Parties and being taken advantage of

[Singers]

Thing is if your living in an area that is family related (like me and April ie its a Clan area) finding help isnt so difficult. infact most of the people who do things for us are related in some way. We have a Yaya starting tomorrow (1 of 3 depending which one turns up and how they get on). We also have a laundry woman the important thing we find is keeping people out of the house.. we don't let staff come to the house like the laundry they do it at the compound and the Yaya will be living at Aprils parents. Not because we thing we are better than anyone else its just that keeping peoples eyes away from things that may lead to temptation and problems is better than giving people the free run of the properties. I also have a Filipino friend who has several helpers/maids etc. and have moved them to day working because they were stealing food during the day when they were at work. Im a strong believer in trust being earned not given freely.

Tex (& me?) gave a party for family and neighbours to celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary / Father-in-Laws birthday and young Bro' getting his Engineering degree. A Mass was said. Say 150 people and children came. It was billed as "open house" without me being told.Immediate family thanked me as did most of the nieces and nephew's.Of the rest say 100+ --- 10 people thanked me. The teenagers would wait until Tex and sisters left the "food tables" and would then rush to get more grub!!! Me sitting and watching was irrelevant. I was told they might have been embarrassed by me??.NEVER again! I vowed and Tex and sisters agreed. They were embarrassed by the greed and lack of manners shown by the younger people. Family and friends ONLY in future. Same ole' same ole' --- "scoff the trough" and never be invited again... So SAD!Tom Edited March 15, 2010 by Singers

[tropicalwaste]

Had a near experience this year although the party conversation is a bit off tangent from the original story ??I had a big Christmas party which was a mix of the airsoft team,friends and family no problem...Fiesta came around in Febuary and suddenly there is a flurry of interest for the Airsoft team to visit the netcafe for a night.. I haven't mentioned Fiesta or anything else to the team. But reading the Cebuano on the team forum it quickly becomes apparent they are expecting free food and free beer from a visit to the cafe. because they know its Fiesta..End result none of them got invited and its pretty much changed my mindset on the whole team and won't be helping "sponser" any events this year. Very likely I will move to a team with more cash flow and willingness to pay theyre way.

[cebuexpat]

A young lady friend of my wifes, met a really nice foreigner. They started seeing each other and her life was really turning around. Before he went back to his country he asked me to throw a party for his going away. He asked me to fix a dinner for 50 pax. Simple filipino meal. He would buy beers and tanduay also. So the party started. They was around 20 to 30 here at the beginning. The girl, young and really not thinking I guess, seen one of the local girls who stand by around the area alot. She said come and get some foods. She said what about my friend, she said yes its ok, bring you FRIEND... That is meant by one....Well soon the freind yelled at the other stand by girl (without permission) , then she yelled at another one, and on and on, and it was a mad house. I seen what was happening, and asked the man, did you invite these people. He said I am not sure, are they her friends. I said maybe you should talk to her. Well she said no I only invited one, well the man being kind would not tell them no.....They would walk in fill up a plate and walk back across the road to the stand by area, without a thank you or nothing. It was line a train, one was telling one and then before you know it actually became a mob out front.... They was just grabbing and running and its was completely awful.... They had become so many, that the girl was even trying to stop them now. But it was too late, it had become out of hand... The man ended up not getting anything to eat, the going away cake was completely destroyed. They did not use the cake knife they was grabbing with thier hands and trying to reach over each other and get pieces...... Best part is, I had warned him to be careful before this happened. I told him to make sure he had a strict invitation list..... Anyways, its over,,,, the girls crying, you can tell hes really discouraged, his flight was leaving in a about 6 hours...... It was not a pretty sight....... I am not sure but I think they are no longer together.... Not for sure the reason....... P.S. I cant find it right now, but has anyone seen the video when Manny Paciquo give the truck full of chicken meals away in his province.... You have to find that one and watch it...... They wonder why we look at them the way we do sometimes..........

[jamesmusslewhite]

Some Filipino neighbors had taken some old non-fitting clothes and had given them to some of the mountain folks that come down to town during the fiesta here in Surigao City. The three ladies said thank you and left. The next day our Filipino neighbors walked into their home having been working on their boat in their back yard, to find the same three women sitting in their home uninvited. They were also accompanied by close to 50 people who were dividing up their laundry. They picked them clean even before they could throw them out of their home. It is the sheer audacity, rudeness, and total lack of respect that is shocking. It is a greedy evil nature that is not cultural, it is just Low Class, because they themselves would never allow it to happen to them. Trash is trash, and has no race, creed, color, or sexual orientation. It is not ignorance, because they are aware of what they are doing. It is just evil greedy trash being evil greedy trash.I guess sometime the old saying, "No good deed goes unpunished" just holds to be true sometimes.

Edited April 1, 2010 by jamesmusslewhite

[Mr Lee]

A young lady friend of my wifes, met a really nice foreigner. They started seeing each other and her life was really turning around.

