Having been here for a few months now, we have been invited to a number of purely social and some work related events, well actually mostly Kat has been invited, I am her +1 where I have been invited. I have a number of observations about such happenings, none of which cause me particular difficulties and in no specific order these are:-

•  Filipinos are notoriously casual about arrival times for events, if the invitation says 6pm, you can guarantee that no body except a rank amateur like myself will arrive before 7pm and most even after that, this is for all events, social or work related.
• Of course there are others, where promptness is expected, I haven’t quite worked out how to tell these apart yet.
• Formal invitations to events are not sent out until around a month beforehand, including weddings, christenings, birthday parties etc. This is regardless of where in the country the event is taking place and the need to book flights and or hotels to get there: the upside of this is that you are able to wiggle out of things and not cause offence, you can also get double booked too.
• All gatherings of friends, colleagues and family include food, often lots of food, no matter what the occasion, there will be something to eat and drink, and this is great and saves the need to cook if you are lucky enough to be invited and can also play havoc on your diet.
• Sometimes the food is not served quite how the chef would imagine it, I have had a cold cooked dinner on more than one occasion, once at a sit down function….
• In the Philippines it is wise to pace oneself, especially if alcohol is involved, even better follow the example of one’s host and graze on the variety of foodstuffs that have been made available. If the event is held at a commercial establishment, fresh nibbles will be brought out throughout the duration, including such delights as pork sisig, crablets (really, small crabs eaten whole), chicken or pork isaw, lumpia and my favourite, crispy pata.
• Filipinos love microphones, even small meetings held in a room no more than 5m x 5m require the use of a microphone to amplify the speaker’s voice, sadly despite common usage, many don’t know how to use one to maximum effect leading to garbled over-amplified speech and gallons of feedback.
• If microphones are loved, overhead projectors / beamers are absolutely worshipped, if it can be put on a PowerPoint slide, then all the better. I am afraid that some fall into the same old trap that I used to and proceeds to read aloud every word on the slide; bullet points please!!
• Beware the microphone, once the formal stuff is done the microphone / beamer combination can be utilised for the next great love of the Filipino, the devil’s invention Karaoke or it’s bastard younger sibling, Videoke. This latter is a baffling mix of the standard and well known karaoke and some totally unrelated, often cartoon or animated video. Then proceeds a number of singers of varying levels of sobriety and ability (I think there is an inverse proportional relationship between the two) caterwauling contemporary and classic songs. The video loop is repeated endlessly, meaning for the tyro participant like myself, you see the same thing again for a totally different song, which is quite disconcerting.
  I have to confess to having fallen victim to the alcohol/singing thing on a number of occasions, my last involving some old Tom Jones numbers to my eternal shame…..
• It is a hot country, I have not known it drop below 20°C since my arrival, however the dress code to some events is a little surprising, with t-shirts and jeans or shorts being common apparel to both weddings and funerals.
• I attended a christening some months ago, where Kat was to be one of the God Parents (one of 5 of each gender it turned out). My expectation was to attend the church, witness some prayers and hymns and the christening / blessing and then to head off for some refreshments. What I was not prepared for was the production line that formed part way through the service, it transpired that it is normal for many families to participate, on this occasion there were 24 children being christened. This took forever and the church was really hot, I was in danger of passing out through the heat. Next time I will take some water or something.

There is one large social event for which the Filipino nation can never be accused of being late for, Christmas. As I write this the date is early September and the “ ‘ber” months have started, which means that it is the season to be jolly, all the way until the end of the year. Although I have not experienced much of it yet this year, I have already seen decorations going up and seasonal songs are apparently being played in the shopping centres. Kat wants to find a tree and decorate it already, how am I going to survive 4 months of this????

One last thing, I still cannot for the life of me fathom what the fascination is that Filipinos have with spoons. To explain for those of the readers not familiar with this phenomenon, in preference, to what I would expect, a Filipino table is set with a spoon and fork to be used as the cutlery for the main course. Only on rare occasions or if requested, will a knife be provided. Now many of the large restaurants will provide the more conventional set up (at least from my western upbringing). Bizarrely, despite not having a cutting edge those familiar and practised in the use of a spoon manage really well with most foods and the spoon works well for many of the classic Filipino dishes many of which utilise a cooking sauce (often spicy or sour) which is served with the meal and the rice, the meat having been cooked to the point of delicious softness and merely falls apart at the wave of the spoon; maybe not so odd after all?

For anyone missing my usual ranting about driving, normal service will be resumed soon, I am working on a top ten rules... probably going to be nearer top twenty or thirty!!