I\u2019m not sure why, but I thought of something today that I hadn\u2019t thought about in a long time.
When we Lived in Manila, in the Philippines, it was almost like living in the United States. There\u00a0 was the old part of Manila, that was more like you\u2019d expect, but around the old section, it had become a very modern, clean, efficient Asian city. There were shopping centers with chrome and glass department stores and unlike a lot of our overseas posts, just about anything and everything was available.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And \u2014 it was one of those places where Americans were genuinely liked.The Filipinos celebrated just about every American holiday and followed lots of \u201cAmerican\u201d customs. The stores were always decorated for Christmas, they had Thanksgiving dinners, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyhow, the first year we were there, my boss had a six year old daughter and she wanted to go trick or treating on Halloween. My boss was out of town and he\u2019d asked me to take his daughter trick or treating. They lived out in one of the \u201cvillages\u201d in a suburb of Manila. So I went out after work and his daughter was dressed up like some kind of a creature \u2014 I don\u2019t remember what \u2014 but it was probably from some movie or something and she had a couple of her friends with her, also dressed for trick or treating. We started down her street and knocked on the first door and no one answered. The next house had the porch light on \u2014 a good sign. So she knocked on the door. The door was opened by what looked to be a pretty old woman. She took one look, screamed, and slammed the door. We were all a little surprised and were just about to turn away and leave when the door opened again. The woman threw a large bucket of water on us \u2014 and, continued to scream.\u00a0
Just a word of warning \u2014 apparently Halloween isn\u2019t celebrated in the Philippines. At least it wasn\u2019t back then\u2026.
\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m not sure why, but I thought of something today that I hadn\u2019t thought about in a long time.When we Lived in Manila, in the Philippines, it was almost like living in the United States. There\u00a0 was the old part … Continue reading