My “Phil-ward Flight” Part 2

My flight back to the Philippines with Northwest turned out to be less than pleasant, but certainly not because of my seat neighbor, John, a 25-year-old soldier on leave from the 10th Mountain Division. In part 1 of this short series I describe him and a bit of our conversation concerning his 5 years in the army as an artillery sergeant. Within minutes, I liked him. And even though his right shoulder and arm would bulge over into my side of the armrest despite his valiant efforts to prevent it, I didn’t regret that he was there in the least, as his easy-going personality and quiet courtesy overcame all else. After spending most of a day with him I can say that I hope the ranks of the U.S. Army are filled with the likes of him—the man is a total gentleman.

Now, I have heard of a few incidents of love interest between Iraqi women and American servicemen, even of the occasional marriage, but I’ve never heard of such a thing happening in Afghanistan. So, I asked John if he had ever met any Afghan womenfolk during his months there. He grinned as if that was the stupidest thing anyone could ever imagine. He said that where he was the women only rarely came outside, and when they did it was after sundown when they moved around in the shadows always covered from head to toe.

Since we were on the subject of women, and with him being a single good-looking young fellow, it was only natural that our conversation turned to possible “romantic” pursuits while he visited the Phils. Ever the wet blanket, I told him that there were no sweeter women anywhere in the world, BUT….! There’s always one or two of those floating about, and when it comes to this place there are MORE than a couple. I decided I’d better clue in my new young friend on some of the dangers lurking out there for unsuspecting foreign tourists like him. I was happy to see that he took great interest in everything I had to say about the possible perils involved.

He already knew all about the young American marine “found guilty” of rape last year in Manila. I told him that most of us living here are highly suspicious of the verdict, mostly because so many other outsiders are being pulled off the street all the time here by corrupt cops for supposedly committing rape. I told him that I knew of a tourist just last week that sat in a jail cell for two days, also for an alleged rape, when the only real “crime” he committed was paying a girl’s barfine in good faith.

Tourists think that paying a barfine is a safe way to avoid being taken in on the old “rape con game,” but it seems that these days nothing can prevent "the shake down" once marked for it. In fact, the tourist in question was never actually charged with any crime. He did exactly what they cajoled him to do and paid off. Then, he got his butt on the first plane he could find out of the country. In the marine’s case, if the U.S. State Department and the Marine Corps had been smart, paying off is also what they should have done in the first place. It's how things are done here anyway. I doubt seriously if that mistake will ever be made again by the Marine Corps or by anyone else affiliated with the U.S. government in a similar situation.

And evidently, the word I heard as of last year is that Middle Eastern and Indian businessmen are finding themselves similarly targeted in the “high rent” Manila nightclub district as well. The ploy goes like this: The tourist picks up a girl in a club and all seems well until he gets the seemingly willing woman into his hotel room. Suddenly, the girl rumples her hair, tears at her clothing and screams rape. At this point, the bewildered tourist finds a platoon of men in uniform booming at his hotel door. Usually, in short order, the stunned and frightened fellow is given two options. Immediately, he chooses the one involving paying a lot of money to make the whole thing go away. None of this makes it into the news, much less on a blotter and never on a report. So, ignorant tourists continue to stream in, only to be “harvested.” It’s a great cash cow, yes?

After my myriad of scary stories, all of which I meant to serve as a warning to the young fellow, he looked quite shaken, shocked even. He shook his head alarmed saying, “Sounds like maybe I should never leave my hotel room!”

I laughed, “John, what kind of a guy would I be if I didn’t clue you in on what to watch out for over there? You are particularly vulnerable, because if you get picked up on one of these scams, as an active duty soldier, you have NO choice but to pay, no matter how innocent you are. In fact, last summer a marine having some fun in Balibago on leave from Okinawa was picked up on a bogus charge and ended up paying up after several days for that exact reason. The Army won’t care if you ARE innocent; all they want is for your happy ass to be back at the base when your leave is over. So you just be careful, okay?”

John told me that once he gets to Manila he’s meeting up with two buddies from his hometown in Central Pennsylvania, neither of which is in the military. They chose the Philippines to visit because one of the guys has family in Rizal, which is where John is heading as soon as the plane lands in Manila. After that, the plan is for all three of them to fly on to Boracay for the rest of their stay.

“That’s good. If one of you is from the Philippines then you will be that much safer,” I said, trying to sound more reassuring.

“Well, not necessarily,” he said hesitantly, “he went to the States when he was 7 and this is his first time back.”

“Oh? No kidding?” I sucked air over my lips and teeth with a pained expression and agreed with his misgivings, “Yeah, you’re right. That’s not so good after all.”

Knowing that we would be landing in Manila just before midnight I cautioned John not to jump into any old taxi that would probably just rip him off upon seeing he was a “virgin tourist” and thus ripe for the picking. Instead, I urged him to use one of the taxi services registered at the terminal. An American guy sitting in the seat to John’s left, who had been listening in and nodding, now weighed in and agreed with me.

