filipinos & filipinas

i had the opportunity to visit the philippines last week to conduct a workshop for the top management of my subsidiary office. it was a short 3-day duration (that actually was a one day affair) and my stay was almost entirely restricted to the hotel, except for a 1-hour drive around the suburb city. nonetheless, i found the trip rather interesting. or more specifically, the people i interacted with were rather liberal (in a sexual way). here's why...

firstly, the subsidiary has quite a few female staff in the senior ranks. and i was surprised when, during dinner, one of the guys asked me if i knew their marital status, i.e., whether they were married or not. and he went down the names, one by one... is she married? i heard, she's not... how about her, i think she was but no longer now... how about this other one?... that was the gist of the whole conversation where this guy tried to figure out/ extract from me information about their marital status. and he added that in today's world, woman who are up tend to be unmarried, and how woman's role would be more balanced if they had kept themselves to the house... haha. how's that for being sexist!? and the irony was - this guy seemed rather henpecked, judging by how often he had to answer his phone and to report his whereabouts to his wife... hmmm...

secondly, as it was an official dinner, everybody had to dress up for the occasion. and amongst the staff was this 50-plus year old auntie (who's also a member of the senior management staff). she appeared in a very nice light brown-colour silk-like material blouse and had a black shawl draped over her shoulder. she certainly looked very presentable and well co-ordinated. nonetheless, the light brown colour of her blouse matched her skin tone and it was not too long before her lady boss commented that she looked naked from afar. if i were her, i would have blushed straight-away from embarrassment and be self-conscious. but this auntie (who reminded me of mrs aquino, the well-respected late ex-president of the philippines) simply brushed it off with a oh is it? rather diva, i must say, and so unlike her auntie image. and then she whipped out her mobile, struck a pose, smiled and took a photo of herself. she then took a looked at the photo and said something in tagalog to people around her. well, of cos i couldn't understand tagalog and didn't quite understand what she said. but i caught quite a few words such as "naked", "cleavage", "big breast". and coming from an auntie, wasn't it a tat unexpected and surprising? lol!

last but not least, it was this interesting lady who went around telling people the effects alcohol had on her. you see, we had cocktail before dinner and was served. and a few of the staff, including the lady boss drank. the lady boss also went around offering wine to all her staff. it so happened that this particular lady staff, who looked like the party-sort despite her close to 50 years of age, declined politely. and when asked why, she replied that she wanted to be a good host and not be subjected to the effects of wine. and she added that it was becos i will get horny when i drink wine... i was quite speechless when she told me that and i didn't know how to react, other than to smile shyly. but i think it was just me, cos all her other male colleagues seemed pretty ok with it and chatted along with her as though it was the most normal thing to say... hmmm... i will never even tell my male colleagues when i get horny!

from this simple 3 incidents, and much as i dislike generalizing, i concluded that perhaps this is something that reflects the filipino society as a whole. a very male chauvinistic society, yet very liberal when it comes to verbalizing sex-related issues. 

quite interesting right? 

:-)