HI,
The places and ferries we traveled with the motorbike gave me an idea of what was happening with attitudes towards us.
We saw many nice resorts with no Tourists, no Americans, empty. There was a dependency on a new type of tourists since 9-11. Korean, Japanes, German, Swiss, Belgium, Holland and Australian, they act as a whole, different than Americans and are known to spend less. There is a bit of European arrogance in the air. I was asked repeatedly if I was American or other. When I said American there was always a smile, like finally a real American. This is not so much in Cebu but Americans don't seem to travel the beaten path much lately. I did not get stared at much coz I was tanner than most and was dressed in jeans with t-shirts like the locals. If we asked for direction they would want to talk to us for as long as we let them. I was expecting a lot of stares but didn't notice any in Iloilo Panay, Puerto Princesa Palawan, Bohol, Panglao or Cuyo Island and on the ferry. It could be that we wanted to blend in and looked like we belonged there.
Besides not seeing one accident on the trip, we didn't encounter any bad attitudes toward us. Some younger guys would yell a comment at us and Maricel would shout back something and laugh. She would tell me what they said and it was in fun. Remember she went to an all seaman collage; she was the only female in her section. She learned to carry herself early in life. But with these few incidents there was never a frown or bad attitudes. Boracay was all Europeans and Korean, Japanese. Everyone got along and were singing there songs in their language on the beach. When I was in Panglao Is. I was told by the Europeans there that Bohol had a large American community. I never checked it out coz we had to leave but wanted to leave that till next time. Europeans when drinking would always bring up Iraq with me but I didn’t take the bait. Most Philippines that had TV were interested in News about the Philippines. Foreign news was not that important, Maricel for example didn’t know much about Iraq or Vietnam. She would ask me questions like are the Americans still there? Maricel did not like me to debate with the foreigners, said it was not nice to disagree with them LOL. Any attitudes I encountered was from Europeans. Since I was born in Germany and raised in Australia even though I don’t speak
German well I can understand it and listen in on some conversations. They mostly have an attitude towards Americans and I have an idea of how they got that way.
Stephen’s Post of
For peace of mind, resign as general manager of the universe, applies here.
With that said I made some life long friends that owned property in Panglao. We are e-mailing, he is retired from Belgium and his wife is from Mindanao, they have been married 9 years. Since my travels were on different parts of the Philippines than was reported it may mean that different Islands react differently to Americans.