This new guy has an interesting story. He’s heading to Quezon City to meet with his fiancée, a girl he met online when she was 17. He’s probably in his early to mid-40s, typical I’ve found of the relationship ages between foreign men and Filipina women. He says this is his fourth time back since he met her some three years ago. His intent is to petition her to the US on a fiancée visa. I wished him good luck, but inwardly smirked, thinking that she’d probably dump him as soon as she could. Sorry for the cynicism, but that’s normally how it goes for those types of liaisons.

By this time the flight attendants were cleaning up after we had finished our predictable in-flight meal of chicken or beef. We were more than two and a half hours out of Detroit and well over Northern Canada.

At this point I’ll write verbatim from my notebook:

“There’s a Problem!… according to the pilot on the loudspeaker we just lost oil quantity in our number three engine so they had to shut the engine down. He says we are heading back to Detroit. G** Damn it! So, looks like an overnight stay in Detroit before heading to Manila. Oh, JOY!”

That’s enough for now. I don’t want to bore Ed Abbey. Part 3 coming up in a day or two.

Armenian Genocide

Even though it happened way back in 1915 throughout much of Eastern Turkey, I’m not surprised in the least that the Armenian Genocide committed by the Ottoman Turks is still today such an inflammatory topic (although the Turkish state denies genocide per se) almost a century after it took place.

By happenstance many years ago, I once painfully withstood an example of the long-smoldering ire firsthand from one of the surviving genocide victims, an aged Armenian grandmother. I still remember her bitter rage when, due to my own youthful imprudence, she misdirected her vitriol at me.

Getting to how this unpleasant confrontation happened in the first place begins with the irate old Armenian woman’s grandson, who happened to be one of THE best men I’ve ever had the pleasure of calling friend. He was a dark haired, dark featured fellow with a face punctuated with huge Byzantium-like eyes that gave him a childlike innocent look, along with a substantial nose common to many from that part of the world. His name was Michael Boloyan, an Armenian-American Marine reservist.

It was my good fortune that he had signed up for a stint with the U.S. Marine Air Reserve. Subsequently, he was based at Alameda Naval Air Station, where I too was stationed. I say “my good fortune,” because his enlistment in the Marines provided me the opportunity to get to know him.

Mike’s innate goodness almost single-handedly kept me from falling headlong into the iniquitous mire that can be the U.S. Marine Corps. As an impressionable 18-year-old still not entirely sure of my place in the world, I found myself sinking into the same wicked habits that I was seeing around me in the older marines, many of whom displayed a self-indulgent foulness of word and spirit that I never dreamed existed just weeks before during my previous comparatively naive schoolboy existence.

Mike Boloyan NEVER used foul language, and even when I last saw him when he was already in his early twenties, believe it or not, I honestly think the unmarried fellow was still a virgin. If you know Armenians, then you know they are a deeply spiritual Christian folk and do not take their beliefs lightly as many US Christians tend to in these post-modern times. He had never been to Armenia, but within the walls of his family’s modest home located on a quiet street in Berkeley, California, he was very much within the culture of the old country. He wholeheartedly wrapped his traditional Armenian way of life around him like a comfortable old blanket.

Michael’s goodness was infectious. When around him, like him, I never used coarse language. He had that affect on people. In fact, when other marines were not so inclined to watch themselves in his presence I felt obliged to step up and ask them to mind their potty mouths. Mike would just shake his head and grin shyly saying, “Phil, you don’t have to do that.”

He was an auto upholsterer and had been since before turning 16. I believe he worked in his chosen trade in a small shop in or near Berkeley, and the years of stretching fabric had made Mike’s hands the most powerful I’d ever seen. The saying “he doesn’t know his own strength” definitely applied to Mike. You shook hands with him at your own risk. Without realizing it, even what he considered to be a gentle squeeze of a handshake felt like a vicious death grip to mere mortal-handed people like myself. For such a sweet guy, his otherwise gentle paws were unintentional metacarpal crushers.

Several times, during the years I knew him from the late 70s to early 80s, Mike invited me into his family’s home for dinner. There were other family members around whom I’ve long since forgotten, but I still vividly remember Mike’s feisty grandmother, who was already very old then—I think well into her 70s—when I first met her in 1976. I only wish he would have given me a briefing on what NOT to say around the old girl, because as far as she was concerned I made the ultimate booboo, and I don’t think she ever forgave me for it.

I had never heard of Armenia before meeting Mike, but I was very familiar with Armenia’s western neighbor, the country of Turkey, having lived there twice for a number of years during the 60s. My Turkish experiences were mostly pleasant, and still quite fresh in my mind having last departed from there just 5 years earlier. My eagerness to speak well of my Turkish experiences had never betrayed me before, but my enthusiasm for things Turkish was about to get me into some very deep doo-doo as Michael introduced me to his diminutive old grandma.

