3. Those damn malls…

You think the United States is commercialized and overrun with malls? You ain’t seen nothing till you’ve been to the malls in the Philippines. These holy monstrosities take up the majority of the acreage in the more commercial areas of the Philippines. And gah, how exhausting they are to look at and walk through.



And the worst part? They’re fucking everywhere!



Hundreds of thousands of people roam these air conditioned malls day in and day out. The stores are crowded, and they’re overstaffed. Every aisle in every department store has a worker in uniform just standing and waiting there, watching your every move. The moment you approach a product, they instantly walk up to you, trying to assist you in finding whatever size belt it is you wear. “Hello po, peepty percent ope today,” I’d always hear. And then if you do decide to purchase anything, you go up to the cashier counter, and notice the 12 workers they have waiting for you, staring at you.

[picture missing because mark messed up real bad and lost his memory card]

Now, I’m sure this is probably normal for the country, and I guess everyone needs a job, but I can safely say that at this point in my life (or at least for while) that I have been traumatized by these malls and do not wish to walk into another mall, nor my children, nor my children's children, or their children...for 3 months.

And those street vendors, gah. I mostly experienced it in Boracay, and lightly when I visited Antipulo. Everywhere you go, there’s a vendor in a light blue polo holding a rack of sunglasses, pearls, watches, or something. Make eye contact with them, and already it’s too late. The sunglass rack is held up and put in front of your face, the box of pearls is opened and lifted to your view. And damn, are they persistent. They’ll begin following you even if you give the slightest acknowledgement. I think the worst we encountered was while sailing around the island of Boracay. We had stopped to go snorkeling for a while, when suddenly a man on a canoe rows up to us and begins yelling “Ice cream!” While he held on to our boat, we weren’t sure how to react.



Hilarious. Now I know that this the livelihood of these people, so I won’t judge or criticize them. I’m simply pointing out a quirk that most American people would find quite unordinary and to a point, annoying.

“We get raped and pillaged and colonized by the most powerful nations of the world, and what do we do once we get our freedom and independence? Build the biggest malls in Asia.”
-ES