A stretch

Of course after a trip to Paradise, in this case the Philippines, I want to go talk about it. But how to justify talking about my holiday on a blog about Hong Kong? Well, I think I've figured out a connection.

The place we stayed was a remote quiet little spot with one restaurant, four bungalows and little else, so I spent lots of time talking to the other visitors and to the scuba teacher that came to certify my boy. He is a Swiss man who used to work for the police force. He specialized in organizing the security for big festivals and demonstrations, a logistics expert. Matt worried about being bored when he retired, so he moved to the Philippines and is running a tour agency. The impossibilities of organizing anything to run smoothly there are keeping him very occupied.

We talked about how the government policies don't encourage any sort of entrepreneurial activities or limits to the birth rate because the government runs on of all the money brought in by people, mainly women, working abroad. He said that the 10% of Filipinos who are working abroad are sending home more money than the wages of the 90% who are still in the country. I also didn't realize that the foreign workers are only allowed to keep around 10% of their income. It is a requirement of their visa that the rest of it has to be sent back to the Philippines.

A trained office worker on Negros Orientale gets around 200 pesos a day wages. That converts to $5 USD. Matt said that his office assistant supports five people on that. It's no wonder why so many Filipinas are here in Hong Kong. And it's no wonder that some steal from their employers. Ten percent of the monthly minimum wage is roughly $40 USD. I can't imagine only having forty dollars to buy day-off food, clothes and necessaries. I suppose room and board doesn't cover tampons. So that's the Hong Kong connection. It's a stretch to be sure, but there I was in paradise while helpers were freezing their butts off sitting on cardboard on the walkways of HK during the "holidays" they got over Chinese New Year.