LIFE CHANGES DRAMATICALLY

Do you remember, my dear readers, what I wrote already months ago at this corner? Our life will never be the way it used to be - due to Covid-19. Everything in our life changed. Really everything. 

Being in online classes while teaching or in the daily home office, I experienced a total change when it comes to the digital body language:  cues you send – or don't send. Writer David Robson gets to the point in a nutshell: "Online, as in real-life, it's not just what you say – but how you say it".

Think about the last work email that you sent. Did its sentences end with full stops or exclamation marks, or did you forgo punctuation altogether? Was it peppered with emoji – or plain text? And was your response prompt, or did you have to apologize for the time it had taken to reply?

Now, consider your last Zoom call. Did you check your phone or email at least once during the meeting? And did you pause to be sure that the other speaker had finished? Or did you find yourself frequently interrupting their sentences, as you failed to take into account the slight delays in the connection?

According to the leadership expert Erica Dhawan, these are all examples of our “digital body language” – a concept that serves as the title of her new book. Like our in-person physical body language, digital body language concerns the subtle cues that signal things like our mood or engagement, and change the meaning of the words we say – be it in text, on the phone or in a video call.

Following David Robson, it is needless to say, the rise of remote working during the pandemic has only made these issues more urgent, but psychologists have long known that digital communication is ripe for misunderstanding.

So, what can be done? It’s indeed a question of mindfulness, so that we can be sure that our digital body language is intentional and appropriate to the situation at hand.

Do you like emojis?!? Well, first consider written communication, starting with the use of emoji and punctuation marks, like the exclamation point. Stylists may sneer, but many people (and include me in!) argue that they often help to clarify the meanings of the words themselves, much in the same way as a nodding head or a smirk in person. Whether you’re signalling urgency or excitement with ALL CAPS, impatience and irritation with an “?!?” or mutual appreciation with a fist-bump emoji, you are helping your text to convey the feelings you would have embodied in person.

It took me almost a whole year, but right now allow me to tell you: don’t feel shy about adopting these more informal digital cues, where appropriate – and be aware that others may well be expecting them.

Broadly, your use of punctuation and emojis are part of a bigger set of cues that will establish the tone of your exchanges – whether they feel formal or informal, enthusiastic or bored. Other signals will include your greetings (whether you include a friendly “Hello” at the start of the message or simply dive straight in), and your sign off (an emotionally distant “Regards” versus an enthusiastic “Thanks!”).

Honestly, sometimes I'm really getting tired of video calls and zoom meetings. They present their own unique problems. Your body language, manners and level of engagement on video-chat platforms can influence how colleagues see you and interpret your message. Even during my online teaching, I observed some student being absent-minded or even not being dressed well.

Whatever medium you use, you should remain conscious of two factors – trust and power – in all your interactions. These ratings will be subjective, of course, but if you sense there is a clear gap on either of these dimensions, you need to be more cautious.

In the past, the handshake, the smile and the smile gave us many well trusted signals,– but in online communication, our gratitude is often less apparent, or may not be expressed at all. Measures to remedy this could be as simple as sending a follow-up email, after a virtual meeting, to make it clear that you valued someone’s input, or cc’ing a junior colleague on an email to a client, acknowledging the role they played in a project. We can’t just assume that our colleagues will know how much we value them.

Erica Dhawan’s book Digital Body Language, is out now from St Martin’s Press. I learned a lot from her, especially perfecting our digital body language will take practice – but a few moments of thought each day may save hours of anxiety and confusion in the days and weeks ahead.

Earlier in this writeup, I mentioned David Robson. He is the author of The Intelligence Trap: Revolutionise Your Thinking and Make Wiser Decisions (Hodder & Stoughton/WW Norton) – out now in paperback. He is @d_a_robson on Twitter.

Since the pandemic, employees are leaving the workforce or switching jobs in droves. For many, employers have played a big part in why they're walking away. It's another big change in our business world. Read more about my thoughts in my next column here at this corner.

Is it hard to be a Filipino?

by: Rosmary Roque

Nurse since 2011, thinker since birth

Sometimes nomadic, often dramatic, mostly human.

Like in all things, being a Filipino is both hard and easy at the same time.

