Destination Unknown

Three years of not being able to see my sister means there are lots of things to talk about. Naturally, I brought up in our many chats so many things that I praise, things that I loathe, things that delights me and things that annoys me.

One particular grating-on-the-nerves stuff that I brought up was about our security guard in our condominium back in Binondo, Manila.

Let me tell you beforehand that first of all, I have never been a security guard, so I don’t know what are the exact guidelines of their work. Secondly, I don’t know when it is that what they are doing are beyond the limits of their work, or doing things they’re not supposed to be doing. But common sense pretty much dictates that some of the behaviour of our condo’s security guard are inappropriate, no, very inappropriate.

The first task that a security guard has to deliver is to keep the vicinity SECURE, and hence they have the title (and the name). And for that task alone, our condo’s security guard have already proved insufficient.

What exactly have they been doing? I wish I could type all of the stuff they are actually doing until the word limit of this blog (if such exist) have been reached. The real problem is, they’re doing nothing! At least, nothing of the sort of keeping tenants secured.

First of all, they were seen flirting with the elevator operator so many times. How can I prove this? Pretty simple. There are so many times I have witnessed a security guard (we’ll just call them guard henceforth) going inside elevator, press a destination, then not actually go to that destination once it is reached. Instead, they would initiate a small chat with the elevator operator. Sometimes the small chat become a series of big laughters and perhaps even trivia lessons given by guard to exemplify their male chauvanism. It’s all pretty embarrassing, because not only are their courtship style so high school (read: early puberty), but they’re actually also slacking off from work.

Next, the receptionist (who also happens to be another security guard) is also pretty dumb. They can’t tell apart visitors from tenants. If you are Chinese, they won’t require you to first make an intercom to a tenant you’re supposed to visit. But if you’re a Filipino, the intercom is mandatory. How stupid (and racist) is that? You mean to say it’s not possible for a Chinese suspicious character to suddenly enter the premise of the condominium? Last I recall, there are numerous amount of suspicious Chinese character existing in different parts of the world, perhaps even more than there are Filipino suspicious character. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is coming from a pure Chinese.

But not only is the receptionist dumb, they don’t even know how to modulate their voice, nor do they know how to follow orders. 7 years ago, when a tenant wants to bring his/her driver up, s/he can just request the receptionist to make an intercom to the driver. Now, it’s impossible, not because the receptionist will refuse to do so, but because they’ll agree to do it yet fail to do it. What the hell? I mean if you don’t want to do something, just say it! Of course, to verify this, I asked my driver (after waiting so long for him to come up) whether or not he was intercommed. He said no, and he was telling the truth.

Then, there’s this issue about the receptionist having terrible english. When I say terrible, I mean un-understandable terrible. I remember this time when I was intercommed about a delivery of a certain stuff. The conversation went on like this:

Guard: Sir, may delivery silin. (Translation: There’s a delivery of silin)

Me: Anong silin? (Translation: What silin?)(I was actually thinking he was referring to the roof, which I find kind of weird, because when has people ever delivered roof for a condominium?)

Guard: Yung gasul. (Translation: The gasul)

…which then made me realize they were actually referring to Shellane, the gasoline for your stove. This conversation made me want to bang my head against the wall. How could any administration with the right mind (which I doubt our building’s administration have) assigned a person with terrible english to be the receptionist of a building? It’s basically the same task as a call center agent (except receptionists are less paid), and from what I know, both occupations require that people have good communicating skills, at least in local language (Tagalog), as well as English.

Lastly, have you ever seen a security guard falling asleep during work?

Yep. Our security guard falls asleep during work. Which makes the security more lax.

Out of them all, I was most annoyed at security guards falling asleep. Not only that, but whenever they sleep, it’s so hard to wake them up. I remember being able to walk past them without waking them up. When they do this, they lose the confidence of having the tenants feel that their condominium is secure. Of all the things that a security guard could do, I think staying awake (and keeping watch) is most important. If a security guard, such as ours, falls asleep during work, he fails as a security guard.

My advice to people who live in my condominium (most especially to the administrators)? Fire the security guards; or instill discipline to them. Let them know what’s appropriate for their job and what’s not.

Or we can all just use a thousand padlocks in our house. I’m sure the security guards will never notice all those drillings that went by while installing the locks.

Hello everyone! I know - this is not my first entry… but I thought it’s been ages since I have written about something sarcastic, that’s why this entry feels like starting a new blog all over again, even though it’s not.

For all those who missed my witty comments (as if there’s anyone of that kind), well, here’s the moment you have all been waiting for –> another entry of peeves and annoyances. Yes, Kris Jou is now back in full throttle, ready to point out things that infuriate him!
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High maintenance. What are the first few thing that comes out of your mind when you hear these two words?

