The Merits of Uprooting

It's a bit ironic isn't it how in a relatively rich country such as South Korea, people do most of the things themselves and spend their weekends not in malls or shopping places but in parks or mountains (The whole of korea is surrounded by mountains, thus hiking is a favorite past time of people here) while in a supposedly poor, third world country such as the Philippines most of us, especially those in the metropolis, most often spend the weekends roaming malls and shopping centers. It could be that in Korea, unlike Pinas, the online shopping culture is alive and heavily ingrained. One can order anything--electronics, beauty loots, goodies, furnitures and groceries with just a click of the mouse and a credit card.


But what's more dissonant is how in countries such as US, UK, Korea and Japan, people are used to do most of the chores and stuffs by themselves. While in Pinas, most middle class family employ helpers/drivers. Hell, even those from the lower middle class would often have helpers too.

How do you reconcile that? The idea that we are a third world country and the reality that most of us employ other people to do the menial tasks--cooking, cleaning, ironing our clothes,fetching the kids or the newspapers. Most of the chores are often done by other people. And some people develop this lax attitude about being served hand and foot and forget how to treat other people correctly.

If there is anything to be learned in going abroad it's that there are a million things that most of us who live in Pinas take for granted. And a few essential pointers we should relearn. And that somehow, there are people who, having been served hand and foot by the helper or whoever they employ in Pinas, develop an attitude of undeserved haughtiness or dare I say a "mata pobre" mentality. As if it is their birthright to treat other people lowly just because they think these people are lower in the social totem pole than they are.

I should know, one of my tiny ventures is in online retail and I've encountered clients who treat me as if I'm a lowly person out to scam them. But because I know what I'm worth (not financially mind you, but metaphorically) I fight back with these people and gently remind them that they're dealing with someone who's not one of those underlings they can step on.

Anyway, as I am abroad at the moment, I have given the task of managing the onhand inventories to my younger cousin, who, I am proud and giddy to say, I am supporting so she can finish her college education. She's young, and yes, because she had an infinitely harder life than what most of us had, is still a bit meek and will not fight back at a handful of lousy and foul-mouthed and mataray clients. But at the end of the day, each night I talk with her and she tells me what happened, and I get really pissed off when I hear clients cussing her or texting her as if she's a maid or a helper without a mind of her own. One, she only follows my directives so clients who have any issues with that should not ever tell her rude words, they can always email me anyway. Two, she's an intelligent kid and no, she's not a mere maid or a helper.It's the reason why I've decided to support her studies. She's got that naturally fast mental pick-up which she needs to develop and grow. And I hope that assisting me with the business and finishing her college education will arm her enough so she can reach her potential fully.

Which is why, I get mad when some clients who cannot be accomodated because of the new rules I've set start making issues and complaints. I feel it's precisely this--our twisted culture of privilege and self-defeating sense of being "better" than others and not knowing how to treat other people, especially those whom we perceive to be "lower" than us in the social classes.

You go abroad and you have no choice but to uproot yourself and those stupid delusions that you are someone important and someone to be looked up to. Living abroad taught me to be grounded. I used to take for granted how even while I was working, most days, my father would fetch me to and from work. I used to go home from work with nothing on my mind but sleep. No washing or pressing the clothes, cooking and baking only when I feel like it, having someone to do your errands for you (paying the bills, buying stuffs at the grocery, going to the bank...)

But abroad you're just you and a whole new world of independence. And you learn that independence means doing chores and learning to enjoy them. It means meeting people in the office with backgrounds that are totally different from you. Some are infinitely richer, some have life stories that are unimaginably tear-inducing, some are from cultures totally different. But all of them will have something, some tale to share, and you will learn to connect with them at different levels.

And your perspective about life, about what's shallow, what's hypocritical, what's essential changes and evolves.

Hell, I've learned to run in heels just to catch the last train so I won't be late in the office. I've learned that some people whom you might not like at first, if you at least give yourself a chance to learn more about them, that eventually you'll find a common ground. I've learned that everywhere gossip will always buzz about and that there's no easiest way to kill a story about you that's being run around than just to say the truth. That most often than not, those who spread the gossip are as clueless as anybody else and that often it's always a case of misunderstanding.

This is turning into a diatribe, isn't it? What I'm really itching to say is this. I've come across some people in Pinas who do not know how to treat others well, who do not know how to reign in their "diva-esque" attitude and treat people with an underlying glint of discrimination. And these are people who are educated and thus should be more aware of how they act.

And I suppose, if I have not gone out of the country and uprooted myself to strike on my own five years ago, maybe I might have felt as caught up in such a little self-serving bubble as these people are. I'm thankful for the chance to have learned that the big world has no place for such idiocies and superficiality. That in good places, richer places, people respect people no matter who they are. Maybe, that's one thing we've missed. Maybe that's our problem right there, something ingrained, something fundamental. If you are perceptive enough, to learn this things you don't really need to uproot yourself that far. Begin with observing yourself and how you behave and treat other people...