[tropicalwaste]

Im keen to just keep things to the neighbourhood to people "I know" or relatives. When we have fiesta there are around 120+ people come a lot of them are family but mainly the others are people who we do business with. I never do an open house and the Airsoft guys for example who thought they got a free meal and as much beer as they could soon got put in their place and will miss out on any celebrations I do in the future for the same reason. The grabbing of clothes thing I had happen last year when I gave some kids some clothes it ended up with kids grabbing and pulling that the bag ripped it was more like a scene from a Zombie movie. Another thing I will never do again generosity seems to get seen as some kind of weakness and a right to abuse trust and friendship. I for one have cut back on a lot of the stuff I want to do for that reason. There will be a funny thing happen when I repair one section of road which is along the front of our compound and leave the rest as there must be at least 40 neighbours they can do their own or not at all. In fairness to neighbours though like last week with the graduations with the celebration meals they brought food to the house to share its a bit hard to explain unless you see it but its quite a tight net little area we have and Aprils cousin today said it in its closest meaning "its like a village" which pretty much sums it up.If anyone organises a free meal though your right to go with a guest list but also let your wife list it then trim it back :cheersty: as people generally over eat so I say let less people eat rather than more select the people you REALLY want to be there. The whole thing of upsetting people because they weren't invited I can't be bothered with someone throwing Tampo next time you see them because they didnt get an invite pretty much sums up why they didnt get invited..lol

[retired]

Every event i have ever been to is like this so i just hang back and let my wife get me a plate as she knows i won't jostle to do so . But my favorite may be it's your "birthday" but you are expected to pay the freight for everyone that shows up . :-)

[TheMason]

Every event i have ever been to is like this so i just hang back and let my wife get me a plate as she knows i won't jostle to do so . But my favorite may be it's your "birthday" but you are expected to pay the freight for everyone that shows up . :-)

My wife and I have 'agreed' that we will each celebrate our birthday according to our own culture. When my birthday comes around, she will treat me according to the American custom. When her birthday comes around, she will treat me according to the Filipino custom. Its weird though, despite our agreement, we always seem to take the family out to dinner around my birthday and I always seem to go shopping right around the time of her birthday. I think I have to explain our agreement to her again.For the party issue, we've had several parties and never had the problem mentioned here. Of course, we had a gated yard and only invited family to the gathering. If you weren't family, you didn't get in. Maybe people thought we were snobbish, but we had tasty leftovers for 3-4 days so I was OK with being seen as snobbish.

[BobNChe]

I have seen all the things mentioned above and worse. It tends to be the lower to semi mid levels of society that take advantage so rampantly. But I have seen it happen in many other levels as well. Some examples below!!!* A couple of weddings where guests were asked to let the women and children eat first, but 20% of the men in attendance just ignored the wedding couple's wishes and just waded in.* Women who were afforded the opportunity to have first in line privileges at weddings or functions PILED their plates with the best food to the point where it was WAY more than they could eat! Pure greed!!! Maybe the men above knew this!!! LOL* When family is invited openly, people who are fourth generation seven times removed suddenly become close again! LOL* Birthday party where there was a lechon baboy bought for dinner. We all left the house to play sports for a couple of hours in the early afternoon. When we got back, the lechon was 3/4 eaten even though the host had not opened it yet.* Grown -ups pushing kids out of the way in order to get to a buffet first!* A lady (loose term) took 1/3 of the skin (most coveted part) off a lechon baboy and only ate 1/4 of what she took, leaving the rest to be thrown away!* A wedding reception held at Joker's Arms where the wife's family took it upon themselves to take all the bottles of booze off of the bar tender's table and stuff it in their bag or purses leaving no booze for the reception!The list goes on, but these are a few keen examples! BUT, I reiterate, this behavior seems to be prevalent in the lower echelons of society here and for the most part the Filipino people are gracious and hospitable!

[Singers]

I have seen all the things mentioned above and worse. It tends to be the lower to semi mid levels of society that take advantage so rampantly. But I have seen it happen in many other levels as well. Some examples below!!!* A couple of weddings where guests were asked to let the women and children eat first, but 20% of the men in attendance just ignored the wedding couple's wishes and just waded in.* Women who were afforded the opportunity to have first in line privileges at weddings or functions PILED their plates with the best food to the point where it was WAY more than they could eat! Pure greed!!! Maybe the men above knew this!!! LOL* When family is invited openly, people who are fourth generation seven times removed suddenly become close again! LOL* Birthday party where there was a lechon baboy bought for dinner. We all left the house to play sports for a couple of hours in the early afternoon. When we got back, the lechon was 3/4 eaten even though the host had not opened it yet.* Grown -ups pushing kids out of the way in order to get to a buffet first!* A lady (loose term) took 1/3 of the skin (most coveted part) off a lechon baboy and only ate 1/4 of what she took, leaving the rest to be thrown away!* A wedding reception held at Joker's Arms where the wife's family took it upon themselves to take all the bottles of booze off of the bar tender's table and stuff it in their bag or purses leaving no booze for the reception!The list goes on, but these are a few keen examples! BUT, I reiterate, this behavior seems to be prevalent in the lower echelons of society here and for the most part the Filipino people are gracious and hospitable!

Yes. Point well made. Thank you.At "our" parties is is always the "uninvited" who are the ill-mannered. Having said that "Thank you" is seldom said within my earshot.My Mom-in-Law & my wife ask me to ignore their GateCrashing "because they are very poor people !! & hungry".UK Tom Edited April 2, 2010 by Singers