Dealing with your own kind

As a general rule, I prefer dealing with Pinoys than with non-Pinoys. I communicate better, make interpersonal connections more quickly and generally just feel more comfortable dealing with Pinoys.

But there are some Pinoys (and I hate to say this, but these ones are usually those who grew up with provincial backgrounds -- sorry, Mom!) who would take the word of a foreigner over that of a fellow Filipino.

And I think that's sad.

I think it has to do with this whole colonial mentality BS. (I think if you think this way you are either old or uneducated). I'll be the first to admit that most Filipinos are strictly from hunger and find virtue in corruption, but I think Filipinos are a kind and sturdy bunch. And we shouldn't feel bad for being who we are and neither should we look up to other races as being superior. Yes, the French are better looking and better educated, but do they bathe regularly? Do they know what a tabo is?

Where am I going with all this (and I know, I've been rambling).... You see I have this client. She's Filipino, born and bred in one of our southern provinces, and she thinks that because she is a lawyer she is smarter than everyone (this is SO provincial) and because she hired foreign counsel, she should talk to a foreigner. I have never experienced this form of "reverse" discrimination before dealing with this woman. And to be honest, I find it bizarre.

She would rather speak to one of my foreign collegues than to me. As if what I just told her was any different. We Pinoys are staffed on deals in the Philippines precisely because we are of "the same kind" and we should, technically, work more efficiently. But sometimes staffing Pinoys on Philippine deals is counter productive.

And that's sad.

Stationery

When I was in elementary school, my favorite spot on campus was the nun-run stationery. It was a modest enterprise. The stationery itself was a tiny room, about a third of a classroom in size. It was only open during recess and lunch.

And there was always a long line. You needed to queue up to check out the pencils, erasers and notepads they had for sale. The selection was sparse. Only one brand of paper (cut into different sizes) one brand of pencils (Mongol) one brand of eraser.

Most days I'd line up just to look at the notebooks and pens. I had no intention of buying anything (nor did I have any money); I just wanted to be in the same room as those neatly stacked unmarked notebooks. To see the pencils still in their boxes, to smell the unblemished rubber erasers. When I got to the counter I'd say I forgot my wallet and slowly walk backwards, keeping my eye on the Bensia pencils or the Orion rulers.

25 years later I still like paper. And when I'm blue, I walk the 10 yards to the Firm's stationery: two floor to ceiling cabinets filled with Post-its (in all sizes), tape flags (in all colors of the rainbow), notebooks (ring bound or hard bound), note pads (last count they came in 4 sizes), pens (ball point, felt tip and ink), pencils (mechanical and regular), highlighters, rulers, clamps, scissors. All for me to take.

And I just stand there.

Confeermed

It's confirmed: ako na talaga ang balat sa pwet ng Ateneo.

Yesterday, we beat La Salle by 3 in overtime.

Where was I?

985 nautical miles away from the Araneta Coliseum.

Green bubbles and weekend plans

Not everyone is taking to the new skin.

My father thinks the font is "almost unreadable". N. says this is the template she likes the least.

But here's the deal folks: I like it.

So it will stay until I find a suitable replacement. And I need to soon, not all the comments are getting through. But please send in your comments anyway (God I sound like a host of a noon time show.)

I hope everyone has a good weekend ahead. S. and Wonder are coming over and we're watching Robert Smith and the rest of The Cure on Monday. If they play Pictures of You or Letters to Elise, I may just commit harakiri (Dad, this is meant to be a good thing). Because I will just die if I hear those songs live.

Pyramid Schemes

In the Philippines, people fall for pyramid schemes ALL THE TIME.

I've never really understood why. To me it's like handing your watch to a stranger who asks for it, and expecting him to return it.

Someone comes up to you and says, "I can give you 40% return on your investment."

Now think about it.

The biggest companies in the world post after tax profits of 10-20%. These guys make planes or fly planes or make can openers, build bridges. Actual business enterprises and they make only 10-20% from their capital. And it's not just capital. There's people, there's know-how, there's industry. Billions of dollars and they can only make 10-20%.

Now how can you and your measely P50,000 make 40%?

Think about it for one minute. Just one uninterrupted minute.

From time to time friends ask me for advice on investing their money and my response is the same all the time, "if it is too good to be true, it's probably not."

People say these schemes prey on those who want to get rich quick. Try those who want to get poor quick.

So what do you think of the new skin?

In the beginning my blog looked liked this:



I got bored with Rounders 3 (the name of my old template), not to mention it was just plain ugly, so I transformed TWS by using Mr. Brown. For those of you who have that form of amnesia that affects your short term memory, until yesterday my blog looked like this:




I figured it was time for a change. I'd had the same template for months and months. And so for about 6 hours earlier today, my blog looked like this:

It was easier to read, but I thought it was boring. Someone called it "safe". Ack. And while it was lighter, same someone said "airier", the icons jumped around and the text appeared flushed to (i.e. too near) the pictures.