-They can’t commute
-Instead of driving their own cars (of which will no doubt be an expensive one) they ask drivers or their parents to do it for them
-They get pretty shocked at the signs of urban decadence, and even find themselves unwilling to get near people of very low social status, as if an invisible caste system forces them to be separated from the poor.
-They prattle on endlessly about the latest fashion trends with vocabularies that I can never understand, such as prada, etc.
-Nowhere do they feel that their spirituality or livelihood is being declined by mass-consumerism, at least not until it’s too late.

Now, I have been around people who are extremely high maintenance, so whatever I have listed above is pretty valid, at least in my exposure around RICH people. While I may have few issues with some of their attitude, I’m not halfway as annoyed with them as I am with people who PRETEND to be rich.

Additionally, I studied in a university where clearly more than 80% of the population belongs to the more well-off portion of the society. It’s not like they are extremely rich, but at least they do make money appear out of thin air whenever they need it (I mean this figuratively, ok?). That I have no problem with. But I’m pretty peeved with the way some people have to act just so that they will be labelled as RICH! Most of their behaviours range from being slightly annoying, to downright obnoxious.

I label this people as: trying hard to be rich. And there are more than enough of those in the Mabuhay land.

So let me name a few of their behaviours that are downright annoying:

(Disclaimer: This mostly applies to Philippines)

1. They are always late! You tell them to be at the reception of a party by 6 PM, they leave house at 8 PM. To make it even worse, they don’t apologize for their tardiness. Instead, they think it’s part of being cool. Behaviours vary between boys and girls. Boys would come driving cars they got from bugging their father, with windows rolled down and loud music turned up the highest volume just to boast their state of the art surround sounds. Girls would come with their driver (and sometimes with their boyfriend) and then they would go home early so as to further exhibit their high maintenance due to curfew. In both cases, their entrance is INAUSPICIOUSLY loud.

2. They act like elitist pricks. Nothing, and absolutely nothing contemporary to the country, will ever please them, be it contemporary music, contemporary pop culture, etc. So, to put themselves a level above the rest - of which is something of their hobby - they resort to pretending to be different by impersonating contemporary America. They listen to Coldplay instead of Sex Bomb Girls, watch American Idol instead of Starstruck. I’m not saying I support the local versions, but really, in the eye of the Westerns, they are mediocre just the same. Oh, the hypocrisy!

3. When they have travelled abroad, it’s usually bad news when they have returned. How? Insert foreign words to their local language? Check. Speak Filipino mixed with their newfound accent? Check. Compare everything in that country to Philippines just so they can berate Philippines? Check. It’s inadvertently plausible that the "Walang ganyan sa states" commercial is actually so true with Filipino "elites". And what it accomplish is alienate their friends by making them envious. Only the worst prick known in humankind will do anything as to intentionally make other people envious.

4. They talk so LOUDLY in their newest cellular phone. Such that they intentionally ‘forget’ to turn it off in cinemas, even those with ordinances against non-silented cellular phones. Of course, all this is to exemplify how much they have been keeping up with the latest gadgets. Ask where they get their money? Of course, from their reliable parents. Or if they earned the money, it’s usually almost the only money they have earned. So they resort to buying the smallest pack of Colgate toothbrush to be thrifty while buying the most expensive cellular phone just so that they will appear rich. It’s like living under budget WHILE pretending to be rich. Talk about hypocrisy.

5. If you commute (excluding cabs), it’s bad idea to honestly tell them how you travel. Telling them that you travel to school by jeeps will almost immediately make them run for cover by pretending to have received a phone call (in their latest mobile units) from their imaginary friends. To them, anyone who commutes belong to the far side of a distant galaxies, probably one inhabited with cockroaches (My apologies to cockroaches). Of course, they do commute, or so they tell other people. With cabs, or when they are sure nobody is looking.

I don’t get it! I mean, get a grip! Even the richest people (especially students) in Taiwan/Japan/U.S. use the bus or subway. New York subway stations looks even more run down than Philippines’ Light/Metro Rail Transit 1/2 (LRT2 was called by GMA as Strong Republic Transit. Pfft)! Why is it that in Philippines when people who use the bus/jeep/FX/rail transits, they are looked down upon by a certain (very undesirable) segment of the society?

