Today’s word is Dichotomy.
According to wikipedia A dichotomy is "a mutually exclusive bipartition of elements. i.e. nothing can belong simultaneously to both parts, and everything must belong to one part or the other. They are often contrasting and spoken of as "opposites." The term comes from dichotomous (divided): dich- ([in] two) temnein (to cut)"
The Philippines is a land of dichotomies. A warm friendly, caring culture : with a massive gun problem and high levels of violent crime. A happy go lucky, laid back people : surrounded by frequently devastating natural disasters and extreme levels of poverty.
This is the view from one of the trails near the back of my house. It perfectly sums up one of the frequent dichotomies I come across here. Here you can see a family living in a shack, while behind it, brand new luxury houses are occupied. All within a few hundred metres of each other.
According to wikipedia A dichotomy is "a mutually exclusive bipartition of elements. i.e. nothing can belong simultaneously to both parts, and everything must belong to one part or the other. They are often contrasting and spoken of as "opposites." The term comes from dichotomous (divided): dich- ([in] two) temnein (to cut)"
The Philippines is a land of dichotomies. A warm friendly, caring culture : with a massive gun problem and high levels of violent crime. A happy go lucky, laid back people : surrounded by frequently devastating natural disasters and extreme levels of poverty.
This is the view from one of the trails near the back of my house. It perfectly sums up one of the frequent dichotomies I come across here. Here you can see a family living in a shack, while behind it, brand new luxury houses are occupied. All within a few hundred metres of each other.
I frequently ride this trail on my own. When I tell my Pinoy friends this they are horrified and consider this a great risk to my personal safety. However, everyone smiles and waves as I ride by and most people say "Good Morning" (even if it's the afternoon) and "Hey Joe" (even though I’m obviously a fungus)
I guess this response might have something to do with there being certain novelty having a white man, on a bicycle, hacking around your back garden in 90 degree heat.
They probably think I've escaped from the local loony bin and am too dangerous to approach....better to be polite and hope he rides away......
3 comments:
Fungus - as always, a great post which shows others what it is like to live here. What you say is so true - we do live in a land of real dichotomy.
I personally think that they are being polite and hope you ride away :-) I would too if some crazy Pom cycled through our back yard!
The other freaky thing is that we live in one of the most exclusive areas of Manila and if you happen to pass someone walking on the street (a rarity coz they are normaly in their cars) it's unlikely they will say hello. Yet in a shanty town everyone comes out to say hello.
Well, Filipinos are generally friendly to begin with.
It appears that Pinoys living in shanty towns always find it a novelty to see white people around. They (Pinoys) are almost always awed to be in the presence of these "white people from the First World."
But it's a totally different case with Filipinos who are from middle- or upper-cass families. With these groups, it's really no big deal to see or mingle with Westerners.
My Swiss husband was a hit in the squatters' community he visited in Quezon City -- almost like a superstar. But he didn't have the same effect on "posh Pinoys," if you catch my drift.
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