So Little Time

In exactly a week from when I write this, I’ll be in Arizona heading to the FH office. Weird. There’s not a lot of news from my end, as mostly I’m working on finishing all of the projects I’ve started this summer. The next week will definitely be interesting. Tomorrow I get to meet up with some FHUS staff who are here checking out a disaster site and then hang out with them for the evening/night/morning and take them to church. Only thing is, it’s one staff, Heidi, and two interns, Molly and Mandy, and the ‘hanging out’ is at some Japanese resort place with a sauna and hot springs. And then we’re spending the night. So looks like I’ll be alone for much of the time. Then I get to take them to church (I’m so excited to lead someone else somewhere for a change!). After church is a joint youth fellowship for NCC and the three church plants at which I will be interviewed ‘Oprah style’ by some combination of Maila, Genny Rose, Kuya Kim, and/or Jenalyn. The topics are something like making right choices, following God’s call, my life, and dating. Me talking about dating is kind of laughable (as my sister pointed out) but I’m still excited, it should be a good time. My schedules for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are all kind of iffy at this point. So who knows. Actually, my schedule for today has been kind of iffy. Mostly just waiting for text messages and working on some of my evaluations. I figured I’d write a blog entry about a few of the fun cultural differences here.

Despite the massive amount of American cultural influence in the Philippines, there are some underlying differences which have alternately made me laugh and frustrated me all summer. At first, they can seem minor. But after two months and lots of discussions I’ve come to find that a lot of them go quite a bit deeper to underlying values.

Time. Filipinos just don’t care that much about what time it is. Or about being on time or how long something might take. When I got to Mom Andres’ house all three clocks said something different. One was 15 minutes fast, another more than 10 minutes slow. Since then, one of the clocks stopped, and no one seems to have noticed other than me. Similarly the lone clock in church was 10 minutes slow when I arrived. Within a week it stopped, and no one has fixed it in two weeks. Despite the permanent caretaker at church, the constant flow of people, and the maintenance and cleaning going on almost daily, no one has fixed the clock. They literally use the phrase “American time” to mean you actually ought to be at an appointment on time. The phrase “Filipino time” pretty much means, it doesn’t matter how late you are. If you are there within a half hour after something is supposed to start, you are definitely not late. Up to an hour is fairly acceptable. Church activities tend to start about half an hour after they are scheduled (and we think ACF time is bad) and youth will slowly drift in for another hour.

Family. There’s the sort of obvious one that Filipinos are more family and relationship oriented. Things are being challenged a little by so many people working overseas, but most extended families live within the same town. My dad has one sister in upstate NY, one in South Carolina, and one in central PA despite coming from West Virginia and having lots of aunts and uncles there. Beyond this is the interesting expectation for what happens when children get jobs. Here, the advice for college students is something along the lines of “graduate, move home, work for a few years to support your parents and siblings, then you can get married.” Even once you get married, there’s a decent chance you’ll still be home, supporting your parents. This isn’t just a necessity thing (although it is a good strategy for poor families); even the middle and upper-middle class families I’ve met follow the same pattern.

At first I thought this was interesting, but then, lots of American college graduates move back home. But after a few conversations I began to realize that it’s a lot deeper than this. I imagine my parents would allow me to move back in with them (even the word “allow” is such an American way to look at it), and might even have me pay rent or share some of the costs. But support them? It’s not just that my parents don’t expect me to support them; I really think they would not let me. I can’t imagine getting a decent job and then coming home, writing a check, and handing it to my parents. I sincerely think they wouldn’t accept it. Even if I started making $60,000 right out of school, I imagine they would counsel me to save it, for a house, for a marriage, for children some day. “Here dad, here’s a check for $5,000, to support you” just doesn’t sound right. But that seems to be what happens here regularly, even among parents that don’t need the money.

Independence. Literally, since I’ve been here, I have not seen a road map. People just don’t find places on their own. You go with someone else who knows the way or you ask people. In America I frequently go places I’ve never been with only a map. I can tell, for Michael, having to guide me to places he has never gone to with only Ate Chill’s directions has sometimes been very stressful. In America, we like to “do it ourselves”. We don’t see anything wrong with going somewhere alone or figuring it out by ourselves. Filipinos tend to rely much more on each other and group decisions.