For one, we are constantly trying to prove ourselves to the world as a whole. I own at least 3 nursing licenses just because the license from my country is not up to par with those of the countries I wished to work for. I had to pass three different English exams just to prove that I can communicate in that language well enough despite having learnt it since I was 2. In the workplace, Filipino workers are constantly having to prove themselves over and over to their bosses just to keep their jobs. To make matters worse, even their own countrymen try to bring them down.

Another reason that it’s difficult is the weather. The Philippines is both in the Pacific ring of fire and in close proximity to the Pacific oceans, which means that a buttload of typhoons and earthquakes hit it each year. In 2013, a supertyphoon hit the southern region just a few weeks after a 7.2 magnitude earthquake did.

Lastly, we live in a society that has a lot going against development. Corrupt officials, lack of punctuality and other bad habits are rampant. This is unfortunate for a country trying to pick itself up.

Amidst this series of unfortunate events (heh), we’ve got one thing going for us. The adversity advantage.

We are resilient. No matter how hard life beats us, we fight back and cope the best way we can. This is why you see smiling faces in the background of newscasters reporting from flooded areas.

We are everywhere and we are close with our family. When you go to any mall in the United Arab Emirates, it is very likely to see many Filipino workers. We also have close family ties which help keep us sane in the face of trials.

Lastly, we are a generally tolerant, laid back people (so laid back sometimes that we are always late). While some could argue that this is just setting too low a standard, I think it is important to be kind to others and above all to be kind to ourselves.

That is the Filipino way.

www.quora.com

Why do many Filipinos speak a mix of English and Tagalog...

 

... instead of speaking either pure Tagalog or pure English?

By: Dayang C Marikit, Philippine History Professor

First of all, there is no such thing as a "pure language".

Secondly, it’s a “class thing”… the higher you are on the social ladder, the more likely you are to “code-switch” between Filipino and English, we call these people “conyo.”

• Most of the people who are interviewed in those “Asian Boss” videos are generally “well-off” college kids who study along the “university belt” in Manila and they don’t represent everyone, I’d say that they are a “significant minority" in that location of the city.
• If they interviewed people like market vendors, street food vendors, Jeepney drivers, etc, they’d most likely get a much different result. There would be far less code-switching and it's highly unlikely for them to have a proper conversation. What I'm saying is that the demographic sample that they used in this social experiment is skewed, which then confirms their bias.

My second point is, code-switching isn’t “new,” especially for the upper classes. “Pure Tagalog” still has a lot of Malay, Javanese, Sanskrit/Indic and Chinese cognates & loan words.

• The oldest written document in the Philippines is the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, dated to be from the 10th century, and it was written with a mixture of “Old Malay, Old Javanese, Old Tagalog and Sanskrit.”
• The first word written on this document is “Swasti” a Hindu greeting that wishes people “good fortune”… this is also the word from which the term “Swastika” is derived from, this is because the swastika is a symbol of “good fortune” until the Nazis corrupted it and made it infamous as a symbol of hate… anyways, back to the point, this artifact proves that “code-switching” isn’t new.
• Lastly, even English and Spanish themselves have also adopted a lot of loanwords, from different languages such as Greek, Latin, Phoenician, Egyptian, etc.

Typical Filipino (XXIV): Typisch Philippinisch (XXIV): Utang ng loob - A dept of inner self

Utang na loob (Visayan: utang kabubut-un) is a Filipino cultural trait which, when translated literally, means "a debt of one's inner self (loob)." It is also often translated as a "debt of gratitude.

In the study of Filipino psychology, utang na loob is considered an important "accommodative surface value", along with hiya (propriety/dignity) and pakikisama (companionship/esteem). It is one of the values by which Filipinos accommodate the demands of the world around them as opposed to its counterpart grouping, referred to as the "confrontative surface values", which include values such as lakas ng loob and pakikibaka.^[1]

The essence of utang na loob is an obligation to appropriately repay a person who has done one a favor. The favors which elicit the Filipino's sense of utang na loob are typically those whose value is impossible to quantify, or, if there is a quantifiable value involved, involves a deeply personal internal dimension.^[3] This internal dimension, loob, differentiates utang na loob from an ordinary utang (debt); being an internal phenomenon, utang na loob thus goes much deeper than ordinary debt or even the western concept of owing a favor. Filipino psychology explains that this is a reflection of the kapwa orientation of shared personhood or shared self, which is at the core of the Filipino values system.^[1]

What Filipino culture should be stopped?