With enormous enthusiasm and affection, she shook my as yet unblemished teenage hand with both of hers. Her own tiny hands were shrunken, wrinkled and mottled, yet cool and pleasant. From a face ravaged and withered by a lifetime of difficulties she smiled up at me with eyes filled with interested friendliness. Cocking her head in curiosity, she seemed to peer into my soul. All the while, she spoke rapidly in Armenian, while Michael answered her in turn, I presumed telling her all about me. It all sounded like Greek to me. By this time I felt great pressure to make a good impression, but alas, it was not to be… Soon, unwittingly, I was about to make one of the biggest gaffs of my young life…

The old woman led me into a formal parlor and Michael followed. The first thing I noticed were portraits and family photos that very nearly covered all four walls of the small room. All the photos were very old and in tones of faded black-and-white. Michael explained to me that these were photographs of long dead relatives from when his family used to live in Turkey many decades before.

Aha! An opportunity! I practically blurted, “Oh really! I used to live in Turkey. I really enjoyed it and met some nice people there!”

As I started gushing about Turkey and Turks, Michael attempted to interrupt me and waved his arms at me urgently behind his grandma to try make me stop, but at that young age I was too obtuse to understand that I was totally messing up. I started to get the picture, but it was too late.

The old woman’s sweet demeanor did an immediate 180-degree turnaround on me. I was no longer a nice young man to be esteemed; now, I was someone who had consorted with the devil himself. Her face hardened with hatred and heated words erupted like machine gun fire from her mouth. I had no idea why she was suddenly so furious with me, but I knew it had something to do with Turks. I was stunned and mortified. Only a few months before, I had learned to shrug off and withstand the barrage of artificial fury from a horde of marine drill instructors, but I had never encountered this kind of actual visceral hatred before. It was disconcerting to say the least.

Michael did his best to soothe her but she was having none of it. I stood there completely helpless, not yet even knowing what I had done wrong. She continued to assail me in heated Armenian, while I assumed Michael apologized for me as he attempted to smooth things over. I told him to please tell her that whatever I had said that I was very sorry.

In a voice filled with regret he said, “It’s okay Phil. I’ll explain later. Just please, don’t talk about the times you lived in…” he paused and continued, “…that country… Okay?”

Eventually her anger waned, but still she insisted on pointing out to me each of her dead relatives enshrined on the walls around us. I was to find out with plenty of horrific detail that each had been murdered by the Ottoman Turks during the convoluted happenings of The Great War, now known as World War I. I remember vividly that after all those years since the mass killings—by that time more than 60 years—that there was no apparent grief left in the bosom of the animated old woman; instead, I saw nothing in her but unadulterated fury. I realized too late that even though she could not speak English she certainly understood enough to know that I had been speaking well of her sworn enemies.

Regrettably for me, I didn’t know it then, but learned later (beginning on that day!) that the Ottomans did not make many friends during the centuries of their empire. They tended to cruelty and slaughter in all the regions over which they ruled, and apparently, the religion of the people they dominated did not much matter. In fact, even though the Ottomans were Muslim, they committed the same sort of heinous acts in the Islamic lands they controlled as they did to the Christian Armenians.

Indeed, the Arabs under the Englishman, Lawrence, exacted with great relish many acts of gory revenge against the Turks as they drove them ignominiously from Arabia and from all of the lands of the Middle East. Now it makes sense that all that "Lawrence of Arabia" stuff happened during the same period of Ottoman colonial collapse that caused the Turks—in their time of desperate defeat—to expel and kill Armenians by the hundreds of thousands from Eastern Turkey.

Michael’s grandma saw my discomfiture and calmed somewhat, but only to the point that she stopped her verbal assault on me. She went from that to trying to convince me that there could be nothing virtuous about Turkey, or from any Turk for that matter. I was reduced to chastened silence and quiet nodding as she explained the deaths of each of her long departed family members. I’ve never seen anything like it. Even after 60 years, to her, all those people on the wall had died just the other day. She went to her grave not long after that still filled with loathing and seething detestation. It was the most abject history lesson that I’ve ever received.

On the other hand, when I lived in Japan in the early 80s not too many years after my encounter with the unforgiving Armenian woman, I met another woman who had also experienced the cruel loss of family to callous murder, yet she had an entirely different outlook toward her enemies. Her name was Lonnie. She had been just a young girl living in the Tarlac area of the Philippines during the time of the Japanese occupation of 1941 to 1945. Learning of this and always interested in speaking to people of their wartime experiences, I asked her what it was like.

Speaking slowly with great sadness she shared with me a horrendous story. When she was 6 and her brother just 3, a Japanese patrol passed by their modest nipa house where they had been playing outside. Suddenly, one of the soldiers impulsively grabbed her tiny brother by a leg and tossed him high in the air causing him to wail in fear. Before the little lad could hit the ground the cruel soldier caught the tiny tot on the tip of his bayonet, killing him instantly and abruptly ending the toddler’s plaintive screams.

