Before we start, what do I mean by flighty? I have seen the modern usage of flighty culture. While I appreciate the concept, that is not what I mean. I use flighty in its traditional sense. Flighty means fickle and irresponsible, frivolous, undependable, capricious, unstable, skittish, forgetful, volatile and excitable, inconsistent, unserious, guided by whim or fancy rather than by judgment or settled purpose. And that is exactly what I mean when I use the term flighty culture here. So with that clarification, let's get started.
In no particular order:
In no particular order:
- If you see it, buy it
Inventory management is beyond the Philippines. I don't know if it is a function of the shipping logistics of seven thousand plus islands, or if it is a function of Philippine culture, or both. But I suspect culture plays at least as large a role as cumbersome logistics. If it is consumable, buy more than one; in fact, buy all they have. It may be a while before you see it again. And you may never see it again. - Electricity is expensive
I cannot speak for everywhere in the Philippines, but we pay roughly double the rate we were paying in North Carolina. - The power goes out routinely
And because electricity is so expensive, most Filipinos use very little. Consequently, when the power goes out, you will notice, but the Filipinos around you will not. - No traffic law enforcement
The traffic laws in the Philippines are basically identical to those in the United States. They are just not seriously enforced. The easiest way to improve quality of life in the Philippines would be for the government to enforce the traffic laws. But I never see any movement in this direction.
This is not a question of resources; there are an abundance of law enforcement officers who could do this. Rather this is a choice that the Filipinos have made. - Chaos reigns supreme
So the roads are chaos just like everything else. Chaos is a life style choice here. And yes, it is a choice. I know it is a choice because I notice places where it does not apply: Banks, and high end shopping malls and hotels. But that's the extent of it. Chaos everywhere else. - There are no addresses
Just one aspect of the chaos. Sure there are some addresses, but most buildings are not marked. Everyone walks around with a smartphone, but they make no attempt to use modern mapping apps available to overcome this problem. Google Plus Codes and apps like What3Words. No addresses required. But again, they choose chaos. More on smartphones below. - There is no mail
Bills are delivered by hand, and now by email. There are post offices, but you must go to them because they will not come to you. No mail also means that you must go somewhere to pay those bills. - Lack of seriousness
No mail is a great example of the lack of seriousness that you find here. Filipinos are just not serious people. About anything. Traffic, education, medical care, agriculture, sanitation, water systems, just pick any topic and you find something that they are not serious about.
Now of course, there are some serious people here. And of course, there are plenty of unserious people in the West. I think it is a question of percentages. There are enough serious people in the West to make the societies work. Likewise with Japan, Singapore, etc. Evidently, there are a lot less in the Philippines. See Bifurcated Culture below. - There are no landfills
Well I am sure there are, but there is no sanitation infrastructure. And because of this, most people either burn their own trash, or throw it in the river. This is how the Pacific Ocean came to be the primary landfill for the entire country. And the most common smells in the Philippines are not adobo, lumpia, and lechon cooking, but rather burning plastics. - Smartphones and smartphone zombies are everywhere
It is difficult to describe this phenomenon. The smartphones are toys, and never tools. And the last thing the Philippines needs is a ubiquitous gadget that fosters a lack of seriousness. I would say that the introduction of smartphones has been a cultural disaster for the Philippines. Most people use their toys everywhere and without headphones. Quiet dinner with the wife in a fancy restaurant? No chance. - Noise
This brings me to noise in general. The Philippines is the loudest place I have ever visited. Noise is everywhere. And in the Philippines there are only two volume levels: Off and as high as it goes. If you are looking for peace and quiet, I urge you to not come here.
One other note about the noise: Crisp amplification is limited by the quality of the speakers. And all speakers have a limit to their clarity before the sound becomes distorted. That is, there is a point at which, it is so loud, that you cannot understand what is being amplified, the voice or the music, etc. In the Philippines, you can rarely understand the voices because the volume levels are too high. And it never occurs to them to turn it down a bit.
