My Trip To the PhilippinesIn September 1989, when I was 11 year old, I came to Philippines during my shortvacation.
My father brought the whole family, also my cousin Jimmy. We spent 5days in the Philippines. During these five days, I realized that there were manydifferences between Taiwan and the Philippines. The most difference was culture. People’s language, behavior and also they are happy go lucky.
The first problem I faced was the language problem. Philippine was ruled bySpanish long time ago. Most of Filipino could speak Spanish. I could not speaktheir language and also English, so what ever they said I just acted like stupid. I still remembered when I went to Cebu, in the hotel, the waiter came in to askme something about my room. First, I was shock, then I used Chinese to answerher.
The waiter was kind too. She started using Spanish, Japanese, French toanswer me, but he never used Chinese. If he used Chinese, then that will be thetime for me to reply. I run to my father’s room, crying, and telling thatsomeone is in my room and I doesn’t know why he was there. After my fathersolved the problem for me.
We were all laughing about it. My father said, “In the Philippines, eating with hands are their culture, youwill never see this in Taiwan. ” In Taiwan, everybody use chopsticks to eat. Nobody will use spoon and folk to eat, because that’s a kind of hard. Just likemy first time used the spoon and folk.
I doesn’t know either to use my left handto hold spoon or use my right hand. People have longer weekend than Taiwan. Both Sunday and Saturday are theirweekend. In Taiwan, we can only have Sunday and half Saturday. For adults, theyeven only have Sunday to rest. That’s unfair to adults.
They should have longerweekend then kids, because they worked so hard. So, adults most be exhaustedafter hard work. People are happy go lucky. They wouldn’t care much money they earn each day. They wanted to have better life than earning more money.
Whenever they got aserious problem, like no place to overnight, they were try to find a place tostay like bus station. But if they couldn’t find it, they won’t worry too much. Also, when I’m in downtown, they always smile at me. They wouldn’t care where Icame from. They were show me their music, dance and even acrobatics.
I reallyenjoyed it, though I need to pay for it sometimes. In Taiwan, it is impossibleto see those shows. All they want is money, money and money. People wanted toearn as much as they can, so that they will have better live in the future.