6. They will read the most popular book just to appear intelligent. I say this with great conviction: nobody will have read "The Alchemist", "The Da Vinci Code", "Harry Potter", "Lord of the Rings", "Tuesdays with Morrie", and "Purpose Driven Life" (among many others) if they weren’t mentioned publicly several times, even if they were written in the exact same way. I know it’s part of Filipino attitude to catch up with the latest trend like a bullet train,  but what makes the elitist-wannabe worse is that they are actually just like every other Filipino in this manner, yet they act as if they are better. And to go back to what I was saying, of course those "elitists" will say that those books are awesome, even if they actually didn’t understand exactly what was going on.

Allow me to digress a little bit. Me? I’m not ashamed to say I didn’t read "Tuesdays with Morrie" and "Purpose Driven Life"; disliked "The Alchemist" because it’s too much like "The Little Prince" except more long-winded, and that maybe I didn’t get it; shamelessly criticized Dan Brown’s formula and his Digital Fortress even though I thought "Da Vinci Code" was pretty clever; and that I’ve read most Harry Potters and Da Vinci Code ages after it was first mentioned (and only because I received Da Vinci Code as a gift). At least I know where I stand when it comes to reading books - that I’m not extremely competent when it comes to reading comprehension and that there is much room for improvement of my english vocabulary. And I don’t go around LOUDLY discussing conspiracies of the latest books just to appear intelligent. I mean, if you are truly intelligent, finish "FOUCAULT’S PENDULUM", "THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV", "THE REMAINS OF THE DAY", "FAHRENHEIT 451", "100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE", "EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED", "THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED", "SOPHIE’S WORLD", "SIDDHARTA" and "EINSTEIN’S DREAMS".  Don’t go about loudly declaring how intelligent you are when in fact you’ve just read a no-brainer uber-mainstream entertainment.

7. They buy bargained fakes of clothes and fashion accesories (such as Gucci wallets) then lie about its authenticity. Ugh… puh-lease!

8. The last thing they’ll to is to engage in community services, especially those that involves helping the poor and doing rough hand’s work. So, not only are the elitists-wannabe annoying, they do nothing to help improve the society.

Instead of ranting endlessly about that item, I’ll give a real-life account- a personal experience, if you will.

My religion subject’s community service is to work in a habitat; i.e. help in construction of a public facility. This involves lifting lots of heavy blocks and steels, shovelling lots of muds and basically, do work that makes one stinky, all while under 36+ degree centigrade of exposure to the radiant sun. The fine line drawn to seperate "elitists" from the rest comes the amount of work each is doing.

Lots of people, including me, worked their ass off, such that most of us went home with sun burns and in desperate need of shower.

The "elites"? They drove to the habitat, then stayed in the car/in a place chatting, playing cards, and laughing while they watched the volunteer workers "suffer".

This is exactly the reason why I never got along well with one religion-subject-exclusive girl classmate. She was in the car, and is the root of the "elitist" ignorance. And if she is reading this, my message for her is: you suck!

And the last of those I can think of?

9. Starbucks fix! Let’s ignore the fact that actual rich people hanging around Starbucks is so the late 90’s (or until 2002’s, if you will). Obnoxious people trying to act elitist will go to Starbucks just so they can carry with them a Starbucks coffee cup (and tissue), mainly because a Starbucks coffee is pretty expensive and that most of the lower class people can only afford McDonald’s. Of course, some will prefer to stay in Starbucks for a little while discussing politics, fashions, fads, gadgets, etc. in their most annoying hybrid-languauge (such as few Tagalog but mostly English per sentence). I’ve even heard of Filipino-Chinese speak in 20% Chinese, 15% English and 65% Tagalog. What the hell was that about? But anyway, why Starbucks? Because EVERYBODY knows Starbucks, while only a few have tried Seattle’s Best, UCC, Figaro, Barista, Dante, Coffe Bean and Tea Leaf, and tons of others, even though most, if not all of them, have better coffee than Starbucks. Some people even resorted to calling Figaro the coffee-shop for the gay even though they don’t know how rich Figaro’s coffee actually is (and how great tasting their complimentary pastas are), but just because Figaro is a local coffee franchise while Starbucks is international. True coffee enthusiasts know that Starbucks coffee are not actually the best tasting ones (and I have MANY sources, just so you know, that say Starbucks coffee are pretty awful when compared to others) and if you ask me, I’m not exactly a fan of Starbucks coffee either -they put too much cream and sugar. But of course, pseudo-elitists do not care about this, because Starbucks is basically the be-seen places especially among other pseudo-elisists.  And by the way, real coffee drinkers do not label "MOCHA FRAPPUCINO" as a real coffee (no offense to people who like Mocha fraps), but simply as a cold beverage, sort of like how shandy is not really wine even if they taste similar. Real writers do not bring their laptops in a coffee shop while accessing the Wi-Fi. They write in a quiet background where nothing will disrupt their thought while going to coffee shop to people watch, not to type.

