What's On & Expat - Philippines

THINKING OUT LOUD: The strong peso may be good for some people, but for anyone who depends on dollars for income or for those who bring in US dollars to change into pesos, it’s a disaster. The dollar doesn’t bring much anymore when you change into pesos. For the past few days, the peso-dollar rate has been floating around PhP44 to USD1. True, it doesn’t sound too bad when you recall that it was only a few years ago when the peso was around PhP25 to USD1, but remember that prices were much lower then. Prices have continually gone up to adjust to the dollar strength and the weak peso at that time, but even though the dollar is now weak and the peso is so strong, prices have not gone down. Do they ever? Dollar earners who live in the Philippines are complaining that they have taken a huge pay cut in the past months. Some are saying they just can’t afford to live here anymore. This is not a problem for those earning from countries with stronger currencies, but the poor dollar earners are in for plenty of trouble. Consider American retirees who live on fixed income from pensions, US Social Security, etc. They are also hurting. Some have even suggested they might have to reluctantly leave their favorite adopted country if this continues. Tourism from the USA will also be affected. Many expats, businessmen and retirees living in Thailand, where the baht is now about B33 to USD1, are in even worse shape and are planning to leave. I don’t know what the answer is since I failed my economics course in school, but if prices can’t be controlled or even lowered, there will be serious repercussions. In all of my 28 years of living in the Philippines, I have seen the peso go from PhP6 to USD1 and briefly all the way down to PhP56 and then to it’s present level. I have never seen prices go down and doubt they ever will. It looks like a difficult situation for those who earn or have to spend green money. Sayang, naman.
 

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EAR TO THE DOOR: The Scandinavian Society of the Philippines tossed a big Crayfish Party at the Polo Club on Saturday night, which makes it too late for me to tip you off that if you want to sound “cool,” the proper American pronunciation of crayfish, for reasons unknown to me, is “crawfish or crawdads.” This no doubt came from the New Orleans area where crawdads are a big thing and with the drawling Southern American accent, the cray became craw. I was surprised to find out that Crayfish parties originated in Sweden as a celebration this time of the year. It later spread to Finland and somehow worked its way to Louisiana, USA and has almost become synonymous with the city of New Orleans. Interestingly enough, Sweden imports most of its crayfish from Louisiana and China nowadays, due to legally limited harvesting. Don’t know if we do any crayfish harvesting in the Philippines, but I sure would be interested to find out. Thailand has some limited harvesting in private lakes. Why not in the Philippines? Crayfish parties are pretty rowdy and a helluva lot of fun, as are many of the Scandinavian functions. At this writing, the party has not yet happened and by the time you read this, it will be over, but you can bet your bottom crayfish head that this old columnist will have been there sucking and slurping ‘dem crawdaddys and guzzling all the Akvavit (aquavit) and snaps (schnapps) my gullet will hold. The tradition is “one craw, one drink.” And before I forget, when you suck those crayfish heads,

you gotta make a lotta loud slurping noise. That’s the way they separate the men from the boys.

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PEEPING IN KEYHOLES: Does he ever stop? Raymund Magdaluyo, of Red Crab, Crustasia and Clawdaddy’s fame and one of the biggest and most successful restaurateurs in the Philippines, will open his latest, “Fish Out of Water” (of course it’s a fish restaurant, dummy) in the new Greenbelt 5 on October 26. This makes restaurant number 22 or 23, but who’s counting?...More news you ask? Okay. Seattle’s Best Coffee recently opened up another new outlet in both the fast growing Bonifacio High Street in the Global City and in Trinoma Mall. They have a new look and a new menu...I swear it’s true: A woman collapsed in a supermarket in Wales, the other day when her vibrating panties made her faint with pleasure. The kinky 33-year old housewife was wearing a pair of battery-operated Passion Pants bought from a sex shop, while she was doing her shopping. But she got so stimulated by the 6 cm vibrating bullet in the panties that she lost consciousness. She fell and hit her head in the crowded supermarket. When paramedics arrived, they found her black imitation leather knickers still buzzing. They took them off before an ambulance took her to the hospital. The woman, whose identity has been kept private, suffered no long-lasting ill-effects. And as she left the hospital, a grinning paramedic gave her back the Passion Pants in a plastic bag. A spokesman for the supermarket chain wryly commented, “We like to think shopping with us is exciting enough already.

 

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PEARLY WORDS OF WISDOM IN THE COMPUTER AGE: Memory was something you lost with age... An application was for employment...A program was a TV show...A cursor used profanity...A keyboard was a piano...A web was a spider’s home...A virus was the flu...A CD was a bank account...A hard drive was a long trip on the road...A mouse pad was where a mouse lived...And if you had a 3-inch floppy... you just hoped nobody ever found out!!
 

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PARTING SHOT: Stolen from Philippe Bartholomi’s column in the Boracay Chamber of Commerce & Industry Newsletter, which he in turn, stole from W. L. Flores of the Philippine Star and I dunno from where W.L. Flores stole it (but I’m glad he did) and I stole it from all of them: PLDT road sign: “Slow men at work -- PLDT”...Flower shop by the name of “Petal Attraction”...Sign in front of Mandaluyong mall: “Impotence Demo.”... Sign in Ilocos Sur, “Get rid from forest deforestation, plant a tree today!”...In a shop in Tondo: “No trispassing. If you trispass, you will be bitin by D’Dog”...In Quezon City crossing: “No cross pedestrians will be apprehended”...Barber shops with the name of “Hurry Cutter” and “Felix the Cut” but this the Las Vegas boys will love: “Scissors Palace”
 

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MURRAY’S COLUMN CAN ALSO BE READ ON THE INTERNET AT www.whatson-expat.com.ph