Horrified and sickened, I asked her, “Lonnie, how can you live in this country knowing that these are the people that did that terrible thing to your little brother? Some of these old guys around here actually served in the Philippines during the war, you know that don’t you? You know what? My landlord TOLD me he had served there. How do you do it? I don’t think I could.”

I’ll never forget what she said: “Phil, you can’t hate forever or it will destroy you. Eventually I forgave them, because that’s what our Lord would want us to do. My brother is gone, but now he’s in a better place with God.”

As a Christian, I knew that technically, Lonnie was right, still… I think Michael’s grandmother’s response of continuing her hatred over the decades is probably the more normal of the two women’s very different responses. To forgive, especially to forgive murder of family, is not natural and is probably the most difficult thing anyone can do, especially considering the nature of what both of those women experienced in their lives.

Lonnie died of an aneurysm not long after she shared her story with me. She’s buried in the American cemetery out on Clark these past 23 years. I used to wonder if she didn’t die from the emotional strain of what she witnessed all those years ago as a young girl. I’m sure she was in the throes of PTSD, the bodily stresses of which can really mess with the human physiology. I hope that like her brother she too is now in a better place.

As far as the immediate furor over Nancy Pelosi’s Congressional insistence on declaring that our ally, Turkey, committed genocide against the Armenians almost 100 years ago, I wish she wouldn’t. For one thing, we can’t force any country to feel remorse when they aren’t willing to do so. To tweak them now, when we are so utterly dependent on Turkey’s cooperation in keeping supplies flowing into Iraq makes me think that she is knowingly trying to sabotage our current good relationship with this fellow NATO nation. If Al Qaeda and the Shia militia cannot cause us to lose perhaps she thinks she can personally make it happen through this backdoor method.

Aside from the international considerations of the Armenian genocide, I personally wish the Turks would do what Germany did long ago concerning its own considerable misdeeds during WWII, and just admit that the transgression happened and apologize. It wouldn’t cost them anything but pride, as I’m sure we are long past any possibility of reparations. We can't punish a country for things done more than four generations ago. It just isn't feasible or right.

Unfortunately, the belligerent attitude of many contemporary Turks toward the 1915 massacre has done nothing to heal old wounds. I foresee the current standoff between Turks and Armenians concerning this issue continuing for at least another 100 years. That seems to be how they do things in that part of the world.

Even so, many modern Armenians want to put this ugly history behind them so that they can move on and normalize relations with the Turks. After all, Armenia is landlocked and shares a vast border with Turkey. The Armenian economy could stand a dose of normalization with their ancient enemy, and most modern Armenians know it. Yet, this probably cannot happen until the Turks take the first step and admit that the wrong happened all those decades ago.

To my practical American mind, I have a difficult time understanding how this has not happened already. I mean, my own family has long since forgiven the English for what they did to my Irish and Scottish ancestors; and we’ve also pardoned the Canadian Tories for murdering our grandfather, Samuel Lount, way back in 1838 in Toronto. How long do you hate people for what their dead great great grandfathers did?

Eventually, as my friend Lonnie reminded me, forgiveness is the only way to go.

"My Phil-ward" Flight" part 1

It’s evening, on the 9th of October. I’m scribbling this in my tiny pocket notebook while sitting in 61G, a seat almost all the way to the back of this thrumming Northwest Boeing 747. We are currently at flight level 30 (that’s 30,000 feet for all you non-aviation types) and the way Northwest has these coach seats crammed into this giant aluminum tube, I’m feeling like one sardine in a can filled with them.

Here’s a note: Northwest appears to be the only airline that still uses the archaic, not to mention anarchic, “free for all” method of seating their coach passengers. This happens after the usual initial boarding of all “special needs types,” the “Ritchie Rich 1st classers, the business class hoity-toities,” followed by the lowly frequent fliers, who are still higher on the passenger totem pole than us back-of-the-bus tourist travelers.

American and United does not do it like that (they board the aircraft progressively from the rear), and it could be that Northwest only does it "Filipino style" on flights involving Manila as a destination, since anyway, from what I saw, the “Manila travelers” almost universally were want to ignore ALL verbal instructions from the Northwest people in charge of the boarding process. The typical near bum rush of Manila bound (or those coming from Manila) passengers would happen as soon as any boarding is called. This mass of impatient humanity causes all the pre and initial boarders to have to push and “excuse” their way through them to the gate. (I don’t know why this happens, but the same “every man for himself” attitude exists on the roadways as well.)

In fact, my point was underscored yet again when we at long last landed in Manila. I shook my head knowingly as we speed-taxied toward the terminal, when the Filipino-only flight attendants had to spring to their feet, putting themselves at risk by the way, and rush forward up the aisles actually yelling at the dozen or so miscreant travelers, and right in their faces, to get them to “PLEASE sit down!” as the aircraft was still only barely midway to the terminal.

One disgusted Pinay-American seated two rows behind me loudly muttered as her Fil-Am husband shushed her, “That’s right, that’s the Filipino style!,” she said bitterly. I think she was just embarrassed by and for her countrymen. But she’s right, the Phils mind-set seems to be to disregard any rule, regulation or instruction, and to do so until they are forced to comply. Truthfully, I think many foreigners living here eventually embrace this way of thinking as well, and wholeheartedly—and oh yes, sometimes myself included.