Ultimately the noise just amplifies the chaos. - There is little appreciation and little consideration
This takes a while to notice because Filipinos are extremely pleasant on a surface level. But live here a while and you will see this often and everywhere. The noise is only the first thing you will notice. - Karaoke
The noise and lack of consideration warnings absolutely apply to the primary Filipino pastime of karaoke. I have never understood why karaoke has to be amplified at all, much less at full blast. But if you cannot hear it half a kilometer away, evidently there's no fun in it. - Undervalued time and no urgency
As I mentioned at the start, everyone knows about Filipino Time, the tendency of Filipinos to be late. But where does this come from? I think two places. One is the lack of consideration mentioned above. While some may care about their own time, Filipinos have practically no consideration for the time of others. Two is the fact that many of them do not even care about their own time. When you have very little to do, time is unimportant. And I promise you this, if you do not care about your own time, you certainly will not care about someone else's time.
Similarly, there is no urgency in the Philippines. For anything. I have never once seen a Filipino or a group of Filipinos or a business or a government agency do anything with any urgency whatsoever. It is as if the concept does not exist. As an example, we once sat in an airport for twelve hours because our flight was moved from seven am to seven pm; of course without notice. But we seemed to be the only people who cared. Luckily I had booked our connecting flight for the next day, just because of this type of unforeseen nonsense that is so very common here.
Actually, this is not entirely true. I once saw a Jollibee gutted and renovated. This was done in maybe three weeks total. In fact, there was urgency to get the place re-opened. But this sort of thing is rare. - Acceptance and proliferation of the alphabet people
There is a large LBGTQIA+ community in the Philippines. I do not know if more people here identify as part of this community, or if people here feel more comfortable being open about it. But either way, you notice more of this in the Philippines than elsewhere.
Gender roles are heavily segregated here. And I do wonder if this is not a backlash against the mainstream idea of what it means to be a man. - Breadwinner culture
You will find many families with one breadwinner. And that gives others in the family an excuse to not work or be under-employed. Sometimes the money that the breadwinner shares with his or her family is used for legitimate expenses. But too often it is not. A sense of familial duty, and often guilt, keeps the money flowing regardless of how it is ultimately used. - Bifurcated culture
There are people in the Philippines, millions of them, who are serious and motivated and ambitious. Of course there are. And many of these people end up leaving to work overseas. Leaving the people behind who are less serious, less motivated, and less ambitious. So if you are impressed with the Filipinos you have met in your own country, like I was, just understand that you will not often find that when you get here. - Bahala na culture
Before coming to the Philippines, one needs to learn the cultural term bahala na. I have written somewhat empathically about this in Half-Assed as a Cultural Norm, where I wrote about the lack of exposure to conscientious behavior. But what I have learned, and what we have to accept, is like most things in life, doing a half-assed job is a choice. And there are consequences to this choice. - Prejudice against hard work
In the bifurcated and breadwinner and bahala na culture, work is most often done elsewhere, whether overseas, or in Manila, or just in town at the office. But in the provinces, if you are seen to be working hard or even just generally busy, many Filipinos will have a negative perception of you and your busyness. Yes, it is odd. I think it has to do with their belief that if you are trying to better yourself, you believe that you are better than them. And of course, you are. You know it and they know it. And they do not like it.
