Can I Get A Little (less) Help Please?!

Ok, so life here pretty much revolves around malls. The mall has everything, grocery stores, department stores, hardware stores, appliance stores, movie theaters, bowling alleys, etc. Just visiting one of these malls is a cultural experience in itself. On the surface it may seem western in appearance but it is far from it!

The best example of this is the department store. For starters we are not used to having so many people in a store. It is like 2 million Asians and us! And the other thing is the number of helpers/employees that are present. In keeping with Asian values, there are literally 2 or 3 employees on each aisle. And it doesn't matter if the aisle is 10 ft long or 40 ft long. As soon as you enter the aisle, they converge on you asking if you need help. It can feel like they are in your face all the time. And they will follow you around at all times unless you turn to them and tell them that you would like to look by yourself. Are we being rude? I don't know. But it is neccessary!!!

The positive is that you never have to go too far to get help. The negative is that you always have an audience while you browse for things. We have had as many as 5 people stand behind us as we look at a possible table to buy!!! We are certainly not used to it and I admit that it appears wasteful compared to our streamlined, efficient way of doing things. Of course, I've been on the other end of the scale in the US, where you can't get anyone to help you at all! I've walked completely to the other end of Home Depot before to try to find someone who didn't knwo the answer to my question in the first place!!! I guess the moral is, "when in Rome . . ."

The Adventure Begins

After 3 months of an absolutely crazy schedule, we arrived in Manila Aug 1, 2007 at 11:48 am. We have only been here a few days and already we have a book of things to write about. It didn't take us long to appreciate more of the differences of living here will bring. One of the biggest differences is the sheer number of people! We left 600,000 people around Orlando to 12 million people around Manila.

And they all go to the mall at once!!! Our first weekend here we went to a mall (one of the hundreds they have here) and we almost freaked out! It felt like there were 2 million Asians and us at the mall. We were bumping into each other as we tried to navigate around and get items we all needed. I had people in my personal space and I didn't like it! Not even Christine liked shopping! It was amazing.

When we got home one evening after running around town, we found ants in our suitcase. They were in all of our clothes, yes I even had ants in my pants! No joke. We take things like insect control for granted I guess. This is only a taste of what is going on; there is more to come. Welcome to Asia!