This might not be the typical expat blog, written by a German expat, living in the Philippines since 1999. It's different. In English and in German. Check it out! Enjoy reading!
Dies mag' nun wirklich nicht der typische Auswandererblog eines Deutschen auf den Philippinen sein. Er soll etwas anders sein. In Englisch und in Deutsch! Viel Spass beim Lesen!
You plan to move to the Philippines? Wollen Sie auf den Philippinen leben?
There are REALLY TONS of websites telling us how, why, maybe why not and when you'll be able to move to the Philippines. I only love to tell and explain some things "between the lines". Enjoy reading, be informed, have fun and be entertained too!
Ja, es gibt tonnenweise Webseiten, die Ihnen sagen wie, warum, vielleicht warum nicht und wann Sie am besten auf die Philippinen auswandern könnten. Ich möchte Ihnen in Zukunft "zwischen den Zeilen" einige zusätzlichen Dinge berichten und erzählen. Viel Spass beim Lesen und Gute Unterhaltung!
Visitors of germanexpatinthephilippines/Besucher dieser Webseite.Ich liebe meine Flaggensammlung!
The celebration for Tanay, Rizal’s 418th founding anniversary kicked off with activities showcasing the town’s culture, arts and nature on Nov. 8, Friday.
On Friday morning, a zumba session participated in by residents from the town's villages was held at the plaza followed by a pro-environment drive that encourages waste recycling.
November 8 was declared by Malacanang as a non-working holiday in Tanay to enable the residents to celebrate the town's 418th foundation day.
On November 9, Saturday, various groups including schools and offices in the municipal government that are based in the town will hit the streets in the afternoon to join the grand parade and street dancing competition.
Participants in the dance competition will vie for the best performer group and best in costume and props as judges pick their choices during the festive event that will be held at the town’s public market parking lot.
Students rehearse with their musical instruments on November 7 in preparation for the street dance competition on November 9 (photo by Nel Andrade)
The town’s Plaza Rizal is the venue for coffee drinkers and entrepreneurs as the town’s very own coffee beans harvested by the local coffee and cacao farmers will feature their agricultural produce during the event dubbed as “Musikape, Salabat, Tsokolate”.
In the event that will be held from November 7 to 11, musical performances will be part of the nightly show which also be a competition of skills and talents of the local baristas.
Ongoing at the Tanay Park until November 10 is the trade fair dubbed as Agri Trade Fair and Exhibit 2024 showcasing the local produce of the farmers with various agricultural products, including vegetables and fruits and livestock being sold for the public.
On November 10 at 8 a.m., the local government will host the “Meryendang Tanay”, a gathering of balikbayans and their friends showcasing the popular local delicacies of the town.
On November 12, indigenous tribes from the upland villages of the Tanay will showcase their talents in ethnic skills exhibition and competition.
Schedules of other activities in line with the town's foundation anniversary are highlighted in the municipality's tourism Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/tanaytourism/.
CLAUDIA HUTH poses next to a painting showing herself and painted by her son in her house in Egelsbach, Germany, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
BERLIN (AP) — Like many other young women living in communist East Germany, Solveig Leo thought nothing about juggling work and motherhood. The mother of two was able to preside over a large state-owned farm in the northeastern village of Banzkow because childcare was widely available.
Contrast that with Claudia Huth, a mother of five, who grew up in capitalist West Germany. Huth quit her job as a bank clerk when she was pregnant with her first child and led a life as a traditional housewife in the village of Egelsbach in Hesse, raising the kids and tending to her husband, who worked as a chemist.
Both Leo and Huth fulfilled roles that in many ways were typical for women in the vastly different political systems that governed Germany durings its decades of division following the country’s defeat in World War II in 1945.
As Germany celebrates the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989 — and the country’s reunification less than a year later on Oct. 3, 1990 — many in Germany are reflecting on how women’s lives that have diverged so starkly under communism and capitalism have become much more similar again — though some differences remain even today.
“In West Germany, women — not all, but many — had to fight for their right to have a career,” said Clara Marz, the curator of an exhibition about women in divided Germany for the Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Germany.
Women in East Germany, meanwhile, often had jobs — though that was something that “they had been ordered from above to do,” she added.
Built in 1961, the Wall stood for 28 years at the front line of the Cold War between the Americans and the Soviets. It was built by the communist regime to cut off East Germans from the supposed ideological contamination of the West and to stem the tide of people fleeing East Germany.
Today only a few stretches of the 156.4-kilometer (97.2-mile) barrier around the capitalist exclave of West Berlin remain, mostly as a tourist attraction.
“All the heavy industry was in the west, there was nothing here,” Leo, who is now 81 years old, said during a recent interview looking back at her life as a woman under communism. “East Germany had to pay war reparations to the Soviet Union. Women needed to work our own way out of that misery.”