Anyway, I’m sure there are more, but this article is becoming pretty enormous. My final word before finishing this entry: Have a great time spotting "elitists".

Central Park Zoo is where the movie Madagascar took place, right?!?!?!

Well, yes. But from my visit here, I’m pretty disappointed that there are no talking lions, motor-mouth zebras, P.T. loving girraffes and pregnant hippopotamus. The only Madagascar (the movie) animals present here are the pengiuns, and monkeys.

Still, I have to say this picture really makes the visit worth it.

Yep, it’s the polar bear.

I want to be able to sleep as peacefully as him.

Metropolitan Museum of Arts - better known as "MET", is one of the most mind-blowingly awesome museum, and tourist spot, of New York. A visit here warrants great interest from any casual audience, and salivating from history-enthusiasts. And since the book "Da Vinci Code" have led people into getting more and more interested about antiquarian stuffs, the MET is currently seeing a great number of visitors.

Last Saturday, I was one among them. I have to say MET is every bit better than what I expected, such that it managed to become a museum I can spend all day in, alone, without being bored. Still, this visit of mine wasn’t the best, since I was lacking the required resources to make this trip most memorable.

Which is why I’m writing this article.

WIthout further ado, here are few tips I can give to anyone who wants to visit MET.

1. Get a camera. Preferrably digital cameras, so that you can take great number of pictures without changing films (which is pretty obvious). Also, remember to turn off your flash.

Actually, for the simple fact that this museum allows picture taking makes this one so much above the rest.

2. Use your MAP. Believe me, first time visitors of this museum may find it easy to get lost, as this museum is enormous. And yes, I did get lost.

3. Get a notebook and a ballpen handy. I believe everyone who will want to visit here is, in one way or the other, interested in world history. Remember, you’re witnessing here a collection of artifacts taken from various cultures. Taking down notes about new fact you unvieled from looking at Egypt artifacts or Figures of HIndu Saints greatly improves the enjoyment of the visit of this museum. Plus, it may be helpful for your research paper.

4. Remember to have some spare AA batteries for your Digital Camera. I’m not sure whether or not they sell batteries inside the museum. But chances are that if they are sold here, they are more expensive as compared to elsewhere.

5. Get the audio commentary. Believe me, it’s worth the $6. Without the audio, the Musical Instruments Collection wouldn’t be as enjoyable. And yes, every of this museum’s audio commentary is very well narrated. You can make it sound research paper-like (similar to how Robert Langdon narrates some historical conspiracies), or you can make it sound like an adult fascinating a child. In both cases, they’re fantastic.

"Man, that was an awful lot of time I spent in the aeroplane!"

Those were my first thought after I came down from Continental Airline and finally arrived to Newark Int’l Airport. You see, for the past 22 hours, I was either inside a plane, or inside an airport.

This is the longest flight that I’ve ever taken. And believe me, it’s not the kind of experience that I’ll fantasize about.

My first flight was from Philippines and Guam. By that time, I was already pretty sleepy. The flight itself took 3 hours yet it took almost forever before I reach there. The flight was not exactly the most comfortable: the seatings were kind of crowded and the engines were the noisiest in this one. For those not in the know yet, my ears are extremely prone to aching whenever I’m at high altitude, and the sound of jet engines just make them even worse.

My next flight was from Guam to Hawaii. This one is livelier than the last one, since the one seated beside me was quite talkative. Needless to say, this was my favorite flight of all three, even though it took 7 hours.

The next flight, from Hawaii to Newark, is actually the longest. It lasted 9 hours, but felt more like 11 hours of boredom. I slept many times during the flight such that, whenever I open my eye, I hoped that I was already quite near Newark. It never turned out that way. Sometimes I would open my eyes and say "What?! We’re not yet in LA?!" or "Only Chicago? When will I ever reach New York?!"

After the agonizing 22 hours, I was in New York, only to be struck by jet lag. I tried my best to enjoy my first night in New York, but I ended up sleeping through it. While I was still trying to enjoy the night, I felt like my world is moving side by side, as if there’s an endless earthquake occuring everywhere I go. Realizing that this is not exactly the kind of condition I want to be in while touring places, I surrendered into sleeping.

Surprisingly, the jet lag is gone just after 4 hours. I ended up waking up earlier than usual: at 6 AM.

Maybe I’m just not very prone to jet lag, or maybe my body clock works as if I’m in New York all the time. Whatever the case may be, I find it quite weird that I can manage to sleep late and wake up early when I’m in NY. In Philippines, I’ll be severly lethargic throughout the day whenever I try to do that.

Whatever the case may be, I really am not looking forward to future experiences of jet lag.