"Pleasure To Meet You Mr. Ambassador"

Today was one of those days where to say to yourself, "Wow, that was something I wouldn't have done if I was still living in Canada." And it's true, I did two things today that were completely outside the realm of normal day-to-day life if I was still back in Vancouver. The first thing, which happened in the morning involved taking a course. Now, as you know, going to school for a course is a pretty normal and average thing to do. Courses are something I've taken in Vancouver. But it's not the idea of going to school that's the unique part, it's the course itself. Today I went to a course called, 'Managing Your Household Staff.' Having a maid or a driver in Canada is a pretty luxurious thing. Only the richest of the rich can afford live-in maids, personal security guards, and drivers that drive you around all day, everyday. But here in the Philippines having household staff is pretty commonplace, even for the middle class. Now I'm not saying I took this course because I need to know how to manage my own personal body guard. I don't have a guard and I never plan to get one. I don't even like the idea of a live-in maid. I actually find it weird waking up every morning and seeing several maids running around cleaning things. The house we live in currently has several maids and drivers; and although I've gotten used to it as time went by I still like having a bit more privacy. So once Aimee and I decide to move we're not having live-in maids; especially in an apartment. Call me old fashion but I like walking around in my underwear if the desire hits me and with live-in maids I feel like I have to dress up somewhat respectively just to leave my room. Your home is your castle so it's all about what do you prefer: a clean house and no personal privacy or a semi-dirty house with hours of pleasurable underwear dancing. We may have one maid - a part-time maid - so I guess taking this course is somewhat relevant if I need to know how to manage her. I won't bore you with the details but let's just say the course taught me how to locate possible staff, how to interview them, how to manage them once they're hired, how to keep them happy, and how to punish them (non-violently obviously) if you caught them stealing or such. The course also went briefly into cultural differences between us western types and the Filipinos. Some Filipinos are very superstitious about certain things so our instructor said it's a good idea to familiarize yourself with some of the customs just in case you find yourself in a situation where the maid refuses to wash dishes on a Friday because evil spirits will possess her through the sink drain (I made this one up but some of the superstitions are actually quite close on the silly meter). When the course ended I found myself walking away with new and exciting knowledge on how to be a boss. I also found myself thinking about the bosses I've had over the years and how they should be taking the course I just finished. Most of my ex-bosses had no idea on how to deal with employees and I think this course - although talking about Filipinos - would be a good and positive educational experience for them. Maybe I should fax my course booklet to my old places of employment?

Did you know that the stanard wage for a live-in maid in the Metro Manila area is only 3000 to 4000 peso per month? That's - only - $69.10 to 92.14 CDN. You're probably sitting there thinking to yourself, 'Holy crap, I would feel guilty paying someone only $69.10 a month.' and you wouldn't be alone. Most of the expat families here thought the same thing and started paying their employees on a pay scale closer to the one a North American would earn. So imagine being a Filipino, getting hired by an expat family and finding your wage going from 3000 peso per month to, say, 2000 peso per week or more. Needless to say this discrepancy in wages has caused a bit of an issue in the household staff labour force. Any maid that has had an expat employer in the past now expects a rate much higher that the labour code suggests. I wonder if the non-expat families - the Filipino families - are annoyed at the expats for paying their staff so high?

The course ended, I had lunch, headed home and got ready for my evening out. My evening consisted of attending a general meeting for the Canadian Club of the Philippines. We're a group of Canadians who get together on both a social level and a charitable level. The Canadian Club raise funds for local Filipino charities and try to help out the poor as much as possible. The general meeting, this time, was held at the house of the Canadian Ambassador to the Philippines. I've met the Ambassador before, during Christmas time but I wasn't 100% satisfied with our meeting. You see, when I first heard I was going to meet a real Ambassador my mind started to fill with scenes from movies - usually James Bond-type movies - and how meeting an Ambassador is such a big deal. I thought to myself how I need to do this properly; I need to greet him in the most respectable way possible. I had my greeting practiced and ready to go. I would say, "It's a pleasure to meet you Mr. Ambassador," smile, and shake his hand. It didn't actually go that way. When Aimee and I arrived at the Ambassador's house we were greeted by two people at the entrance. A woman, and a man. I shook the woman's hand and then moved over to the man's hand. He didn't announce himself as being the Ambassador so I didn't immediately think to blurt of my, "It's a pleasure to meet you Mr. Ambassador," line. We finished the hand shaking and just as I was about to ask him if he's the Ambassador a waiter comes up and offers me a glass to wine. I grab the wine and turn back only to see a new guest shaking his hand and saying, "It's a pleasure to meet you Mr. Ambassador." What??? Are you kidding me? That was MY line! I missed my chance and sadly at the end of the evening I also missed my chance to say, "It was a pleasure to meet you Mr. Ambassador." So Christmas with the Ambassador was a complete write off. No dramatic James Bond styled secret agent scenes for me. I was just another face in the crowd for the Ambassador. So imagine my pleasure when I heard the next Canadian Club meeting was going to be at the Ambassador's house! "It's a pleasure to meet you again Mr. Ambassador." I can do this! We arrived at his house and went though the entrance. There were two ladies greeting us at the door: the Ambassador's wife and a member from the Canadian Club. Where is the Ambassador? How am I suppose to wow him with my rehearsed greeting if he's not even here? I grabbed a glass of wine and started to mingle. An hour went by and I still didn't see the Ambassador. Finally the meeting started and out popped the Ambassador. He said a few words and disappeared again. I didn't see him for the rest of the evening. Second chance: failed! I hope I don't have to wait until the next Christmas party to say my amusing and cunning greeting. Knowing my luck I'll finally get the chance and accidentally blurt out something like, "Pleasure to eat you Mr. Assador." Oh, the horror ... I shiver in fear at the likely possibly of that happening.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Mr. Ambassador ... one day, soon, in the future, when ever you have time, let's have coffee ... and some maple syrup eh!"