By contrast, Leo said, women in the West didn't need to work because they were “spoiled by the Marshall Plan” — the United States’ generous reconstruction plan that poured billions of dollars into West Germany and other European countries after the war.
In capitalist West Germany, the economy recovered so quickly after the total devastation of WWII that people soon started talking of a Wirtschaftswunder, or “economic miracle,” that brought them affluence and stability less than 10 years after the war.
That economic success, however, indirectly hampered women’s quest for equal rights. Most West German women stayed at home and were expected to take care of their household while their husbands worked. Religion, too, played a much bigger role than in atheist East Germany, confining women to traditional roles as caregivers of the family.
Mothers who tried to break out of these conventions and took on jobs were infamously decried as Rabenmütter, or uncaring moms who put work over family.
Not all West German women perceived their traditional roles as restrictive.
“I always had this idea to be with my children, because I loved being with them," said Huth, now 69. “It never really occurred to me to go to work.”
More than three decades after Germany’s unification, a new generation of women is barely aware of the different lives their mothers and grandmothers led depending on which part of the country they lived in. For most, combining work and motherhood has also become the normal way of life.
Hannah Fiedler, an 18-year-old high school graduate from Berlin, said the fact that her family lived in East Germany during the decades of the country's division has no impact on her life today.
“East or West — it's not even a topic in our family anymore,” she said, as she sat on a bench in the capital's Mitte neighborhood, which marks the former course of the Berlin Wall in the then-divided city.
She also said that growing up, she had not experienced any disadvantages because she's female.
“I'm white and privileged — for good or worse — I don't expect any problems when I enter the working world in the future,” she said.
Some small differences between the formerly divided parts of Germany linger on. In the former East, 74 percent of women are working, compared to 71.5 percent in the West, according to a 2023 study by the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung foundation.
Childcare is also still more available in the former East than in the West.
In 2018, 57 percent of children under the age of three were looked after in a childcare facility in the eastern state of Saxony. That compares with 27 percent in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia and 44 percent in Hamburg and Bremen, according to Germany's Federal Statistical Office.
Germany as a whole trails behind some other European countries when it comes to gender equality.
Only 31.4 percent lawmakers in Germany's national parliament are female, compared to 41 percent in Belgium's parliament, 43.6 percent in Denmark, 45 percent in Norway and 45.6 percent in Sweden.
Nonetheless, Leo, the 81-year-old farmer from former East Germany, is optimistic that eventually women all over the country will have the same opportunities. “I can’t imagine that there are any women who don’t like to be independent,” she said.
NEW YORK (AP) — Welcome toBeyoncé country. When it comes to the 2025 Grammy Award nominations, “Cowboy Carter” rules the nation. She leads the nods with 11, bringing her career total to 99 nominations. That makes her the most nominated artist in Grammy history.
“Cowboy Carter” is up for album and country album of the year, and “Texas Hold ’Em” is nominated for record, song and country song of the year. She also received nominations in a wide swath of genres, including pop, country, Americana and melodic rap performance categories.
This is her first time receiving nominations in the country and Americana categories. Previously, she and her husband Jay-Z were tied for most career nominations, at 88.
If Beyoncé wins the album of the year, she’ll become the first Black woman to do so in the 21st century. Lauryn Hill last won in 1999 for “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,” joining Natalie Cole and Whitney Houston as the only Black women to take home the Grammys’ top prize.
Post Malone also received his first ever nominations in the country categories this year, having released his debut country album “F-1 Trillion” in August. That one is up for country album and “I Had Some Help,” his collaboration with Morgan Wallen, is nominated for country song and country duo/group performance. They are Wallen’s first ever Grammy nominations.
Malone is just behind Beyoncé, with seven nominations, tied with Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar and Charli XCX, who earned her first nominations as a solo artist.
Lamar’s ubiquitous diss track released during his feud with Drake, “Not Like Us,” is nominated for record and song of the year, rap song, music video as well as best rap performance. He has two simultaneous entries in the latter category, a career first: Future & Metro Boomin featuring Lamar, “Like That” is up for best rap performance and best rap song.
This is his third time receiving two simultaneous nominations for best rap song.
Taylor Swift and first-time nominees Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan boast of six nominations each.
Last year, women artists dominated the major categories. This year, that continues somewhat, but the main trend seems to be a variance of genre. In the album of the year category, alongside “Cowboy Carter” is André 3000’s new age, alt-jazz “New Blue Sun” and multi-instrumentalist Jacob Collier’s “Djesse Vol. 4.” Rising pop stars Carpenter and Roan round it out, with “Short n’ Sweet” and “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” respectively, as well as Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department,” Eilish’s “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” and Charli XCX’s rave-ready “BRAT.”