By: Jean-Marie Valheur

Young, handsome and exceptionally well-endowed

I like to write. All answers I have written, you may copy, you may use any lines you enjoy, you may copy, paste, share, translate, publish at your leisure — just credit me by name, is all. It’s the bare minimum a decent person would do.

Who am I? Just, somebody who likes to write. It’s really not that complicated. I exist, you exist, we all exist. Just briefly. And my brief existence, I dedicate to writing enjoyable little things for no one in particular.

Utang na loob is a pretty toxic belief. The whole ‘owing your relatives something’. Or just owing them the ‘debt of gratitude’. Which seems fine on the surface, but it’s often abused. Say you are your average Filipino family, fairly poor as Filipino families tend to be. You have one auntie in Canada or Dubai. She’s hot shit. She’s super important. She sends boxes home and give gifts to her nephews, nieces, siblings back home. Nice of her, isn’t it?

But no, auntie isn’t really very nice at all. Because some relatives get considerably better gifts then others, some barely get anything at all. Even among cousins the same age, some kids are ‘favorites’ and get brand new roller skates, whereas a ‘less loved’ kid gets only a Toblerone or a large Snickers bar. But auntie is so good, she’s so helpful… you have to worship her like a God.

Oh and auntie is so selfless too! She never married, so she could support her relatives. Never mind that she kind of hates kids and kind of hates men and kind of hates everybody. Never mind that she is hardly marriage material to begin with. No, no, it’s all a ‘noble sacrifice’ from her end. She will side in family conflicts. She will determine the outcome of these conflicts. Which of the nieces or nephews will be supported financially to go through college, the kindest, the smartest, or the one whose parents kissed aunties ass the most?

At times it feels like Filipino families are a bit like Game of Thrones with various ‘factions’ duking it out. People will simultaneously look up to and praise their ‘rich’ foreign relatives, and hate them at the same time for their arrogance. There’s a lot of in-fighting, hidden and not-so-hidden rivalries. And it’s all hidden underneath this cultural veneer of ‘showing how grateful you are’.

As an example… a great-aunt in our family has once helped some of our relatives. Now my wife’s family is expected to be super nice to this great-aunt. People forget, however, that this great-aunt only became successful in the first place because her older sister, wife’s grandmother, paid for her studies in the first place, allowing her to go abroad. Now each year on great-aunties birthday, slavishly devoted relatives make videos of themselves wishing her a ‘long and happy life’, puke-worthy sweet music underneath, holding up posters with her face like she’s a Filipino provincial version of Kim Il-Sung… you know, because of gratitude. Doesn’t work both ways, though, and a lot of it is determined by how popular you end up being inside the family. Older sister later got broke, so her kindness and help in getting younger sister rich and abroad is conveniently forgotten as the rest of the Clan kisses her little sisters ass into perpetuity.

Utang na loob is the single most toxic Filipino cultural aspect I’ve ever seen, and I have stories for days on how it gets abused by some people. There’s so much bitterness, so much awfulness. So much gossip, so much drama. And sometimes this spans two, three, even four generations. The concept of ‘owing one’ to the sister of your grandmother for something she did forty years ago and it allowing her to act like a bitch in the year 2020 is ridiculous.

Das Auswärtiges Amt gibt bekannt

www.auswaertiges-amt.de

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Philippinen: Reise- und Sicherheitshinweise (Teilreisewarnung)

02.07.2021

Letzte Änderung:
Aktuelles (Vulkanische Aktivität)

Aktuelles (COVID-19: Einreise; Beschränkungen im Land; Hygieneregeln)


Lagen können sich schnell verändern und entwickeln. Wir empfehlen Ihnen:
- Verfolgen Sie Nachrichten und Wetterberichte
- Achten Sie auf einen ausreichenden Reisekrankenversicherungsschutz https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/de/ReiseUndSicherheit/reise-gesundheit/-/350944
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Aktuelles
Vulkanische Aktivität