But I’m way ahead of myself. About two hours ago, upon embarking the plane, I took my seat near the back on the inside aisle on the right side of the 747. I hoped desperately that my one seat neighbor to my left was going to be small (unlike me!). My hopes were encouraged when a tiny Pinay took her seat there. Yes!

Then, tragedy… She was in the wrong seat. The guy who was supposed to be there was also in the wrong seat. I guess I was the only one in my row able to decipher the proper seat location on our individual boarding passes. What’s up with that? I mean I’m no genius.

By the time the seating was sorted out, the person firmly planted next to me was a wide body artillery soldier on vacation from Fort Drum, New York, where he is stationed with the 10th Mountain Division. He sits there now as I scribble this, and after chatting a bit he seems quite the fellow with his high-and-tight haircut and—unfortunately for me and for the guy sitting to his left—extremely broad shoulders. He is so wide in fact, that the outside edge of his well-developed arms extends at least two inches into the adjacent seat spaces, including MINE!

Anyway, he’s a good guy, and I can see he’s doing his level best to try and keep himself tucked into the middle of his own area, although with little success. The man is not tall, he says just 5’10”, but he’s brawny from hours in the gym, which has added lots of beef to his already ample bone structure. The result is that he spills out on both sides of his seat. It feels like a warm slab of muscular beef is pushing into me from my left. It’s giving me the screaming willies and I STILL have more than 10 hours to deal with it!

His name is Jon or John. He’s been in the army for 5 years now. He joined up out of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania just as I was getting out. Can that really be? Dang it, but time flies! Attempting to draw him out—in other words, being my normal nosey self—I offered some bits about my own military past in the Marines and Air Force.

John has opinions on both of my prior service branches saying that the Air Force is good because it seems to offer a lot better and more options when it comes to assignments, compared to the Army that is. And as far as my Marine past, he says that the ex-Marines he knows in the Army make very good soldiers, and, are highly respected… (I have to like that; I’d say he buttered me up pretty good with those comments! If he were running for something, I’d vote for him…)

He’s done a tour in Afghanistan, having returned more than a year ago, saying “it wasn’t that bad.” As an artillerist, he spent more than a year at a tiny FOB, or forward operating base, where he and his mates whiled away the endless string of days providing artillery support to the grunts engaging Taliban fighters among the peaks and valleys of Eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistani border. I asked him what it was like trying to provide accurate shots on sheer mountain faces. He said as long as the spotters could give them a good grid then they could drop rounds dead on the enemy, the only consideration being that they had to use a very high firing angle because of the towering peaks between them and the target.

According to John, compared to what the infantry (whom they supported) went through in the same war fighting theater—where those unfortunate fellows spent weeks at a time climbing up and down the steep Afghan mountainsides in their quest for the enemy—compared to them, he and his artillery soldiers “had it made.” In the relative safety behind the wire and walls of his permanent outpost, he spent his months working out in their “gym” or surfing the web and emailing by way of a satellite internet hookup. (Sounds like war in the new millennium!)

Just the same, he became slightly animated (for him, since he’s a very low-key guy) talking about the almost monthly duels they had on nights lit up by the full moon. That’s when the Taliban would fire rockets at them from the surrounding mountainsides. Spotters would follow the fire trails back to source and an immediate firestorm would be the soldier’s delighted response to the poorly aimed impudence of the backward Taliban. He was very blasé talking about it, as if it were no big deal.

“Most of the rockets they aimed with their eyeballs and would impact harmlessly in the hillsides around us. They hardly ever hit inside the camp,” he claimed.

John joined the Army at 22, already having spent three years after high school working mostly in construction. He said his life was not progressing well as far as a career path was concerned and thought he’d give the army a try. I asked how he ended up in “arty” and he said he told the recruiter he just wanted a military specialty that would get him “in” as soon as possible. Joking I asked, “John! Why didn’t you play at least a LITTLE hard to get?!”

He plans to make the Army a career and do 20 years, possibly longer. If anyone was made for a life in the army it’s this guy. Especially considering his response to one of my bantering questions, “Hey, looks like you bought a brand new pair of running shoes in honor of your trip to the Philippines, eh?”

He admitted as much, “Yeah, normally I never wear civilians clothes anymore. I wear my uniform all the time, for years now. I had to buy these shoes or I wouldn’t have had anything to wear besides my combat boots,” he answered unpretentiously.

“Shoot man. So I take it you don’t have a wife then? Do you live in the barracks? You’re an E-5 sergeant, would the Army pay you to live off base?” I asked.

“No. I’d either have to be married or make E-6 before they’d pay me housing allowance. If I live off base it would come out of my own pocket.”