Eilish is the only artist to have her first three albums become nominated for album of the year.
Last year, Swift won album of the year for “Midnights,” breaking the record for most wins in the category with four. This year, she becomes the first ever woman to seven career nominations in the category.
“The breadth and the variety of genres represented in the general field feels new and really exciting,” says the Recording Academy CEO and President Harvey Mason jr. He credits an active and evolving voting body for its success. “We’ve been very intentional in how we looked at and tried to rebalance our membership. So not just gender or people of color, different racial makeup, but also genre equity and trying to make sure that all different types of music in different regions and different locations are being represented in every way possible.”
Only recordings commercially released in the U.S. between Sept. 16, 2023 through Aug. 30, 2024 were eligible for nominations. The final round of Grammy voting, which determines its winners, will take place Dec. 12 through January 3.
In the best new artist category, Carpenter and Roan will go head-to-head, alongside Benson Boone, Doechii, Khruangbin, RAYE, Shaboozey and Teddy Swims.
In the song of the year category, Beyoncé is joined by Eilish with “Birds of a Feather,” Swift and Post Malone with “Fortnight,” Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!”, Carpenter’s “Please Please Please,” Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ “Die With A Smile,” and Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy).”
Shaboozey is also a first-time nominee. His “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” is the biggest song of the year, having spent more weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 than any other — it is so popular, a remix of the track is also up for remixed recording.
Elsewhere, Shaboozey is nominated in the melodic rap performance category for his feature on Beyoncé’s “SPAGHETTII.” Linda Martell, the first commercially-successful Black woman musician in country, is also featured on the song, delivering the 83-year-old artist her first Grammy nomination.
For record of the year, “Texas Hold ’Em” will compete against Swift and Post Malone’s “Fortnight,” Eilish’s “Birds of a Father,” Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!”, Carpenter’s “Espresso,” Charli XCX’s “360,” and the Beatles last new song, the AI-assisted “Now and Then.”
“We’re trying to make sure we’re keeping up with how music creators and our community are using technology. And in this case, AI enhanced the record and allowed it to be eligible in the categories that it was eligible in,” Mason jr explains.
Dolly Parton scored her 55th career nomination in the audio book, narration, and storytelling recording category for her “Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones,” news The Associated Press broke to the country music legend Friday morning. “No! What did I get nominated for?” she cheered over the phone. “Oh, well, that’s cool. I thought it would be for my rock album, I’d take it.
“It feels good. I’m always appreciative of everything. I don’t work for that, but it’s always good to say ‘you’ve done good work,’ and for somebody to acknowledge that. So, I’m always proud of every award I get and every mention I get. That just makes me feel like I’m doing the right thing.”
She’s up against producer Guy Oldfield, George Clinton, Barbra Streisand and Jimmy Carter, who could become the oldest Grammy award winner in history at 100.
So, what’s missing? Like last year, there’s a huge dearth of Latin music — the fastest growing streaming genre in the United States — across the board, and no representation in the major categories. There are also only four entries in the best Música Mexicana album category, despite it also being one of the fastest growing genres.
And K-pop, too, seems to be absent. There are no nominations for the BTS members who’ve released solo material this year: RM’s “Right Place, Wrong Person,” J-Hope’s “Hope on the Street, Vol. 1,” and Jimin’s “Muse.” As a boy band, BTS has received five nominations across their career.
“I definitely see room for improvement across many genres and we are continuing to invite people to be a part of the academy,” Mason jr. says. “Without the right representation we don’t get the right results. When I say right, I mean reflective and representative of what’s happening in music today. So, the work continues.”
The 2025 Grammy Awards will air Feb. 2 live on CBS and Paramount+ from the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
Wann werden ihre Nachfolger gewählt? Finanzminister Christian Lindner (45, FDP), Wirtschaftsminister Robert Habeck (55, Grüne) und Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz (66, SPD) auf der Regierungsbank im Bundestag
Die Ampel ist Geschichte, drei FDP-Minister sind entlassen. Was sagen die Deutschen zum Ampel-Aus und wie soll es jetzt weitergehen?
BILD hat eine Blitz-Umfrage nach dem Bruch der Koalition in Auftrag gegeben: Das Meinungsforschungsinstitut INSA fragte am Donnerstag 1002 repräsentativ ausgewählte Menschen in Deutschland.
Ergebnis: Die klare Mehrheit fordert sofortige Neuwahlen!
So wollen 57 Prozent so schnell wie möglich über einen neuen Bundestag entscheiden. Nur 22 Prozent sind für den Plan von Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz (66, SPD), erst im März wählen zu lassen. 12 Prozent plädieren für den regulären Wahltermin im September 2025.
Noch deutlicher ist die Freude über das Ende des ungeliebten Regierungsbündnisses: Fast zwei Drittel der Befragten (64 Prozent) finden das Ampel-Ende gut, nur 22 Prozent schlecht.