Seit dem 1. Juli 2021 zeigt der 60 km südlich von Manila gelegene Taal-Vulkan erhöhte vulkanische Aktivität. Die philippinischen Behörden haben die dritthöchste Warnstufe 3 ausgerufen. Bei Exposition kann es zu Reizungen von Augen, Atemwegen und Haut kommen.
Evakuierungen können angeordnet werden.
• Beachten Sie die Warnstufen der philippinischen Vulkan- und Erdbebenwarte (PHIVOLCS).
• Machen Sie sich mit Verhaltenshinweisen bei Vulkanen vertraut. Diese bieten die Merkblätter des Deutschen GeoForschungsZentrums.
• Beachten Sie stets Verbote, Hinweisschilder und Warnungen sowie die Anweisungen lokaler Behörden. 
COVID-19

Filipino is seen together with a foreigner?

 By: Jean-Marie Valheur

Young, handsome and exceptionally well-endowed

I like to write. All answers I have written, you may copy, you may use any lines you enjoy, you may copy, paste, share, translate, publish at your leisure — just credit me by name, is all. It’s the bare minimum a decent person would do.

Who am I? Just, somebody who likes to write. It’s really not that complicated. I exist, you exist, we all exist. Just briefly. And my brief existence, I dedicate to writing enjoyable little things for no one in particular.

Filipino is seen together with a foreigner? www.quora.com

It depends entirely on what type of foreigner they see they kababayan with. There are various types of foreigners who date in the Philippines. I’ve seen a story of a Filipino dude, a surfing instructor, who fell in love with a blonde girl he taught surfing. Their story made it to the news, and most responses from people were: “Wow, good for him!” because in the eyes of his countrymen, a Filipino man courting and getting with a foreign woman was seen as quite a successful move. Some even went as far as to say the man was: “elevating his race.”

More commonly, the male is the foreigner, and his partner is a Filipina. A lot of Filipinos, fond of their tsismis (gossips) will look the man and the woman up and down. What type is he, what type is she? If he’s the handsome backpacker type, they may assume he is not a serious guy, maybe he’s a cheater, a playboy? If he’s young, decent-looking and a morally upstanding guy in their eyes — maybe a missionary? — they may also judge him… is he broke? Will he just live off the Lord’s goodness and stay in a nipa hut with her?

Or he’s old, and balding, and she’s pretty… he must be rich, they think! Or he’s young, but otherwise physically unappealing. Couldn’t get a girl back home? How sweet he was able to find one here. Pity for the girl though. Maybe their children would still look good; mestiza and mestizo children typically do. Just the correct blend of genes that works well together, no matter how unappealing the parent(s).

Sometimes they see a foreign man who fell in love with what the Filipinos refer to as “a gay”. This is not really a gay male, but usually a Vice Ganda-esque crossdresser, a ladyboy or perhaps even a post-op transgender, although surgeries are hard to come by in the Philippines. In this case, some Filipinos will think the man was “tricked” by his partner. Others will assume he is simply unaware even now, maybe he’s stupid? Or they will just question his manhood; he must not be a ‘real man’, maybe his “masculinity is only 50% male, and he’s 50% female”, I have heard it being described in such a way.

Sometimes the man seems normal enough. But his Filipina wife already has two or three kids from another man. She does not want more, or maybe she is too old. The foreign man adopts them as his own, pays for their education and loves them as if they were his. If a Filipino man did such a thing, his countrymen would consider him a ‘sucker’. Since this man is a foreigner and therefore has infinitely more options on the dating market, he’s seen as double the sucker.

These are just a few of the many things that cross the minds of Filipinos when they see a Filipina or Filipino with a foreign partner. It all depends on the foreigner and the situation, but judgements are made, if not always spoken aloud.

WITH BEETHOVEN UNDER PALMS (XXI): Epilogue and Preface to my Expat Life

Over the past few years we have flown to the Philippines with various airlines such as Lufthansa, Thai Airways, or Emirates. This time everything was different. Singapore Airlines took us direct from Berlin via Singapore and Cebu and then SilkAir to Davao City. All three of us had one-way-tickets. 