Pinoy Christmas Party

Last night I attended Aimee's company Christmas party. This party was quite different than what I'm used to from a Canadian Christmas party. At the office Christmas parties I've attended in Canada there's usually dinner, drinks, some hired entertainment and various speeches thanking the staff for all the hard work they did that year. This recent Filipino Christmas party had the speeches, the food and the entertainment but in this case, the entertainment wasn't hired, it was supplied by the staff.

The staff were broken into 7 teams and each team had to put on their own show. The shows could be singing, dancing, acting ... basically anything. The shows were judged and the 3 top teams would win cash prizes. This year the judges were management (Aimee and her family) and special guests (myself and two others). Now imagine yourself being a judge for a Filipino variety show. It's really not that easy when you think about it. I don't understand the language so anything involving spoken comedy won't work on me. Anything that involves Filipino pop culture like current to old television shows will also make no sense to me. So I was at a bit of a disadvantage as a judge in this competition. Judging was organized this way: Creativity 30%, Originality 30%, Costumes 30%, and Audience Impact 10%. So the competition started. Each team put together a 20 minute show. I won't bore you (or excite you for that matter) with the details but it was pretty much what I thought: all in tagalog, and all cultural references I didn't understand. So I had to judge on how the entertainment effected me even without understanding most of it. Most of the employees are men so cross-dressing seemed to be quite common among all the team's shows. One team did a spoof on "Deal Or No Deal" (finally, some pop culture I understand), and all the 'beautiful models' were men in dresses. One team did a beauty pageant, once again, men in dresses. There was even a cheerleader team, once again men in dresses only this time, miniskirts. Pretty much every team had at least one man in a dress. So finally all 7 teams performed and it was time for us judges fill out the points. I added up my points and based on that picked my 3 top teams. I was happy to see that my Team 1, and Team 2 ended up being the winners with the other judges as well. Oddly though, my last team ended up being Team 3 with the other judges. I actually thought their performance was terrible. But hey, I'm a Canadian, I didn't understand the language nor the cultural references, so maybe Team 3 really was that good. To me though, I just didn't get it!

Being a confused judge is a perfect way to start off the holiday season!

First Friends

My first friends to come to the Philippines and visit us have come and gone. Evan and his girlfriend Aleessa arrived here a few days ago and only stayed in the Metro Manila area for one full day. Their goal is to spend most of their holiday on the Philippine island Palawan enjoying all the awesome diving sights they have there.

During the day it was shopping for bargains (like fake name-brand bags) at a place called Greenhills. Greenhills is notorious for its pirated DVD sellers. They're not allowed to sell them but they'll go up to any tourist and whisper in your ear, "DVD Sir, DVD". If you say, "yes" they will lead you off to some secret location in the mall (or outside the mall in a Shanty Town) where you can buy them. Evan and I thought it was so funny having these guys whispering these "DVD" sweet nothings into our ears that we decided to start a running count of the number of times these sellers came up to us. By the end of our stay at Greenhills the count was up to 22! I always thought it was funny when DVD sellers came up to me trying to sell pornography when Aimee is staying right beside me. It's also amusing to note that most of these pirated DVD sellers are Muslims. So daytime was fun! By night it was dinner, drinks and fun at the restaurant and bar spots Serendra and Greenbelt 3. At Serendra we had snacks at a restaurant called Chelsea's. Although the service there is always deadly slow the food and atmosphere more than make up for it. At Greenbelt 3 we took them to our favourite Thai restaurant People's Palace. The weather was perfect, not too hot, and definitely not cold. We sat on the restaurant's patio on huge confortable leather couches. To end the evening we went to Martinis bar at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in the city of Makati. Apparently there was a dress code there because the waitress made an issue about Aleessa's footwear (standard woman's open-toe shoes), she didn't notice Evan standing there wearing beach-style flipflops. Dress code or not, we were finally allowed to stay.

Te next morning we all awoke at 5:30am; tired and hungover. Evan and Aleessa's flight to Palawan was at 7:30am.

But now they are gone. Although it was a short visit it was nice having two friends from Vancouver coming here to see us. I hope next year more of our friends can find the time. Like Evan and Aleessa, we'll treat you like the Kings and Queens you are. Pinoy Kings and Queens of course!

