I don’t know what this says about Philippine culture, but it certainly is a conversation starter. This modified jeepney is typical of the most common form of transportation in the Philippines.
In May of 2007 I published my first blog on the Philippines which dealt, more or less, with the history of the country. I had always intended to write another piece on the people and popular culture, but like so many other good intentions, I never got around to it. Too many other horses to ride so to speak.
I’ve been in the Philippines for the last several days, and finally have had an opportunity to experience and see the Philippines and Filipinos from a different perspective. As some of you may know, I’ve been serving on the board of a company which is listed on both the Philippine Stock Exchange and NASDAQ and has the majority of his operations in several locations throughout the Philippines. This service has given me the opportunity to visit Manila on several occasions and to meet many delightful Filipinos. But, alas, business is business and most of my knowledge of things Philippine came from the internet, the Makati Shangra-la hotel, and various office facilities around Manila. Not to say that there’s not much to been learned from international hotel restaurants and bars, but it tends to be a somewhat limited view.
On this trip, which is likely to be my last as we have sold the company to private investors, I resolved to see something of the “real” Philippines and its people. I prevailed on one of our local colleagues to arrange a two to three day drive-around to see if I couldn’t fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge. I prevailed on John H., the CEO of the company and Rich H. a fellow board member to join me on this modest adventure. I gave instructions to our handlers to avoid putting us up in a series of western style luxury resort hotels. Stick to the basics. We wanted to live, for a brief moment, like the locals. Eat their food, stay where they stayed, and shop where they shopped for their daily necessities. As you will see, I was only partially successful.
We departed the Shanga-La in a new nine passenger Toyota van led by Gilbert our driver/security guard and Vito H., a Phd candidate in geo archeology as our guide (these things tend to get out of hand pretty quickly). The first of many plans was to drive “about an hour and a half” to a location in Balagas Province south of Manila. Our conversation was animated and erudite, if I do say. Much opining about the origins of the Philippine people. I argued for the “land bridge” theory which held that the original Filipinos had just hiked from SE Asia via a land linkage from Indonesia. Vito said that theory was old hat and had long since been debunked and replaced by the “northern influx” theory which I never did quite understand. So you can see, our discussions were on a high level indeed.
We continued in this vein until I asked about dinner. John and I are never very far from anxiety about our next meal you see. There was some muted mumbling from the front seat, but it finally emerged that after checking into our hotel later, the plan was to drive to the area’s finest “gourmet” restaurant. John got to the follow up before did and asked appropriately, “how long will we have to drive to get to the restaurant?” After some more muted mumbling, Gilbert said, “I think about an hour”. You can see there are all manner of red flags here. To wit: Gilbert really didn’t have any idea how long it would take, but didn’t want to lose face by admitting it, and more importantly, all of us were jet lagged to the max and were already fighting the urge to hit the slats. We tactfully deep-sixed that plan and asked innocently, “why don’t we just eat at the hotel?” You’ve got it, more muted mumbling. Vito cryptically said something about protocol and the procedures of the hotel, and went on to say that he had been able to arrange a visit to a very important “heritage” location which was conveniently almost on a direct route to our hotel. And, he went on to say, “they will be pleased to serve you an excellent traditional Philippine meal”. As we had eaten the huge and sumptuous buffet at the Shangri-La less than two and a half hours ago, the meal part of the plan sounded a bit, er, premature. When we mentioned this to Vito he said for us not to worry the would take care of it.
