McDonald's in Philippines

Is there anything more typically "American" than McDonald's? The franchise seems to optimize the impression many foreigners have of us.Still,it's an odd "disconnect" for me to see a McDonald's in Dumaguete.It seems out of place to me.

Most visitors to the fast food restaurant there probably don't realise that the menu has been altered to suit the tastes and habits of the average Filipino.Of course,there's still the Big Mac and french fries, but in Dumaguete, they serve a "Burger McDo" which cannot be found in the American locations.It's about the size of the burger on the dollar menu here,but it seems to me the beef is more tender in the McDo and the sauce is different from anything we have in the U.S..

In Philippines,the menu includes a burger that has a type of rice cake for a bun rather than the traditional bread bun.I'm not sure how popular it is and while it may taste OK (or not) I didn't feel the urge to try one.

Whenever I see this photo of the Mickey D's in Dumaguete,I'm reminded of a story of someone I know and his experience with a McDonald's in Cebu.I can write about it because I know it is not likely he will ever read this blog.
He had come to Cebu on a matter concerning his Filipina wife's family and was staying alone at a resort.In spite of the fact that his wife is Filipina,he does not like Filipino food.He'd never eat bulad and although I've known him for more than three years, I don't believe I've ever seen him eat rice.

He was in Cebu for, maybe, three weeks and ate most of his meals at the McDonald's located near the resort.He didn't seem to care for much on their menu either....eating only the fillet of fish sandwich whenever he went.
After a few days,the manager of the restaurant asked him how long he was planning on staying in Cebu;the manager told him that they had never sold so many fillet of fish sandwiches and he wasn't sure how many to order from the supplier.

As for me,I'd much rather avoid the fast-food;I'll eat the rice and fish my wife's mother cooked.

Future Bloggers

The boy on the right in this photo is my son,J.P.. The other boy is my son's cousin, Phillip. This photo was taken recently at their grandparents' home in Sibulan.

This is a typical situation for J.P.. He is always trying to get to the PC at home. He sees my wife and I spending so much time on the computer.....he's simply imitating his parents.

My wife's mother was once employed by an entity in Sibulan.....not quite sure if it was government run or private....that loaned money to the folks in the area. The entity was unable to collect the money it had loaned out and so, subsequently, went out of business. As way of paying off the unemployed workers, the company allowed them to take whatever furniture or equipment was left in the office. This PC (and another) were among the items that my wife's mother brought home. Neither PC works. My wife and I tried to get them working while we were visiting, but to no avail.

The point of this little story is to bring up the question of foreign investments in Philippines. The entity for which my mother -in -law worked had no way of legally obtaining the money defaulted by the borrowers. What foreigner is willing to invest if there is no guarantee they will ever see a return? Another obstacle to progress in Philippines is the law that prevents foreigners from buying property in the country. I am not an expert on Philippine law, by any means. But, it seems to me that laws such as these, which were intended to prevent exploitation of the local population have stifled progress by discouraging investment.

The cost of living

Whenever I talk about Philippines to Americans, many of them seem to be fascinated by the cost of things in other countries. Americans believe that everything is cheaper overseas. It fits into their idea that we Americans are getting the short end of the stick. They love to believe they we are being taken advantage of by the powers that be.

They often ask me how much gasoline costs in Philippines. For a long time, I was unable to answer that question. I had never paid for gas there....so I had no idea of the cost. This last trip, I made a point of finding out. In Dumaguete, the price of gas is 38 pesos per liter. After converting pesos into Dollars and liters into gallons, it comes out as $3.06 per gallon. Hardly cheap. As I write this, gas here in Georgia is $2.80 per gallon. In real dollars it costs less in the U.S.. When you take into consideration the length of time it takes to earn that amount of money in each country the difference is even more startling.

An American will work maybe 10 or 15 minutes to earn enough to pay for that gallon of gas. Some will work even less. No one will have to work 30 minutes. Compare to how long it will take the average Filipino to earn the more than 140 pesos. Many would have to work all day to earn that much.

Any wonder why there are so many motorcycles on this photo?

Post Patrol photos

Not far from where I live is the small town of Centre, Alabama. The town has a local paper that is primarily filled with advertisements. The Cherokee County Post, as it is known, also has a contest where readers send in photos of themselves holding a copy of the paper while they are away on vacation. I don't know the criteria used to determine the winner but, the prize for the best photo is $1000. In 2003, when I went to visit Cathy in Philippines I carried along a copy of the Post. A photo was taken of me, Cathy and several of her friends as I held the paper. When I returned home, I sent in the photo and it was printed in the Post. I sent several copies of the paper to Philippines......enough for everyone in the photograph.

That photo did not win the contest.

I wanted to give it another try. I planned to bring along a copy with us to Dumaguete, but when we got there, I discovered that we hadn't brought one with us.

I was pretty sure that Cathy's mother would have kept at least one copy of all I'd sent before. Turns out she never gave anyone else a copy.......she had all the copies.
As you can see, I brought one of the papers into town and took this photo of JP and Cathy standing across from Super Lee's on Perdices. I sent a copy of the photo, via email, to the paper yesterday.

The other copies came into good use as well. Cathy used them to wrap the bulad we packed away to bring with us to the U.S. .

Manipulating images

It's easy enough to make resolutions. I can tell myself that I'll do what needs to be done to get something into this blog every day. To me,the most difficult thing in writing isn't necessarily finding the words so much as it is finding a proper subject.

While in Dumaguete, I made a point of getting lots of photos.....mainly to have something for the web site. It occurred to me that I could use this catalog of recent photos to provide me with subjects for my writing. I can merely look at a photo, allow the photo to refresh my memory of some incident surrounding the circumstances of when and why and how the photo came to be.The idea worked well enough on my last entry, but the process is not as easy as I once thought it would be.

I have a few photos of St. Catherine's Cathedral in Dumaguete -both of the inside and outside views. I've been trying to come up with a different background for the website and I think a photo of this very important landmark would be the perfect choice. The problem is, if the photo is used, as is, it will over power the foreground. It makes reading the content of the web page nearly impossible. I want to find some way of manipulating the image in a way that looks good. None of the photo editing software I have will allow me to do exactly what I want to do with this photo.

The answer seems to be in buying additional software.Money doesn't grow on trees, however. Then there's the chore of learning how to use the particular software once you have it. If you don't know how to use the software before hand you can't always be certain it will do what you want, anyway. That's always the problem with being a perfectionist who wants to do it all. I want to do the writing, the photography and the design myself. There's so much to learn to get one thing right.....how much more so to do it all.