experienced a fair amount of Philippine enculturation. I spoke only enough Filipino to get by in everyday interactions, and I worked with people who spoke Filipino among themselves but could easily switch to English to communicate with me. Still, I found myself adjusting and getting with the rhythm of the culture around me in ways I was almost unaware of until I returned to the U.S. I think I actually found the transition back into my own culture more difficult than the initial move to the Philippine setting, and eleven months later I am still not “back” in my own culture. Unlike for GE, however, who reports a sense that he can’t go back, my circumstances – having to try to be back – have led me to invest considerable time reflecting on the transition, the cultural differences, and the general lack of awareness of anything outside the U.S. for most people around me, including many with a great deal of formal education.

Post Philippine Depression (PPD) is frequently tossed about as a common ailment among the participants in forums like this, and although I still experience a longing for petite, brown young women as sex partners, I think that is not the same as what GE describes, nor is it the main point of my experiences. What is at the center of the cultural conflict I experience has to do with the pace of life and the American preoccupation in what I will call “instrumentality.” That is, it’s the “hurry, hurry” mentality and the expectation that we ought always to be creating change around us (always referred to as “progress,” even when in some regards the changes may be a step backward) – and being able to prove that it was in fact our actions that caused the change.

We often forget that the same internet that makes this forum possible and makes us capable of outsourcing our accounting or executive powerpoint presentations to be done overnight in India while we sleep, also permits our bosses to control and direct hundreds of their subordinates in a single email. Amazingly, we all rave over the benefits of lightning fast communications that allow us to post longwinded editorials like this one, while simultaneously we overlook how the same technology holds us captive to others’ wishes, penis enhancement advertisements, Nigerian get-rich quick schemes, and so on.

One refreshing difference about the Philippines is all rolled up in the merienda mentality: not only are they not particularly in a hurry (except in Manila traffic, where the cultural resistance to “falling in line” causes everybody to prevent themselves and all others from getting anywhere fast other than into traffic jams), they don’t take themselves or anybody else too seriously. (Although even that is paradoxical, when you consider the communist rebels in some parts of Luzon or Moro liberation fighters in Mindanao.) Unfortunately, I find, most Americans with whom I interact on a daily basis are largely unaware of their entrapment in what GE has called a “narrow slice of regimented reality.” I think there are some peculiarly American explanations for our narrowly regimented reality, but won’t describe them because I’ve already carried on too long with this.

I do think there are several juicy ironies in the dynamic GE has presented. One is that the world’s economic system, and especially its disparate distribution of benefits, is a large component of what creates both the advantageous buying power and the attractiveness to Filipinas of men our age, while it simultaneously is both a cause and a resultant of the laid back merienda mentality that I, and presumably others, find attractive in the Philippines' culture. So please be careful next time you find yourself complaining about Filipinos’ complacency and seeming lack of ambition, empowerment, and instrumentality: These are precisely the ingredients that make your earnings go so far in the Philippines and that constitute the laid back lifestyle that allows you to grow old comfortably and lustfully.

Feedback and rebuttals welcome. Skip

[quote=goodenough]i don't know if any of the rest of you have experienced this, but i find that having chosen this lifestyle, and having lived outside of the us for years, you really cannot go home again and fit in. for one thing, the only women available to you are (gasp!) your own age! for another, your old friends or even new friends are basically clueless about how you have lived your life and know nothing except their own rather narrow slice of regimented reality. to over simplify, you've changed but they basically haven't and there's no common ground on which you can meet any longer.

ge[/quote]

i have been overseas the last 4 years. i am bored as hell when i am in the states. as for women in the states they come because of the money i display but i am just not interested. back in 06 a caucasian lady at a dennys in cali paid for my breakfast she was a waiter there. now there is a college educated young black lady with a great career interested in why i being black only date asians born and raised in asia. she heard all about my globe trotting exploits through the grapevine and is now interested to meet me on my impending return to the states. only thing on my mind is my up coming trip to cebu. family and friends will never understand.

beware of dog

(the dog in you that wants to attack weaker dogs and screw all female dogs) :)

[QUOTE=Bilbo Baggins]Haha yeah and I was playing on the word facetious its hard to be subtle in the Philippines or the forums I guess. (smiles)

.... Yeah its the pussy I am a sick man![/QUOTE]Well, since the pinays are so accepting of older white men, maybe I can convince my espousa to retire there with me! Maybe the best of both worlds!
LOL

[QUOTE=Gamahucher]Cheers Amavida. Wish I'd had your advice yesterday when I installed a lite version of XP. Got it working OK but it has slowed the machine quite appreciably. I just could'nt get along with this Linux Xandros with it assumption that you were familiar with gobbledegook computer codes and peculiar software installation methods (from suppositories or something). Them eee's are tidy little fuckers though. I am quite inordinately pleased with it. It is literally pocket size and provided your not trying to do any advanced graphics on it, can cope with most applications. And at the price they are nearly giving them away.[/QUOTE]Hey GH!
Xandros [a Linux distribution with a very Windows like GUI] as far as I know has a simple GUI software installer. I dunno why you needed to use the command line..?
The ONLY program I cant get for Linux is Yahoo Messenger (an Instant Message client). Since all my family & 'friends' here in Phils rely exclusively on YM I cant use Linux soooo... Mac's it is. If you need some help with Linux software package management give me a holler. Maybe I could help?
BTW my wife & I use iChat on the Mac's to video conference. It runs over the AIM network (AOL Instant Messenger). Until you have seen it you Windoze guys don't know what you have been missing.. superb software.
[QUOTE=Gamahucher]Christ your pilot mate must have had a ball if he blew a pilots retirement gratuities in a couple of years. No wonder he is now depressed but I bet he has many wonderful deposits in his memory banks.[/QUOTE] Oh man you have NO idea! This guy partied like a rock star! I think there must be buildings with his name on in Cavite where he lived. :)

Cheers!
AV
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The foregoing post remains my personal opinion.
It is not intended to offend any person either living or dead.
It is not a statement of fact and is for discussion purposes only.
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