I tried to fire him up a little by pointing out the injustice of his situation: “John! You do realize that you ARE being paid that housing allowance, but it’s going to the base to maintain your room, right? Does it seem fair to you that some E-2 who happens to elect to get married, perhaps to another E-2, is PAID to live in THEIR own place, while you, as a single E-5 are forced to forfeit YOUR allowance? What kind of room are you getting while the Army SCREWS you out of your BAH (housing allowance) money?” (Am I an instigator or what? I'm almost ashamed as I read that now. Almost!)

“I have my own room big enough for a single bed and a desk and I share a bathroom with the guy in the room next to me,” he answered diffidently.

“And how often does someone come into your room and inspect?”

“Oh, once or twice a month….”

“Now SEE! That’s always pissed me off John. The military takes YOUR money and forces you to live like that while rewarding some private for making the PERSONAL decision to get married. Doesn’t that piss you off too?”

John just grinned and shrugged, saying quietly, “Yeah…, I know, but nothing I can do about it…” (Dang! Does this guy sound like a Filipino or what?! He chuckled when I told him as much. He didn't have a clue as to what I was talking about, which made me chuckle too.)

I stopped hounding him with a laughing remark, which brought on a silent grin and a nod of agreement from the serene soldier, “John, you have the PERFECT attitude for the military, ESPECIALLY for the Army. I predict, that if you manage to live long enough, that you WILL go far my friend!”

After a bit I changed the subject to one more solemn and asked, “Speaking of which, did you guys lose any men during your time in-theater?”

“Oh yeah, we lost several people.” He fell silent, and that’s all he had to say about that…

More to follow on “My Phil-ward flight” part 2.

Thing three

Since my return stateside more than two weeks ago, it seems like I’ve eaten out in restaurants at least once or even twice daily. During these dining forays the very first thing that grabbed my attention was the manner in which I was waited upon. From what I’ve seen, American wait staff are almost universally magnificent, UNLESS, of course, you speak to some "spoiled" Americans who have never been anywhere. From them, you’ll probably hear a much different tune and a whole lot of restaurant ‘war stories!’

So, what does that have to do with the Philippines? At the risk of offending some, I bring this "old" subject up (I’ve mentioned the waiter/waitress thing before, and I know I’ve commented on it in Ed Abbey’s blog too.) because once again, the very first time I entered a stateside restaurant the differences in the styles and enthusiasms between US and Philippine wait staff became immediately obvious to me.

On the very next day after I got here, after a bout of shopping, my parents decided on some Chinese cuisine for lunch. We stopped into a restaurant that I hadn’t been in for probably near 20 years. There were no Asian waiters at that early lunching hour, but my mom assured me that "they" came in for the more active evening dining hours.

[...grin...Chinese food requires Asians of SOME kind, doesn’t it? After all, even if non-Asians are cooking it, Asians SHOULD be serving it. It’s all about the "atmosphere;" Oriental dining, for it to be credible, REQUIRES Oriental faces at least SOMEWHERE in eyeshot!]

The young man who came to our table seemed downright excited to wait on us. Whoa! I’m not used to that after living these past 5 years on Central Luzon. Almost with fanfare he told us his name and that he KNEW that our dining experience would be the best we’d EVER had. Obviously, he was being a little tongue-in cheek, but it was nice that he was so into what he was doing. With great deference he took our orders, brought us appetizers and drinks, and after bringing the main courses, he checked on us at least every 5 or 10 minutes. Without asking first, he brought out water refills, and as far as my iced tea, upon reaching an inch of empty, it was magically restored without my having to ask for it to be so.

All the while, he engaged us in snippets of drive by conversation. By meal’s end we knew that he one day planned on opening his own restaurant and we joked with him about "his dream" as the meal progressed. He engaged us and made us feel glad to be there. Better yet, I felt that he had more than earned his tip, although he had NOT done any more than what is expected of ANY waiter in the USA. Just the same, for his flare alone, I gladly gave him his 15% and then some.

I’ve been to at least 10 restaurants since that initial visit, and although I wasn’t always made to feel as if I had made a new friend like at that Chinese place, the waiters and waitresses have always been quick to serve and never had to be flagged down. I knew within a minute or two that I would hear a cheery, "Everything okay here? Can I refill that coffee cup for ya!"

So, I suppose I’m relating my American dining experiences here under "thing three," because for the most part, it just seems that the waiters and waitresses back in my "country of retirement" are just about as diametrically opposed as they can get to their American waiter and waitressing counterparts, at least when it comes to their willingness to actually "wait."

How do I put this without being offensive? I guess there is no real way to do it but to say it: In the Philippines there is little service in the service industries, such as when it comes to restaurant dining, and that befuddles me, because providing good service only makes common sense when it comes to parting a diner from his tip money.

For five years I’ve mulled over the following conundrum: why is it that people working in Philippine service industries (and NOT just waiters and waitresses!) are so unresponsive and seemingly so unwilling to do their jobs with any alacrity? I think I’ve come up with several answers since this is not a simple problem, and I’m sure several others will read this and have their own theories as well.

