Quote: (02-24-2018 04:59 PM)FastBang King Wrote:
Filipinas unsurprisingly present the lowest IQ of all SEA. The good news about going to the Philippines is, once you are there, you can be at peace. You then know you've reached a certain bottom in your life.
The "certain bottom in your life" way is one way to look at the Philippines, for sure, but another way is to look at the Philippines as one of the greatest challenges. Think about it, with Vietnam and Thailand's low cost of living, I could be there right now and just chill forever, maybe teach English and make pretty good money on top of my business income. I could also do web development with no problem online due to the wifi being pretty decent, same with Thailand. It'd be easy street, and trust me, I've been tempted.
Now the Philippines, on the other hand, is a challenge. The wifi blows except in select locations, and even if you can get an ok speed, you still have to deal with power outages cutting off the connection intermittently, especially when it rains, and it rains a lot. You could get a membership to a coworking area, but if it's not open 24/7, you're then limiting your working hours to a SEA schedule, which limits you some more, and the coworking spaces are not exempt from power outages. So working online in the Philippines is a dicey proposition.
So if you're working online in the West and think you can just pack up and move to the Philippines, you better be prepared for your boss to get on your case during the first typhoon or heavy rain and subsequent longer term power/internet outages, but even light rains cause power/internet outages there all the damn time, the grid just isn't dependable. And that's in the big cities, in the smaller cities, forget about it. After several days or weeks of being unable to maintain a solid wifi connection with your boss/online team, there's going to be difficulties, you can easily lose your job.
For the most part, the only guys that can live in the Philippines are guys that have figured out location independence via a business, an inheritance, or a pension. The pension is the easiest, so that's what you see the most of there. Guys that are able to pull off living in the Philippines long term without being on a pension are rare.
In Vietnam and Thailand, not so much, all you need to do is be able to speak English and land a teaching job. That's why you get so many more young guys over there, there's just so many more job opportunities for foreigners, and of course, more opportunities to network, especially in Thailand.
So you're right, for a certain subset of the Philippines crew, the pension guys, it is a place to just chill and live out their days, but for the young guys, they're a different breed, anyone that's able to pull off being young and living in the Philippines is a rare guy. The older fellows on pensions, not so much, but still, I enjoy seeing their stories, they blazed the trail, after all.
But even if you look at the SEA region as a whole, there's major drawbacks, for example the pollution is a big one. A buddy of mine planned his trip to Thailand for a long time, he was planning on staying there until his funds ran out, at least 6 to 9 months, but when he got there, he only stayed a few weeks. He had to come back because he was having trouble breathing. And apparently it's worse in Vietnam, plus in Vietnam you have issues with the safety of the food supply, if any of you have been keeping up with that, it's disgusting to see vendors serve meat that's been dragged on the floor or covered in flies.
The Philippines is no angel when it comes to that either, I saw lots of babies with small wet towels on their backs over there in some of the cities I went to, the moms would use the little towels to cover the babies' faces in an effort to limit the damage from the petrol fumes. In one of the cities, Iloilo City, I was only there a week because after the first day, I locked myself in my hotel room and didn't come out unless I had to, for food and to buy an airplane ticket, the petrol smog was so bad I just didn't want to leave my hotel room. That city didn't have traffic lights, so it was constant stop/go traffic, which made the air unbreathable. You might be reading this and think, "Wait, did you just say no traffic lights?" Yes. No traffic lights, in a large city, it's a giant clusterfuck.
Welcome to SEA.
To this day I hope I didn't pick up lung cancer there, it was disgusting. Some of the cities in the Philippines are just really bad as far as air quality.
I love the Philippines, I really do, but it's not unconditional love, I'll call it like I see it, it has major issues and so does SEA.
Quote: (02-24-2018 04:59 PM)FastBang King Wrote:
Something I resent over anything is they always make it a pain in the ass to bang.
If that's happening, you're coming off as shady/untrustworthy, you're not building enough comfort.
Or maybe you are shady/untrustworthy.
Quote: (02-24-2018 04:59 PM)FastBang King Wrote:
They like the sturdy, brave man type.
Agreed.