At the same time, our two containers were on their way to Davao by ship via  Hamburg and Singapore. The containers were packed with many memories. We decided before, we could take everything from our both households with us. Maybe a little crazy or funny. At the beginning we thought that when we woke up in the morning, we would still be in Germany. Only the car was not allowed. Everything was in the name of Rossana because during this time a Filipino citizen was allowed to send everything back to the Philippines tax-free once in a lifetime.

When we arrived in Davao, we were amazed. Our house looked almost finished from the outside. But there was still a lot to do inside. The greeting was exuberant. We lay in each other's arms and cried for joy. 

Rossana's brothers Archie and Ricardo had taken over the building supervision last year. They had already lived on the property with their families and had also laid out the small garden. A small swimming pool was there and my greatest wish had come true: dogs.

Everything seemed perfect down to the last. We lived wall to wall with our American Ninong Maurice and his Filipina wife, our Ninang Alicia. They had bought the property right next to us already in 1959.

In the next few days and weeks there was a lot for us to do. Unpacking suitcases, arranging the interior fittings and doing paperwork after paperwork. Rossana, my mother and I hardly got time to think about Germany. Homesickness did not arise. Not yet.

Rossana was especially busy sorting out the dance group costumes from Berlin. Maybe there will be another chance to perform in Davao City as a New Manisan Cultural  Dance Troupe? Well, that should become reality faster than we thought. I thought about my music library and several thousand books. 

And then events rolled over! One telephone call from the Davao City Port Customs Office in particular kept us in suspense. Our knees shook.

To be continued!)

What kind of country is the Philippines?

By: Allan Daniel Serrano, Cavite City

Hi! I’m Allan Daniel Serrano, I’m a Filipino with good understanding of our culture, politics, religion, history, geography and everything related to our archipelago and our relationship with neighboring countries and other foreign nations.

My genetic makeup is native Austronesian with a dash of indeginous Papuan of course, plus the bloodlines of the Sangley traders and the Iberian conquerors.

I am nationalistic, but not to the point that I would berate and belittle other countries just to flag my pride, because I’m also globalist. I wouldn’t tolerate any condescending attitude towards my people and my nation.

What kind of country is the Philippines? (www.quora.com)

We are a country composed of 7,107 islands, most of the islands aren't populated and about 95% of the population can be found in 11 major islands, namely: Luzon, Mindanao, Mindoro, Palawan, Cebu, Negros, Panay, Samar, Leyte, Bohol and Masbate.

8 major languages are spoken in our archipelago, namely: Bicolano, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Ilocano, Pampango, Pangasinense, Tagalog and Waray-waray, with other 100+ tongues also spoken throughout the islands.

We are as colorful as the rainbow:

Tagalog

Cebuano

Ilocano

Hiligaynon

Waray-waray

Kapampangan

Bicolano

Pangasinense

Igorot

Sierra Madre People

Maranao

Tausug

It is true that we are still suffering from the abuses of corruption that is driving my people to poverty. But I'm thankful because Filipinos are very resilient. Even the poorest will greet you with the sweetest smile that you only see here. Maybe the way God shaped our archipelago is one of the many things why we are content with ourselves, in spite of all the hardships that we've been through as a people. This is what I'm talking about.

Batanes Island

Paoay Windmills, Ilocos Norte

Rice Terraces of Philippine Cordilleras

Hundred Islands, Pangasinan

Sta. Ana White Beach, Cagayan

Corregidor Ruins, Cavite-Bataan

Independence Shrine, Cavite

Pagsanjan Falls, Laguna

Taal Volcano, Batangas

Verde Island Passage, Batangas

Ditumabo Falls, Aurora

Casiguran White Beach, Aurora

Cagraray Island, Albay

Caramoan Island, Camarines Sur

Anvaya Cove, Bataan

Mt. Samat Shrine, Bataan

Subic Bay, Zambales

Intramuros, Manila

Pandan Island, Mindoro

Cowrie Island, Palawan

El Nido, Palawan

Underground River, Palawan

Port Barton, Palawan

Magellan's Cross, Cebu City

Sumilon Island, Cebu

Fort Pilar, Zamboanga

Camiguin Island, Mindanao

Hmm… maybe it's our rich history and fine sceneries that works wonders in easing the pain and suffering of people.

This is one of the few countries in the world where you will find people having wide smiles with bleeding hearts.