I fool around some on the Quora website. What can I say? I guess I have too much time on my hands. Mostly I’m just a reader, scrolling past the vast majority of questions/answers for which I have no interest. That includes most of the political posts because I learned long ago that arguing with strangers over politics is pointless. Still, occasionally I will answer a question directed my way. Especially when I’m bored. So, a while back the question posed was, “Am I lucky living in the Philippines?”. This was my answer:

There is no place else I’d rather be at this time in my life. No, it is far from perfect, but what place is perfect? I’m an American, but there is no way I’d want to be living there with all that craziness going on. Do I get frustrated sometimes with things that happen here? Of course, I do. But then I take a walk in the mountains or on the beach, and I remember what’s important in life.

This just happened today—I watched a documentary on Bangladesh and realized that even the poor people in the Philippines live a much better life than many people do elsewhere in the world.

Yes, I feel lucky to be here.

That’s about as innocuous it gets. Just my personal opinion based on my own experience here. So, I was shocked when the Quora team advised me today that they’d shared my response with two million members. It’s been viewed 142,000 times and received 647 upvotes. Wow, I wish LTG was that popular! It’s also generated a few dozen comments, almost all of them positive. That’s also pretty amazing for the internet. But yesterday this comment came along from someone who calls himself “Hung Lo”:

Yea, they’re so happy there that’s why millions of them are dying to come here to the U.S In fact Philippines makeup the largest if not the largest Asian group living there, but yet we have the poster here and others claiming that the people of the Philippines (or atleast insinuating) are happy and content with life in their native country which can’t be further from the truth.

Stop projecting and assuming that just because life has dealt you a better hand, living in a developed country one with stability and opportunities that there aren’t others such as the natives of the Philippines aren’t yearning for the same.

Let me ask you this. What makes the Philippines so great that a more developed country doesn’t have? If I had to guess I’d bet all my marbles that it has something to do with the very young/youthful and all the pleasures it brings for the old, the forgotten and the perverted. *Sicko

I found this response both ignorant and irksome. I decided to just let it go as unworthy of a response. But then I read it again this morning and didn’t want Mr. Hung Lo to get the impression that my silence was an acknowledgement that he was right in his assessments. So, I wrote this:

Millions you say? In the USA Filipino immigrants represent the fourth-largest origin group after the foreign born from Mexico, India, and China. Of course, like all immigrants (and the USA was founded on immigrants) people here look for opportunities to better themselves and live a more comfortable life. That doesn’t mean they are unhappy. In fact, I’ve not seen any of the violence and hatred here that is occurring in the USA. Nope, not one city burned or looted. Go figure. The happiness of the Filipino people is not about money, it is about the love of family. You have to see it to believe it.

You shouldn’t bet all your marbles on anything, because it appears to me you have already lost them. Your racist and sexist comment assuming that all young Filipino women are whores makes you the “sicko”. Crawl back into your hole now, snake.

Probably shouldn’t have bothered, I know. But I’m glad I did anyway. Here’s another comment that disagreed with me, but I actually respected his viewpoint:

As a Filipino citizen (born and raised here), I wish I could say the same. It’s only ever fun to be here as an outsider/foreigner, from my perspective, since that’s already somewhat of a privilege. The economy is a headache, the extremely conservative mindset of a significant portion of the population is equally frustrating, and I won’t even dare touch the topic of politics and justice.

Being happy in spite of all that’s happening isn’t much of a good thing in my perspective too, going back to my point regarding conservative mindsets and such. Resilience in hardships is praised here a lot, as well as by foreigners I think, but I truly can’t cope with that. Resilience and staying happy isn’t always good, especially in such a fragile and hostile political environment (again, not diving deeper into that but I hope the point gets across). It’s quite defeatist in my eyes and I don’t think I can stomach living the rest of my life seeing this resiliency mindset “thrive” so much.

Again, it’s just a matter of perspective but I really can’t help but post my opinion.

Now that is how you agree to disagree without being disagreeable. He makes a fair point that if people remain accepting of the status quo and resilient in the face of the hardships that result from incompetent and corrupt political leaders, nothing will ever change for the better.

Anyway, putting Quora down for now and moving on, let me tell you about my breakfast. Pizza! Other than leftovers, I can’t recall ever having a pizza so early in the day (or seeing one on the breakfast menu). This one was topped with egg and sausage, so I figured, why not?

It’s another Hash Monday and I’ll be heading out soon to climb a mountain. The “sane” group I Hash with has determined there are better ways to do so than the Hare (Guenter) has planned, so just like the Burger King, we are gonna have it our way. Stay tuned for a full report tomorrow.

It’s bee a while since I’ve shared the lyrics to one of our Hash songs here, so let me leave you with this:

(sung to the tune of “If you’re happy and you know it”)

If your girlfriend tastes like shit, roll her over
If your girlfriend tastes like shit, roll her over
If your girlfriend tastes like shit,
It’s her asshole not her clit
If your girlfriend tastes like shit, roll her over

And now you know why I infrequently share Hash songs here. Sorry!