Travel Photos & Musings By Nathan W. Allen
(*Back in 2014, a Polish Travel Blogger named Agnes wrote an article about how disgusted she was by Filipino food. It went massively viral, and angered many Filipinos around the world. In my response below, I suggested that she wrote it just to generate web traffic. If so, her plan worked perfectly.) To counter it,...
After a year living in the country, I listed some ways that my travels in the Philippines changed me for good. 1. The Philippines Taught Me To Make Peace With Death “IF IT’S MY TIME, IT’S MY TIME” OK, now that I have your attention, let me explain: I had a 55 year old Pinoy friend...
I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area – seemingly, one of the least racist places in the U.S. It was so tolerant and diverse that when I moved to New York City, my barber was shocked to hear me mention that the city’s “lack of diversity” disappointed me. Sure, New York is diverse,...
Bohol Is The Best…No, It’s Albay…No, It’s Davao!! When I travelled to the Philippines previously, I mentioned elements of fear and superstition in the culture, and wondered if these traits were instilled by the Spanish, or were already here in the Philippines when they arrived. Now I’m wondering the same thing about the strong regionalism...
What an honor to be invited to this “celebration of the dead” with my host’s family. I thought going to the cemetery to hang out with deceased relatives all night was the perfect thing to do for Halloween, but it turned out to be much less creepy and far more beautiful and moving than I...
45 times. Including the title, that’s how many times the word “hate” was mentioned in the essay I just read about the current state of the Philippines. That’s a lot of hate, especially for an essay of just 400 or so words. Don’t get me wrong, there was nothing that Miss Diamante wrote that I...
Here we go again! Another anti-Filipino blog. I hope my Filipino friends won’t take this miserable Singapore hate-blog too personally. To understand what is going on in Singapore, perhaps we need some perspective. Did you know that workers in Singapore are ranked as the most unhappy in the world? Yes, many people are very unhappy...
Enough is Enough – Please Stop Fueling Mrs. Sanchez’s Fire My father always told me that unfortunately, even negative publicity is good publicity. No one seems to understand this better than Korina Sanchez, and it looks like she might be using us as pawns in her strategic game of chess. I thought it was bad...
As I travel around the Philippines, I try to pick up bits and pieces of the languages wherever I go (Filipino, Bisaya, Bicolano, Aklanon, Ilongo…etc). In the process, one thing has become abundantly clear: English just doesn’t make much sense. Still though, I thought I’d publish these English grammar tips for Filipinos… To Me, “Filipino...
December 29, 2014 Last night I saw a Facebook post by a media company I follow. The headline read: “10 Ways The World Will Get Worse in 2015”. It featured a very depressing black and white photo of factories pumping thick, toxic fumes into the air. The quality of their articles had been getting worse...