So now my blog looks like this. And I think this is nice.

Indian Numbering System

I'm on an Indian deal.

We're representing the sponsors who are developing a techno park in southern India. The cool part of my job is that I get to read and comment on contracts that will operate in different parts of the world. So the contracts can't really be "cookie-cutter" ones. They need to reflect what's going on in the trenches. And I need to be sensitive to those real world issues each time I pick up a document (or a "doc" as we call them here) whether it may be for a toll road in the Philippines, a gas plant in Indonesia and now, a techno park in India.

Again, I'm taking too long to make my point. This post is supposed to be about the numbering system used in India. They don't use the standard Arabic system used everywhere else. They use a slightly modified system.

One hundred thousand is numerically 100,000 everywhere else in the world. In India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar, it is 1,00,000 (this unit is called lahk). There is no unit of measure for million. Instead there is the crore which is equal to ten million. Numerically it is 1,00,00,000.

I bet good money you had no idea this was going on. That one fourth of the world had no concept of a million, but of 10 lahks.

Amazing, isn't it? For more information on the Indian system of numbering, CLICK HERE.

Hong Kong Movie Channel

I think I've mentioned that I live in a serviced apartment. This is not as glamorous as it sounds. Yes, someone vacuums my rug three times a week, but I also have no control over some basic household amenities. Amenities like cable tv.

I am captive to whatever cable tv provider my building's management committee selects for the whole building. And since these guys want to maximize profits, they stick us with "basic cable". Which is like saying local tv, with CNN.

I guess this isn't too bad since I'm not a big TV fan anyways, but I'm just annoyed that I am prevented from watching "mainstream TV" not by a personal choice (that would be cool and elitist) but because my building is too cheap to get Star.

But anyway, I digress.

This post is supposed to be about HMC -- the Hong Kong Movie Channel (a "premier" channel on basic cable), where they feature movies made before 1997 only. Like someone at HMC programming said: ok, the world ended with The Handover, so we can only show movies like Rain Man or Die Hard (the first one).

Watching HMC reminds me of the trip I took to Baguio/Sagada one year. Chum and I were stuck in a bus for something like 9 hours. The ride was too bumpy for you to read, so all you could really do was watch Ghost over and over on the bus' tv.

Tsui Wah

Is my favorite noodles place. It is open 24 hours and is the HK equivalent of Chow King, but doesn't have many branches. It's also technically not fast food (i.e. you sit down and order and a waiter takes your order). You eat off real plates using non-plastic cutlery.

Ok, so maybe the Chow King analogy doesn't quite work.

I have the same thing each time I go: vermicelli (flat white rice noodles) with fish maw (this tastes good, don't be put off by the name) topped with fish balls (the best part of the fish) and shrimp dumplings.

What's great about it Tsui Wah is that they deliver with no minimum. You can actually ask them to come to your home 20 blocks away to deliver one bowl of soup at the restaurant's list price (approximately PhP 80). No extra fees. Yum!

Glass Bottles

Remember when Magnolia used to sell milk in glass bottles? It had a wax paper lid with a tab you had to scratch with your fingernail to get to. If you messed this process up, the wax paper lid would fall into the bottle, and if you happen to be opening a liter-sized bottle, your mother would then nag the daylights out of you.

I love glass bottles as containers for milk or juice. They are a unique reminders of my youth.

And milk is still sold this way in HK.

God this place is great. (If they spoke English, this place would be like Sweden (i.e. perfect) but with lots of Chinese people.)

Unpretty

This isn't pick on Chinese people week, but I just realized something today (that's been actually bugging me for some time now): Chinese people (in HK) are generally unattractive. Girls are generally not pretty, guys are not cute.

Ok, before you rush to a conclusion about me and my narrow-mindedness, hear me out.

I've spent a lot of time trying to figure this out. I've asked myself why do I consider Chinese people in HK to be physically unattractive, when if you judge them by parts, they are superior:

1. Hair: straight and shiny.

2. Skin: white and smooth like porcelain. Acne or blemishes not the norm.

3. Height: typical Asian.

4. Build: slighter than Pinoys (which for women is great, makes them appear taller/slimmer)

5. Teeth: very healthy

6. Nose: straight and narrow

7. Legs and arms: skinny (again, great for the gals)

8. Fashion sense: in Central, where I work, very sophisticated.

If you put all these things together, you'd think you'd get a great looking person. Think again. The average sales lady in Shoemart beats the daylights out of the average shop girl in Wing On.

