- Expats need to import necessities from their home country. Local goods are not up to their standards, case in point: Pyodontyl Plus versus Beam toothpaste.
- Expats are billeted in a free-accommodation hotel or apartment; locals usually own their houses or rent in a low-rent apartments. Expats need to pay for other amenities such as the use of massage parlor, swimming pool, tennis court, gym, or game rooms. Locals have access to a “hilot” [a Pinoy chiropractor], public beach, shopping mall, exercise backyard, or play chess or “dama” [a Philippine board game] in public parks.
- Expats need to buy books from Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble not from National Bookstore; magazines and newspapers from Zinio or Qmags not from your local newsboy; digital audio from CDNow.com or MP3.com not from MusicOne or Tower Records; or porn from Playboy or Penthouse not from Tik-Tik magazine or snippets of Xaviera in Abante.
- Expats need to buy more expensive soap and Avian water to take a bath. [Locals smell like locals, anyway.]
- Expats need Broadband internet connection for their laptops; locals patiently waits for dial-up connection, if their local phone line have already been connected after years of waiting.
- Expats need a Pentium computer with Vista OS to chat, surf the web, make international call, video conferencing while Locals are satisfied with their green-monitor XT PC with no internet connection, chat while on coffee break, send SMS and never use the call button of their mobile phones, and attend boring corporate conferences.
- Expats use size-A4 and not Letter or Legal size paper; a fountain or sign pen; not a ballpoint pen.
- Expats need to color-print a web page while Locals are mesmerized by the click-clacking of a dot-matrix printer.
- Expats are tailored by Saville Row or buy from Marks & Spencer, while locals are happy with imitation Levi’s 501 jeans or Surplus Shop merchandise.
- Expats were hired by the foreign owners; locals were hired by expats! Or expats were hired by the “bosses” thus your boss is an expat!
- Expats need to buy Racks of Lambs from New Zealand, caviar from Russia, Champagne from France, cigars from Cuba; while Locals buy “tuyo” [dried fish] from Aling Nena’s Sari-sari, Bagoong [fish paste] from Pampanga, San Miguel Beer from SMC, Sampaguita from Fortune Tobacco.
- Expats need to send their children to International or an exclusive school. Locals can avail of the government-mandated “free” education from primary to secondary schools, but never mind sending your children to a good college.
- Expats need to relax in a spa, pass time in a 5-star bar, sleep in a 5-star hotel, play golf in a country-side members-only club; Local relax at home watching “Wowowee” [a local noon-time TV variety show], pass time watching the bundy clock, sleep in a one-inch thick mattress, and play “gulp” during holidays!
- Expats are accomodated on airconditioned hospital rooms, tended by professional surgeons and a throng of nurses, and afforded a bevy of laboratory tests. Locals rely on their own room, tended by the local “albularyo” [faith-healer] Mang Kepweng and his wife-“hilot”. and can only afford Generic medicines.
More to come. This list started 26 September 2007.
Notes:
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