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Asia, Day 6 | Philippines, Day 6
Aug. 28th, 2023 04:56 pmOriginally, the plan was to fill up another day with activities, starting with a two-hour drive to the countryside and not stopping from there. After Tuesday's grueling tour, we call the plan off entirely, and instead just kind of bum around a mall. We grab lunch at a shabu place; I pick up some Filipino candies (pastillas, a chewy confection made from water buffalo milk), and a small monograph on Marcos's declaration of martial law in 1972.
The monograph particularly interests me, partly because I'm curious about the Philippines' perspective of its own history -- but more so, even though Marcos's declaration happened before I was born, it's incredibly important to me, since it's the reason my parents emigrated to the US. Though they did their medical residencies in The States, they returned to the Philippines in 1971 with the intention of staying permanently. So if Marcos hadn't seized power, my life would be very different -- assuming I existed at all. (I also assume strings were pulled to allow them to leave the country; my father's father was a prominent businessman, and my mother's parents -- themselves doctors -- had medical connections in the US.)
We have delicious Italian meal at the Manila Polo Club with much of the Veloso side of the family and then retire.
__
This fairly uneventful day presents an opportunity to talk about Manila traffic, which I've described as a thousand-person game of chicken in which everyone has a death wish.
Wheeled traffic generally consists of:
1) Jeepneys, a small open-air bus that's kinda native to the Philippines, and seats maybe a dozen and a half passengers
2) Regular cars/SUVs
3) Tuk-tuks, small three-wheeled vehicles that are well-suited to ferrying small loads
4) Scooters, sometimes with packages to deliver, sometimes with passengers
5) Cyclists
This gamut of sizes means that between any two vehicles, a smaller one can probably just barely fit, and boy howdy do they try. Manila traffic is a heart-stopping white-knuckle thrill ride as all of these people weave in and out of each other, forcing their way into any space they can. If the oncoming lanes are clear, folks will just veer into them if it might give them an advantage. Pedestrians looking to cross the street just...do it. Nobody gets out of the way of emergency vehicles.
(This video maybe communicates some of what it's like.)
It's an absolute madhouse, but somehow it seems to work, at least in the sense that for all the asshattery I witnessed, I never saw a single accident -- and there's no real road rage, because in a world in which nobody expects courtesy, nobody can be angry at its absence.
On the other hand, it also means that the overall rate of travel for cars is probably around 2-3 miles per hour. And if you need an ambulance to get you to the hospital quickly...well, maybe just don't get that kind of sick.
The monograph particularly interests me, partly because I'm curious about the Philippines' perspective of its own history -- but more so, even though Marcos's declaration happened before I was born, it's incredibly important to me, since it's the reason my parents emigrated to the US. Though they did their medical residencies in The States, they returned to the Philippines in 1971 with the intention of staying permanently. So if Marcos hadn't seized power, my life would be very different -- assuming I existed at all. (I also assume strings were pulled to allow them to leave the country; my father's father was a prominent businessman, and my mother's parents -- themselves doctors -- had medical connections in the US.)
We have delicious Italian meal at the Manila Polo Club with much of the Veloso side of the family and then retire.
__
This fairly uneventful day presents an opportunity to talk about Manila traffic, which I've described as a thousand-person game of chicken in which everyone has a death wish.
Wheeled traffic generally consists of:
1) Jeepneys, a small open-air bus that's kinda native to the Philippines, and seats maybe a dozen and a half passengers
2) Regular cars/SUVs
3) Tuk-tuks, small three-wheeled vehicles that are well-suited to ferrying small loads
4) Scooters, sometimes with packages to deliver, sometimes with passengers
5) Cyclists
This gamut of sizes means that between any two vehicles, a smaller one can probably just barely fit, and boy howdy do they try. Manila traffic is a heart-stopping white-knuckle thrill ride as all of these people weave in and out of each other, forcing their way into any space they can. If the oncoming lanes are clear, folks will just veer into them if it might give them an advantage. Pedestrians looking to cross the street just...do it. Nobody gets out of the way of emergency vehicles.
(This video maybe communicates some of what it's like.)
It's an absolute madhouse, but somehow it seems to work, at least in the sense that for all the asshattery I witnessed, I never saw a single accident -- and there's no real road rage, because in a world in which nobody expects courtesy, nobody can be angry at its absence.
On the other hand, it also means that the overall rate of travel for cars is probably around 2-3 miles per hour. And if you need an ambulance to get you to the hospital quickly...well, maybe just don't get that kind of sick.