Our Anniversary is Pinoy

Four years ago Aimee and I got married here in the Philippines. Today, October 18, is our wedding anniversary. Happy Anniversary to my loving wife Aimee. I look forward to many more exciting years ahead!

Mooncake Festival - Dice Game

The Mid-Autumn Festival also known as the Moon Festival, is a popular Asian celebration of abundance and togetherness, dating back over 3,000 years to China's Zhou Dynasty.

The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month of the Chinese calendar (usually around mid- or late-September in the Gregorian calendar), a date that parallels the Autumn Equinox of the solar calendar. This is the ideal time, when the moon is at its fullest and brightest, to celebrate the abundance of the summer's harvest. The traditional food of this festival is the mooncake, of which there are many different varieties.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the two most important holidays in the Chinese calendar (the other being the Chinese Lunar New Year), and is a legal holiday in several countries. Farmers celebrate the end of the summer harvesting season on this date. Traditionally, on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes and pomeloes together (I've included pictures or both a mooncake and pomeloes for your viewing pleasure).

To celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival here in the Philippines we attended a gathering of the Tai Association. The Tai Association is a group of people with the common family name Tai who immigrated from the Fujian province of China to the Philippines. Aimee's family name is Tai. Every year during the Mid-Autumn Festival they gather together to play something called the Dice Game as well as majong. The basic rules of the Dice Game is to get various doubles, three of a kinds, four of a kinds, and straights, using the dice and depending on your roll you win prizes. The game is for fun so the prizes are pretty inexpensive and simple. Each table has a maximum of 15 people and each household cannot have more than one person per table. Because of this Aimee and I played at different tables. 15 people per table, hundreds of Tai so dozens of tables. The game is fast: if you win you quickly collect your prize, pass the dice on and wait for your next turn. The easiest prize to wine is if you roll a the 5 dice and one reads a 4. With a 4 you win a package of 2 fruit cups (I told you the prizes were simple). The grand prize was an electronic pressure cooker. The prizes between the fruit cups and the pressure cooker were cans of Spam (remember, they love Spam here), cans of corned beef (which is pretty much like-Spam), a rice cooker, and a toaster. Each table has the same prizes and you keep rolling dice and passing to the next player until all the prizes are won. 30 minutes later all the prizes were won.

I have to admit, my dice rolling luck was terrible. I only walked away with 4 cans of corned beef (I didn't even win the Spam) and a package of fruit cups. Aimee was lucky, she won fruit cups, corned beef AND Spam Lite!


Mooncake: Typical mooncakes are round or rectangular pastries with a thick filling usually made from lotus paste or sweet bean paste and surrounded by a relatively thin crust. They may contain yolks from salted duck eggs. Mooncakes are rich, heavy, and dense compared with most Western cakes and pastries. They are usually eaten in small wedges accompanied by Chinese tea.

I gave one to my Dad once, he bit into it thinking it would contain western-style filling like cream or berries. My Dad is pretty open to new foods but I've never seen someone gag so quickly after biting into something. I guess it makes sense considering he bit into
it expecting cream and berries and he got a mouthfull of salted duck egg and beans.


Pomelo: It looks like a big grapefruit, it tastes like a big grapefruit, it's estenitally a massive-sized grapefruit!

Toast 2007

Aimee and I went to our first wine festival here in the Philippines. TOAST 2007 is the third annual wine festival sponsored by the local wine store chain called WineDepot. It's unfair to compare it with the wine festivals I've attended in Vancouver because obviously Canada has a greater access to international wines but from what I understand the Philippines wine market is increasing every year. The country that's leading the pack in wine sales here is Australia. They entered the market early so every where you go (restaurants, stores...) it's easy to find Australian wines. The festival also had representatives giving samples of wines from New Zealand (not surprising considering their geographical closeness to Australia), France, Italy, Chile, South Africa, and USA. Although there was no Canadian booth at the festival there was one wine available for purchase there. Inniskillin Ice Wine was for sale at 6,400 peos per bottle. That converts to $141.54 CAD. That expensive for both Canada and the Philippines. In Canada you can buy the same bottle for $50 CAD. To get an idea what 6,400 peso buys you in the Philippines think about it this way: You can hire two live-in maids for one month for that price. So I guess it all depends on your priorities; one bottle of delicious Canadian Ice Wine or a month of a clean spotless house, clean clothes, and cooked meals. You choose. :)

Canada Club of the Philippines

In the act of keeping in contact with our homeland (Canada) Aimee located some information on the net of a social group here called the Canada Club of the Philippines. Last week we attended their annual 'meet and greet' of new members, and people who are thinking of becoming members. We arrived at the meeting, had some coffee and pastries and spoke to some really nice people. The only unfortunate thing about them is their name. It shouldn't the Canada Club of the Philippines, it should be The Ladies Club of Canadians in the Philippines. When we arrived we were welcomed by a group of smiling older women. Only women. They were really nice but somehow it's not what I expected in the club. Now I know why the meeting was held in the morning of a week day. All their husbands - pretty much expats working for the Canadian embassy - were off working their day jobs. The ladies apologized to me for the total lack of men and promised when they organize the next activity they will invite their husbands. Silly Canadians ... always apologizing when it's not necessary!