And I don't think that this generalization of mine is based on personal preference or "type" thing either. I think the Chinese actresses are gorgeous, the Chinese leading men to swoon over. But the regular person on the street, unpretty.

New Shirts

I am literally changing my wardrobe, well, the top half that is (though I'm guessing most people will not notice a thing).

I'm replacing most of my existing office shirts with new ones I've had made here. FYI, tailored shirts take 48 hours to make in HK. You drop by the tailor on Friday, get measured, pick a fabric and by Monday you have your shirt.

Amazing this place, I tell you. (If they just spoke English. Uy, bitter.)

And they're not expensive. About 20% more than what I pay for tailored shirts in Manila, but the quality of the tailoring as well as the fabric is worth much more than that.

Letters to The Saint

The Saint and I have been friends since law school. He's now in California lawyering for some IT company. We talk rarely, but The Saint is one of those guys you can count on when you need a new pair of eyes on something you've gone cross-eyed on trying to figure out yourself.

The other day I wrote him that I was not taking to Hong Kong like a fish to water.

This is an exerpt from his response:

Oh sure, complain about having to work in an exciting and exotic city, at a super prestigious law firm, and making mega bucks, while you sit in front of your computer the whole day surfing Friendster. I really feel bad for you.

This is how I replied:

Next time I need a pick-me-up, remind me to stab myself in the eye (and not e-mail you).

Response:

Well, you can always count on me to pull you down when you fly too high Icarus. Ooh, reminds me that the final Bourne movie is coming out soon. I think I have a man-crush on Matt Damon, but just when he plays Bourne. Did you watch the Transformers movie? No story but cool FX. Brings out the inner 80's dork in you (not that you need much help in that department).

x x x

Galing, diba?

I've given up on silk knots

I wear these now.

No. 11

I graduated 11th in my law school class.

This event, quite simply, devasted me. I did not make it to the coveted "Top 10". I was not 11th out of 105, I was the first loser.

I felt so bad because I worked so hard those four years and fell short. I didn't get it. And it was out of my hands.

8 years later, I arguably have the best job in my entire class. I will not have this position forever (I'm just waiting for the guys at the Firm to come to their senses.) but I do have it now. I worked at something and I found success and fulfillment in my own way.

When I face disappointment over things, I remember that day I found out I came up one short of being in the top ten.

And keep hope alive by knowing that other things will come my way.

The insurmountable language barrier

No one speaks English in Hong Kong. Surely an overstatement, but hardly an exaggeration.

Cab drivers, people at the supermarket or at building administration, security guards, policemen, hawkers in the market, waiters at the noodle place, sellers of tickets to get into the movies, a train, a show.

No one speaks English.

I get by with a lot of pointing and gesticulating. Cab rides are prefaced with Hail Mary's (May he not bring me to somewhere I'm not familiar with.). I assume orders at restaurants will be wrong (unless you literally point to what you want, chances are, it will be wrong.) You can't ask what that extra $9.0 is on your grocery tab (you find out at home that you picked up two not one pack of biscuits).

You can't ask if a store offers something in a smaller size, bigger size different variant or color. To explain to building administration that your sliding door has come unhinged and refuses to "slide" you need to act like you're playing charades. Bedroom. (put hands near head to mimic sleep) Cabinet. (make a giant air rectangle with your hands) Sliding door. (make sliding door motion) Is stuck (make stuck sliding door motion).

And what makes matters worse is that Cantonese is just deathly annoying. People here speak loudly (so do the people in New Manila, but there you can understand what is being yelled at you.) and make such vulgar sounds. If people were speaking in French, I could live with not understanding anything. I'd just pretend the waiter was trying to hit on me.

I didn't anticipate that the breakdown of communication would affect me so much. I have absolutely no idea what's going on. There are a bunch of posters hanging on the walls near my apartment building. They might be for a lost dog, an apartment for lease, proposed legislation, personals. I can't tell. It's like living in a bad dream and there are all these Chinese people speaking very loud Chinese at you. And everything (and I mean everything) is in pinyin.

Wait. The Chinamen are real.

Letting go

I have trouble doing this.

I latch on to a project, a kind food (Cf post on anchovies) a book, a person. I get fixated and I can't let go.

But then eventually I wake up and realize I've been reading the same book for months, I've been planning to buy that camera for weeks -- and I have accomplished absolutely nothing.

And so, weeks, months, sometimes even years later, I eventually do let go. And when that happens, the break is clean.

Anchovies make everything better

I am currently fixated over anchovies.

Everything I make now has to have some anchovies in it.

Salad, pasta (kulang na lang sandwich). Everything tastes better with anchovies.

Now to find the local stuff. I can't sustain buying those incredibly expensive (tiny) tins at the deli.

These chips are called "Brilliant" and they really are!