I got an email from somebody asking for an advice on how to handle meeting the family of the girl he was corresponding with for some time.
“Hi Feyma, I will shortly be visiting the Philippines and meeting a lady who I have been in contact for some time. She is a widow, both her parents are now deceased and has children living at home. My question is in regard to Filipino culture… who takes the role of her parents? She has a son (21) but he is not the eldest she has a brother also. I understand first impressions are important so I am keen to get off on the right foot. Hope you can help, have searched extensively but no avail. Enjoy your articles, keep up the good work. Cheers!”
Regarding the first impression, I advise for the guy to be himself. If you have lots of patience with you, that really is a big plus coming here. The Philippines is a friendly country but visiting here can lead to frustrations too. Don’t pretend to be a super nice guy. If you don’t have much patience, its better to tell your lady or just show who you really are, than trying to be nice. Then if you get mad later somewhere, then they (the family too) might judge you. A lot of the Filipinos nowadays have the knowledge already that some foreigners and Filipino who lives abroad for a long time don’ t have the patience that the people have here. Some people now understand the frustration of some tourists here. Thank goodness for the internet. You might see some on the misbehavior of the tourist on YouTube, or you might end up on YouTube yourself. Not a good thing then.
I think when a parents dies here in the Philippines, the oldest child are the one more likely to act as the parent especially if there is properties involved. But sometimes the oldest child might not want to be the head or act as the parent of all the siblings. Like with me and my family, our oldest brother, he told us that he will just follow what we want with what we got from our parents. He said he is too old to be acting as the one who lead us. Me and my other siblings understands his stand point. So we will just let him know what we are doing if he approves or not. I also know of some family, when their parents died, they elect an officer in that siblings so that no fights will ever occur later. Really every family is different and also every region is different. So feel free to share here.
Very common here in the Philippines if the child (children) is not married yet, even over 18 years of age, they tend to be living with the parents house or in the compound. Its really the norm here. The only time the child will be leaving at the house of the parents even when he/she still single if she/he had a job somewhere away from the parents. Almost always the kid will still follow the rules of the parents even being away. Even a married children still almost always follow the parents wishes. It is hard for the kids to disobey their parents here. In Filipino culture we are trained at the early age to always follow the elders.
Since the lady had no parents, the guy might have to ask permission if ever he wants to marry the lady from the closest relative of the lady. It could be the aunts, uncles, grandparents aside from the kids of the lady. Really whoever the lady was close to that’s who he will be talking to. Some ladies they might want the guy will talk to their priest or the pastor too.
To really further his knowledge about our culture here I advice him and other readers here to read Bob’s SIR column. It is really helpful to a lot of people here that wanted to know more about our culture.
Good luck to you. I hope you will enjoy your stay here in the Philippines!
Feyma;
I went back and re-read you advice for a second time. It was good advice for the first timer, and the rest of us who have been here for awhile. “Just be yourself” that will always work.
Hi Paul – Thank you so much. Really no other options for him to do but just to be himself always.
Thanks for the advice too.
If you cannot be yourself then anything else is a lie.
Hi Gary – Very true. Can’t argue on that.
Thank you for stopping by!
Hi Feyma – Good advice but he must remember it’s a two way senario, they must be themselves also.
Regards.
Jim.
Important to remember also that he did not ask how “they” should be.. he asked how he should be! 😉
Hi Jim – Yeah agree, but he was the one asking how to impressed the family. He has to exert lots of effort to make the family happy. To be honest it’s really automatic feeling for the family of the lady to please him.
Good to see you here Jim.
Take care!
Good luck and welcome to a whole new experience.
Thank you Boss.
Hi Feyma, I remember when I first visited my wifes family. I had fun and enjoyed myself but also was on ‘my best behavior’ as my mom used to say, lol. Later I was surprised by my wife telling me what a good impression I had made on family and neighbors. I think when you’re a guest you should act like one. Just my thoughts. By the way she also told me some neighbors were surprised to meet a Kano with manners, lol. What does that tell us about people in general? haha Ingat, Mark G.
Hi Mark G. Good for you. I’m glad that you had a good time with your wife’s family and the neighbors.
Thank you for sharing your experiences. Keep reading and posting here.
Have a good day!
Just be yourself unless you want to fake it the rest of your time there.
But don’t repeat the mistake I did, no doubt you will be taken to all the relatives home and be “shown off”. Don’t eat your fill at the first place you visit, you will be offered food and be expected to eat every place you go. Me? I chowed down at the first place we went and started to get impatient when the other relatives keep insisting that i eat. I admit i got a bit peevish after awhile “Didn’t these people realize I was not hungry???”
HI scott h – I really agree with you.
Ha ha ha.. you have to eat when the family offered you food. It’s an insult if ever you won’t try it. They are proud to have you at the house and the best they can do was offered you food.
Thank you for sharing, at least some people here will get an idea on what to do when going to the relatives house.
Good to see you here!
Mrs Feyma,
Nothing more to say! Be safe.
”…Very common here in the Philippines if the child (children) is not married yet, even over 18 years of age, they tend to be living with the parents house or in the compound. Its really the norm here…”
Good you mentioned this Feyma.
Last year when I was in Mindanao, Toril, suburbs of Davao, I stayed in a 2 storey rented house, it was on a 450sqm lot. Owners (parents) left the city for a life on a far-away farm and their 3 grown-up children were left behind… literally. They built 3 shacks behind the main house where they are living with their own families. So with us and them we were 13 people on the property.
My question to Fayma: where are the 6 children (2 children per couple) of their 3 children going to live when they grow up?
Parents obviously need to rent the 2 storey house for additional income. Farming doesn’t seem to provide enough money for living.
My question again: do they renovate and enlarge the 2 storey house (takes a lot of money) or build more shacks around the main house and take-up all 450sqm of the lot for housing. That would mean probably 20 or 30 people living there very soon. Oufff!!!
The children… First, many thanks for a fascinating and useful web site. I went to visit PI a while ago to meet a particular woman (a long story). I stayed four weeks and had an amazing time. A bit scary too because of the different culture and danger stories I’ve read about visitors. Of course, I was on best behaviour, which wasn’t difficult, because everyone was very kind and did all they could to make me feel at home. There were many things I missed while there, which I won’t go into here, but one thing notabley missing from the previous words: The children. A lot of them and all very polite and happy. For example, they love the camera and I left a video cam running for a while to amuse them (with approval from relatives) and they were very careful not to touch it but paraded and sang to it on many occasions. I was told most foreign people don’t like children the way I do and the locals seemed to like me for it.
i have been to CDO twice now and enjoyed my stay. the culture was not much different from how i was raised. i was treated like family. the filipino culture is right up my alley.. i felt most comfortable there. very good advice too in this article
Hi harley – I’m glad you enjoyed your stay here in the Philippines and happy at the same time with the culture here.
Are you thinking of retiring here in the Philippines? I will tell you this though coming here for vacation is way different than living here for good. Really a big adjustment.
Glad to see you here. Keep reading!