And so he did. It took us another hour or so on earthen roads to get to the place which turned out to be a quite charming summer manse of a wealthy Philippine landowner of the previous century which had been turned in to a sort of rural bed and breakfast. We were greeted by a large, very anxious, non-english speaking staff that knew less about what to expect than we did. After a quick walk through the grounds and house, we were seated at a longish bamboo table (the entire edifice and everything in it was built out of bamboo as far as I could tell), and offered tea. Now here’s the trick I thought, we’ll have some tea and Philippine crumpets and be on our way to the hotel, which surely would at least have a bar as a part of it’s protocol. It was not to be. We’d scarcely sipped our tea when bowl of after bowl of unidentifiable food stuffs began to appear. We all scowled at Vito who silently pleaded with us to give it a try. My standard practice when faced with strange food in a strange land is to serve myself a little of every thing, push it around on my plate and above all, not to ask what it was. My colleague, Rich, not having been schooled in the fine art of not eating what your hosts are serving but making them think that you think its the best food in the world, violated two of my cardinal principles by immediately announcing, “I’m not hungry and I’m not eating any of this”, and then, pointing to the first dish, “what’s that stuff?”
“Buffalo. Water buffalo. That’s stewed water buffalo with traditional Philippine sauce” the head honcho said. It went down hill from there. Rich, true to his word didn’t eat a morsel, but in violation of my own principles I thought, “what the hey, I may never have a chance to eat stewed water buffalo again” so I tucked up and had my fill, which turned out to be exactly one mouthful. How did it taste, you say? In a word, very, very, very chewy. I guess thats four words, but you get the drift. I nibbled at the baby squid in coconut milk, forked the roasted pigeon-like bird, hid a gooey concoction under my rice and pronounced to the staff hovering nearby that, “this is the best meal I’ve eaten outside of Manila”. Grins and high fives all around. Of course, you and I know that it’s the only meal……Dissembling is sometimes good.
We arrived at Villa Escudero in the pitch black of a non lunar night at six in the evening and no lights were on. Yes, I mean what passed for what you might call the outer lobby was dark and no one was there. No one. Vito shouted and finally a young man appeared who turned on one small overhead bulb and professed to know nothing of our arrangements. Ultimately we were passed on to another who indicated that we had to park our van and board a jeepney for the final leg of our hotel journey…which we did. In several minutes we arrived at the inner lobby which was also unlit and unattended, but it did at least look vaguely like something which could serve as a hotel lobby. The light came on, clerks appeared, forms were filled out and our luggage was hauled away on what looked like hand made trolleys by three old, and I mean old, ladies who seemed to know what they were doing. After a walk of some distance the oldest-lady-in-charge pointed for John and I to go up a narrow staircase to our room. I protested that the arrangements were for separate rooms. She nodded and shooed us up the stairs. As it turned out John had to pass through my room, exit to a veranda and thence enter his room. Voila. Separate rooms. Spartan in furnishing but clean and happily with a groaning AC device mounted on the wall in full throat.
We settled quickly and asked directions to the bar by hand signals, but thought we could hear music in the distance. We vectored on the music, arriving to find a large pavilion, tiny bar, and three very inebriated Filipinos singing at full volume in turn to an ancient karaoke device. John and Rich quaffed three beers apiece while I drank rot gut gin while a very solicitous and curious waiter stood by watching us. We escaped with no permanent damage to our ears with a bar tab of about nine dollars US. Not being overcharged here I thought.
I had just settled in my bed with an Ambien and a trash novel I was reading when I heard a scratching or light tapping at my door. Hmmm. I thought. Can’t be John. Don’t think Rich would be out wandering about. More tapping. I inquired rather loudly and gruffly, hoping that whoever it was would take the hint and leave me alone, “who is it and whadya want?” More tapping and then a gentle sound, “Meester Garee”. Uh oh, I thought, I don’t need this. I had no robe so I stood in my boxers and opened the door a crack, thinking I’d tell whoever it was to go away. When I peered through the crack in the door, I saw all three of the very old, old ladies smiling holding a bouquet of local flowers and a bowl of what turned out to be very tasty native Philippine fruit. The head old lady smiled, bowed slightly and said,in broken English that I can’t replicate, “we want to say welcome to our guest from America. Thank you for coming to our place.”
Something I knew but had forgotten. People everywhere can be really nice if you’ll give them the chance. It’s in that context that we completed our small Philippine adventure. “Thank you for coming to our place.”