Und wem von den drei Ampel-Männern (Olaf Scholz, Christian Lindner, Robert Habeck) geben die Deutschen die meiste Schuld am Aus der Regierung?
34 Prozent der Wähler sagen: Alle drei sind gleichermaßen verantwortlich! 27 Prozent finden, Kanzler Scholz habe die größte Schuld, 25 Prozent FDP-Chef Lindner und 7 Prozent Habeck (Grüne).
Das glauben nur 13 Prozent. Immerhin 21 Prozent erwarten, der Lindner-Rauswurf wird der SPD nutzen, 11 Prozent nennen die Grünen. 44 Prozent der Umfrageteilnehmer sind der Meinung, dass keine der drei Ampel-Parteien vom Ende der Koalition profitieren wird.
In the family drama ‘Mujigae,’ her character is dead set on not having children and all the responsibilities that come with it
Alexa Ilacad —ALEXA ILACAD FACEBOOK
As a child, actress-singer Alexa Ilacad used to envision herself becoming a mother at the age 26.
Now 24, she would very much like to have the target date she had innocently set for herself pushed back, preferably to “the far future,” she said, laughing.
Ironically, Alexa said, she ended up becoming someone who doesn’t quite know her way around kids.
While she has been appearing in commercials since the age of 2, and acting since she was 8, there are still a lot of goals she wants to fulfill. Working for them is difficult enough as it is, she said, so what more if she had a family to take care of?
“It’s not something I want at the moment. I want to build a career and that will be hard if you’re supporting a kid. I feel like being a mother takes so much selflessness,” she told Lifestyle in an interview. “But whatever happens, it will be my choice.”
As such, Alexa couldn’t help but sympathize with her character, Sunny, in the upcoming family drama, “Mujigae,” which opens in SM Cinemas on Oct. 9. Sunny is dead set on not having children and all the responsibilities that come with it. When her estranged sister in South Korea dies, however, she is left with no choice but to begrudgingly take in her 5-year-old niece, Mujigae (Ryrie Sophia).
While she isn’t fond of kids, Sunny eventually finds herself warming up to Mujigae (Korean for “rainbow”) and her cheerful presence. But just when she’s starting to feel that she finally has it in her to raise Mujigae as her own, the child’s biological and largely absent Korean father, Ji-seong (Kim Ji-soo), enters the picture.
A scene from ‘Mujigae’ — UNITEL STRAIGHT SHOOTERS
Bonding
“I realized how hard it is to be a guardian, to become a mom all of a sudden. I can also relate with Sunny because I’m not naturally affectionate or playful around kids. I find them cute, but I don’t go all gooey. However, having my own nieces changed that in a way. I love them so much,” Alexa said.
Perhaps that was one of the reasons she didn’t have a hard time bonding and working with Ryrie. “I found myself thinking of my nieces on the set,” she said. “It was very easy working with her. She’s cute.
Makulit, but she listens.”
Unlike her past projects—particularly the romantic dramas she did with her perennial screen partner, KD Estrada—“Mujigae” could very well be the “acting piece” she has been looking for. Director Randolph Longjas’ material and vision were challenging to execute, Alexa admitted, because she had to unlearn some of the acting habits she has developed through the years.
“It was hard at first. I’m the type of actress who wants everything polished, perfect. I plan ahead. I come to the set with a plan or strategy on how to approach the material. But the director had to break that because he wanted to see vulnerability. I had to tap something within me. I had to let myself be and show what I feel without worrying about the angles and other things,” she said.
At its core, Longjas said, “Mujigae,” is an exploration of motherhood—or parenthood, for that matter—as a choice and not as a societal expectation. “Not wanting to have a child doesn’t make you bad. I wanted to tackle that idea. A person can also choose not to have a child, but still have the capacity to love and raise one,” he said.
The decision to make Mujigae’s character Filipino Korean, meanwhile, adds a cross-cultural angle to the narrative. “We don’t see a lot of stories about mixed-race Filipinos … We want to show that despite cultural differences, we actually share a lot of things in common, like the value we put on the concept of family,” Longjas said.
After doing the film, Alexa emerged better acquainted with the potential joys of having kids and “the fulfillment that comes with “teaching them and taking care of them.”
But it also reinforced what she knew all along: People can choose not to have kids and that’s okay.
“I’m so grateful that, nowadays, we have more people who are open to the idea of women living the rest of their lives without children, or choosing a child that’s not biologically theirs. We don’t have to vilify them for that or make them feel like less of a woman,” she said.
She’s not closing her doors on motherhood. But for now, Alexa, who has two dogs and two cats, will focus on being a furmom. “It can be hard, too, you know!” she said. INQ
