• TronnaRaps@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    I don’t get this? My mind didn’t go where it seems others’ here went. Is this about men looking for submissive women? Or something more sinister?

    • astreus@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      Man in 30s married to a half-Filipina woman here. When we went to visit for our honeymoon it was really gross. LOTS of very, very old men with teenage girls.

      I had women falling out of their chairs to look at me.

      I had a woman literally fall over while trying to ogle me while walking down the street.

      For our goodbye dinner, her Ate toasted us by saying “You have fulfilled all our dreams: you’ve married a white man.”

      I had several people say how ugly they were because they were Filipino.

      EVERY convenience store and super market had skin whitening creams.

      It was my first experience of the Philippines and the first experience I had of racial fetishism. My wife got preferential treatment for being Mestizos.

      The Spanish did a real number over there with their racial hierarchy bullshit.

      • Match!!@pawb.social
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        8 months ago

        The Americans also colonized the Philippines and it got worse during that time

        • astreus@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          Not…really. The racial hierarchy and the self-loathing are really Spain’s doing via the Church.

          Spain was in control for 400 years and had clear racial caste system. They brought a new religion and used it to justify an incredibly evil rule. Lain America had governors, the Philippines had Friars (read Touch Me Not or Noli Me Tángere).

          Compared with America, which in control for around 50 years and about 10% of that was the Japanese invasion. They are seen as liberators and saviours because of how utterly horrific the Japanese were (wasn’t just Korea with comfort women). In the early 20th century, a lot of the reforms in the Philippines by America were based around giving land to the farm workers and laying ground work for independence via the Insular government (so the cheap sugar supply could be blocked from entering the US market).

          • Match!!@pawb.social
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            8 months ago

            Read Renato Constantino’s Dissent and Counter-Consciousness about how Rizal in particular was elevated by American revisionism to justify the Americans crushing the Katipunan.

            • astreus@lemmy.ml
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              8 months ago

              Renato Constantino

              Just asked my wife about this (she’s an author that’s just won funding to research and write about the history of the Philippines in her novels). These are her words paraphrased:

              Oh yeah, Rizal was a reformist and thought of Spain as more of an abusive parent than something to overthrow. However, even at the time his work was really important to the revolution and his arrest led to the founding of the KKK (not that one) which was succeeded by the ongoing communist revolution. He directly, and against his will, led to the uprising that’s still a big feature of the country today.

              America’s history with the country is a lot more complex than Spain. While Spain gained dominance by throwing their weight into an ongoing was between datus and changed the landscape to impose their hierarchy, America never really wanted the Philippines to begin with. Now, the Americas worship in the country is straight up horrifying, but that isn’t from the American period of rule but because of the brief period of Japanese rule as a contrast.

            • astreus@lemmy.ml
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              8 months ago

              That’s interesting, I’ll give it a read. But I don’t entirely see how. He was first banished and then executed for his writing and thrown in an unmarked grave. During his life, his writing was the cornerstone of the burgeoning revolution against his wishes. This was all a fair chunk of time before the Spanish-American war.

      • AdmiralShat@programming.dev
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        8 months ago

        My Dad’s bills are like $200 a month for everything, he eats fresh fruit and vegetables everyday, he bought a small truck or cheap, he gets to explore jungles and beaches and experience life out side the US.

        It’s not just young Asian women that people go there for. The cost of living is so low and you aren’t bombarded by american bullshit all the time

        • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          My friend lived in a beachfront hut in Thailand for a couple of years and he said his total cost of living was $7 per day, including food and alcohol, and he drank A LOT of alcohol.

          • No_Eponym@lemmy.ca
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            8 months ago

            This is it. So many retirees are too poor to live in Western countries, let alone live well. They have a small pension (if that), some old age benefits, maybe some paper wealth in real estate that they can’t access because the cheap cost of shelter from that real estate is critical to making ends meet. If they get divorced, then they probably need to sell the house, so no more cheap shelter.

            Moving somewhere cheap is their only option to have a dignified retirement. Of course, that probably is just delaying the inevitable since older age comes with all sorts of health issues and at some point they will probably need health and elder care they can’t afford in their home country.

          • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Sounds about right. Food is about 300 Bhat a day, local booze about 200, so that leaves about 200 Bhat for hut rental and misc.

        • Mango@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          So I could save up maybe $20k and just go start a decent business there?