First, I’ll tell you a bit about the first time I watched my own daughter do her bit as a waitress. Only a young teenager at the time, she went about her duties in a Mexican restaurant about ten years ago in Jacksonville, Arkansas as I sat eating at a table nearby. After greeting me she seated her first customers, a couple, and handed them their menus. From that point on I barely recognized her as "my" daughter. She laughed at their silly jokes and made some back; everything she told them sounded sincere and enthusiastic, as if THEY were the most important people in her life at that moment. During the course of their meal she never stopped smiling and in fact continued what seemed to me to be a nonstop "kindly assault," and once they had finished and left her a paltry tip, she just laughed it off and continued to give the rest of her customers the same amiable professional attention.

I asked her about the couple’s stinginess and she confided to me under her breath, "Oh, they always tip small like that. It’s no big deal. I don’t think they have much going for them at the moment."

Even knowing this, she STILL waited on them as if they were millionaires. Why did she do that? Because she had developed a work ethic and a sense of pride in what she was doing that caused her to want to do her best no matter what she was paid. How can a father not be proud to observe such a thing in his progeny?

In "thing one," I observed that if Americans were suddenly plopped into the Philippines that they would retain their American ways and attitudes, and I believe that. I also said the same thing would probably be true of Filipinos if plopped in the States, but for this one thing I don’t think so. There is a noticeable enervation in workers of all kinds back in the Phils and I’ve always found that intriguing, because that spiritlessness doesn’t exist among them "outside" of their own country. In other words, "plop" an unenthusiastic waitress from Angeles City into a restaurant in the US and just watch her go! From my experience with pinoys and pinays transplanted to the States, she’ll become every bit as enthusiastic as ANY American, probably more so.

In fact, Filipinos are very much sought after in the US for their work ethic, loyalty and enthusiasm. THAT is what I knew of them BEFORE I retired to the land of their birth. Imagine my confusion when I went there to live and went into my first restaurant and had to get up, chase down, clap my hands, call out to, wave at, snap my fingers repeatedly, or use semaphore to get a waitress’ attention. I thought the first time it happened that it MUST have been a fluke.
‘Surely, not all restaurants are like this,’ I thought. But oh yes, they certainly are.

Over the years I’ve gotten used to having to wave both hands wildly in the air to get a waitress to come over. Usually, they’ll be in a group of other waitresses doing what they love most, socializing. Sometimes a good thing, see "thing two," becomes a bad thing, and that’s what happens with the "socializing thing" at times.

At the VFW restaurant in Balibago, where I used to dine on occasion, I even tried to "teach" a waitress just exactly what I expected from her to wit: I placed ten pesos on the middle of the table and told her that every time she checked on me that I would add another ten to "the pile." She smiled, eventually brought me my food and a single glass of water, and that was the last time I saw her until I was ready for my check. I had been prepared to leave her as much as P1000 as a tip and told her as much when I had to finally get up, run her down, and ask for my check. The very next time I went there I placed P10 on the table and the same thing happened. So, somehow I’m not so sure its about the money.

I say that, because I thought perhaps it is the low wages that causes the indifference, but in this case I was willing to part with way more than twice that waitress’ normal daily pay to make a point and still she ignored my overture. Perhaps it was the renowned Filipino pride that made her act this way. I confess, even after all these years, I STILL don’t understand the culture all that well. I think its because I tend to inject my own American attitudes into everything around me. What seems reasonable to me, as an American, might not be seen the way to a person raised in a different society, like that of my recalcitrant waitress.

(Then again, perhaps it IS the money. I've learned recently that many Filipino businesses practice "tip sharing," where all the tip money goes into a collective. The first time I heard that I was outraged, thinking, 'Why should I tip at all, if MY waitress is not the one to get the benefit of the reward or "the lesson" of receiving little for her lack of regard?' If this IS so, and wait staff are NOT allowed to keep what they individually earn in tips, no wonder they act like they don't care if I'm happy or not. My question is this: Do they teach this nonsense in business classes over there? If they do, they need to incorporate basic classes on human psychology. People, it didn't work in the Soviet Union, and it certainly is NOT working in the Phils!)

Another thing occurred to me: Maybe what I, as a foreigner, specifically as an American, expect from service people in the Phils, such as waitresses or hotel clerks, is NOT what is expected of them in the context of their society. I’ve watched Filipinos eat in restaurants, and they don’t seem to have a problem in the least with doing what they have to do to get a waiter’s attention. On the other hand, Americans will tend to sit there and just wait, and then we’ll fume and wait some more. Then, when the waitress doesn’t come over, we don’t understand what is wrong with her; we think she’s being lazy or obtuse.

Here’s a thought. It could be that she is doing EXACTLY what is expected of her: she comes over WHEN someone calls her or gets her attention. It could be that THAT is how things are done as far as she’s concerned. Although, I’m convinced the "games" do begin when the wait staff use what small "power" they have in "their situation" by forcing the customer to go to whatever lengths is required to get their "attention." Perhaps I’m "injecting" or even "projecting" again, but it seems that there is indeed an undercurrent of "game playing" at times. To tell you the truth, I’m not entirely convinced that those waitresses aren’t actually ignoring us.