If you did not believe that you are better than them, then you would loaf around all day like they do. I mean, obviously. - Scam culture
I will tell you my first experience with this, but it never ends. So we cook with propane, and propane trucks drive around all day, and they only take cash. The first time they came to us, I gave the driver cash, but I needed change. Response: No sorry, I don't have change. He was just hoping to put a few extra pesos in his pocket. - Other money issues
You will pay a skin tax on any merchandise items that are not pre-priced. So shop accordingly. Your Filipina's family will ask for money. This may well be okay, but it is expected that you will give it to them. And if you do not, or cannot, that too is okay, but your relationship with them will suffer. Give some thought to the moral dimensions of this dynamic. - Limited customer service
If you are used to United States levels of customer service, you will be disappointed in the limited customer service you find here. But it is really just a question of adjusting your expectations. - Low trust society
Limited customer service is a function, one of many, of a low trust society. If you cannot trust people, you surely cannot accept their merchandise returns. This attitude spreads to every nook and cranny of society. And coming from a high trust society, it takes some getting used to. - Pervasive fickleness
I do not know how else to label this. But it is a cultural phenomenon here that applies to everything. Filipinos are flighty people. Very little can be agreed on in advance, because one or more parties will change their minds, often without informing the others. Dangerous last second lane changes on the highway, usually to make a turn, are epidemic. I think it goes back to the lack of seriousness. This leads to a lack of dependability and a lack of predictability and a lack of consistency. Get used to it. - Beware questions
It is worth knowing that in the Philippines there is a cultural aversion to questions. Both asking questions and receiving questions. At first I thought this was a function of there being something to hide or something shady. And it is certainly true that some Filipinos will interpret any question as an accusation. But I now realize that this has more to do with sheer lack of interest. They have no interest in asking and they have no interest in answering. Ultimately, they have no interest in knowing. And I think this demonstrates a fundamental, cultural lack of curiosity. Coming from the West, which is a curious culture, this is a difficult adjustment. - Restaurants and utensils
Let me end with restaurants. Many Filipinos will eat with their hands at home. But I have never seen this in restaurants. They will use utensils. But just know in advance, that it is only the high end restaurants that will give you a knife. Low and mid-range restaurants will not give you a knife, and if you ask, they do not even have knives available. So order accordingly. This is so pervasive that I know of one buffet style restaurant that is so averse to giving their patrons knives that when I order the pork chops, the server will take out a pair of kitchen shears and cut the pork chop up before serving it. And this is fortunate because like everywhere else, you are only offered a fork and spoon. I don't get it.
There are other cultural oddities, like skin whitening, that are truly infuriating, but that do not really affect an expat's life and routine. Further, I have left out political and religious issues. I will leave those for Filipinos to discuss themselves. This is a purely cultural list; well as much as that is possible. I think it is interesting to note that other than my brief comments on money, none of the above are the result of poverty or the third world status of the Philippines. No, these are cultural choices that Filipinos make. And I offer this list not to change, or even criticize the Philippines. I did not come here to change the Philippines.
The art of living in the Philippines is learning to endure the cultural flightiness. Money and experience help. It also helps, if you can manage it, to maintain a certain degree of separation from the native culture. But that is my own strategy. Others might think, but I am going there to immerse myself in the Philippine culture. That works for some.
So let me offer you a thought experiment, as a sort of test. You are sitting in a nice restaurant having a quiet dinner with your wife, and the table right behind you has four people, all on their smartphones, and none of them are using headphones or ear buds. And all of their respective volumes are turned up to full blast. And it is not just that table, as you look around the restaurant, most occupied tables share this same lack of consideration for others. So you go find the manager to complain, and you find him, sitting at an unoccupied table having a Zoom-style call with his wife on his smartphone. Again without headphones. He's shouting because she is having difficulty hearing him.
That's the setup; here's the test: Is this okay with you? And it is not only in nice restaurants; maybe you are in an elevator or on a bus. Maybe you are in a fancy department store. Is this okay with you? But it does not end at the restaurant, when you get home, your neighbors are having a party, on a Monday night, singing karaoke at the top of their lungs, which is not as loud as the over-amplified music, until after midnight. Because they do not work the next day, and they may well not work at all. Because they have an overseas foreign worker (OFW) breadwinner in the family who regularly sends them money. Is that okay with you?
It is worth pointing out that many of your neighbors are in this situation, to one degree or another. And none of them have all that much to do tomorrow.
Here is another, highly relevant, test. Many of the above factors will only affect you in small ways, or only every so often. But it is the cumulative effect of the culture that you must consider and ask yourself: Is that okay? Can I live like that?
If so, you might love Philippines culture and want to immerse yourself in it. If not, you will have to find ways of enduring Philippines culture. So decide for yourself. I offer this list to other potential expats thinking about relocating here. Make of it what you will.
But no one else is going to tell you.