To break it down then, for an American, having to go to great lengths to get a waiter or waitress’ attention is outrageous and unacceptable, while to a Filipino diner its entirely satisfactory and not a problem at all. Perhaps now I’m getting it?

In other words, "MISS! Over here please!"

Thing two...

Credit cards! I LOVE them, but living in the Philippines is tough for a credit card-0-phile like me, because its definitely NOT a credit card friendly country, darn it! I hate having to spend cash and I hate having to have it on me. Its a complete pain in the neck and big time risky in a semi-lawless place like Angeles City (my wife has been mugged twice there, once at gunpoint, and I've been pickpocketed myself); yet, in the Philippines, having a basket full of pesos on you is almost a must if you want to pay for anything substantial.

In my pre-Philippines life it wasn't unusual for me to have two or three weeks pass without ever having to touch a single bill in my wallet. About the only time I would delve into the folds of my billfold was when I went fastfood for lunch, but even that would no longer be the case these days I've found. Virtually every imaginable establishment, including all fastfood places, now take, and even prefer, that their customers pay with plastic.

When I first arrived to the islands in '02 the archaic requirement for "cash only" was one of the toughest things I had to get used to, after the wonderfully therapeutic heat that is. (No complaints there mind you!)

By now, you've guessed that my "thing two" observation about American vs Philippine living has to do with credit card use. Of course many stores in the Philippines do take them, but they are few and far between and many of these establishments make it a very drawn out and difficult thing to do. Not only that, despite recent regulation forbidding it, many places of business still charge substantial fees when cards are proferred. I heard that we are supposed to turn these "law violators" in, but where? Just point me the way!

I mentioned in an earlier post how my favorite travel agency in Angeles doesn't even accept credit cards anymore and how outrageous is that! A near lawless place like "Sin City Angeles" and they want customers to troop around with what might be thousands of dollars to pay for airline tickets? I don't get it. It's crazy.

That's my main point here. American business practice is to make it absolutely the easiest thing in the world to access and pay for products, any product, whether its a cup of coffee or an airline ticket. There is almost nothing a person with any kind of a paying job here can't find a way to acquire, and all because of Misters Visa and Mastercard. It might not always be a wise thing, but these days, even kids right out of high school are preapproved for substantial credit. Ten years ago, I was incredulous when my kids all received their first plastic right out of high school. They promptly ran them all up and eventually they all declared bankruptcy. Now THAT sure wouldn't happen in the Philippines (Okay, granted, so that's a good thing).

Still, I wish the Phils would get with the program and start making it more widespread to be able to pay with a credit card. But even at the places that take them they at times can turn the "approval process" into a time consuming ordeal. At one of the malls in Makati last year I wanted to buy three rechargable battery fans worth a total of just over $100. My wife went with a sales girl to some little back room to get our credit card approved. Almost an hour later and the transaction was complete--an HOUR LATER! Its bogus, because it seems as if they don't want my money! They DO want us to buy from them, don't they? Isn't that what stores do? Sometimes it doesn't seem like its a very high priority for them. Baffling!

I'd kind of forgotten how much the Philippines credit card thing irks me until I came back home here this trip and saw that it has become even easier and more convenient than ever to use plastic than it was five years ago. Right off the plane I watched my brother swipe his card at the Detroit airport even before getting into his car--off we went, no lines, no cash, and no slow moving cashier to deal with.

At a last second stop through a Burger King drive through in Texas I paid for everyone's order in the car by handing over my Mastercard. I didn't even have to sign a receipt. The young fellow at the window swiped it, verified the 6 dollar and change payment, and three seconds later handed back the card. I don't think I've ever spent less time getting a fast food order filled and payed for. As an impatient American, I CAN appreciate that!

Waiting for my flight out of the dimunitive yet nifty Killeen community airport shared with the Fort Hood flightline, all I had was a hundred dollar bill. I really didn't feel like breaking it for a cup of coffee, so I handed over my MC. Bing bang boom, I'm drinking coffee and eating a donut for just over two bucks. I'd like to say, "Only in the Philippines," but instead I find myself saying, "Sigh.....!"

This will be easy enough to believe, but I didn't have to break my Ben Franklin until I went to get my new stateside drivers license at the Michigan Department of Motor Vehicles. Leave it to a bureaucratic and mostly inefficient institution like a state DMV to ruin my run of NOT having to use cash! Typical, and it only makes sense since, basically, this is a post where I whine and moan about an aspect of the Philippines that I'm not so happy with, so naturally, what do I find right here in the states to compare with my complaint concerning a lack of institutional efficiency, a Michigan DMV. Perfect!

Only less than a week and I'll be back in the Phils where once again I'll have little need to bring out and dust off my plucky little credit card. ...Sigh... I'll miss you old friend...!