Hospitality Had Given Filipinos Its Value

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Filipinos have been known to be amazingly friendly to strangers. They treat visitors, foreigners, or guests as if they have known them already. Hospitality seems to be a Filipino identity. Whether people will like it or not, one cannot deny but admit the truth once he or she visits the Philippines. Well, it is a pride of every Filipino in the country and abroad. Tourists would even make comments regarding Filipinos’ hospitality during their vacations or wherever in the country they would be fooling around.

Hospitality beats delicious Filipino dishes, landmarks, and top tourist destinations around the Philippines because foreigners observe it at the moment they reach a Philippine airport. They are met with hospitality with Filipinos working at the airport towards riding on a taxi. Filipino drivers even struggle to speak English just to joyfully communicate with them and would have had a good conversation eventually.

The truth is that the origin of this Filipino value is not yet fully identified. Most non-Filipino people even think that they would be cruel to foreigners as they have experienced atrocities from foreign invasion in the past. They should have had fought back but it is not happening. What is happening instead is that they welcome foreigners with warmth heart and incomparable hospitality. It is manifested by the good service among Filipinos to them aside from the warmth welcoming and wonderfully sweet speeches Filipino could have thrown to them.

With this notion, many countries praise this Filipino value. Filipinos even borrow money just to have some food on the table for the visitors. They do not care whether they would become debt-ridden or whatever consequences they might have. As long as their visitors would be happy for the vacation then that is all that matters to them. They know how hard it is to work for money, but they seem to be ignoring this fact. Foreigners could not debate against it as Filipinos would only reason out that there are many more reasons to make visitors happy than suffering from poverty afterwards. Filipinos have in their minds that it is life-fulfilling to serve visitors well. It is a sort of comfort for the Filipinos to make someone else happy because of their good deeds.

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The question on why the Filipinos cannot get rid of it will probably stay the same as a question. Many calamities brought them to the pain of poverty, but hospitality has always been there to show how it is embedded in the hearts of every Filipino.

For the history of it, Filipinos never invaded other territory nearby. The most touching part of it is that there were the ones who accepted foreigners to settle with them in the Philippines. They welcomed foreigners who would like to transfer to the lands covered by the country. The datus or the tribal leaders, who used to be the leader of a specific territory had the habit of performing dances and singing whenever refugees would come. For foreign traders, they could do business in the Philippines peacefully. It was only the Spanish colonizers that ruined this bright side of the Philippine history. After 333 years of pain, torture, slavery, and other atrocities in the hands of the Spaniards, hospitality has never faded.

Nonetheless, some famous habits could be reflected as far as hospitality is concerned:

Untiring Welcoming Speech

It is so funny to think how Filipinos can manage to smile to an angry man. Yes, it happens all the time. They can even say ‘thank you’ to a dismayed person after being thrown with hurtful words. And even people only do window shopping, Filipinos would still entertain them as if they would likely to buy one. One can even observe it on streets. Sidewalk vendors, cigarette sellers, security guards, and even the beggars treat foreigners with hospitality and full respect. They would say ‘magandang umaga’ or good morning every morning to anyone they meet on the road. It may seem unbelievable, but Filipinos are not shame to show it to people they do not personally know. Some people may be shame, but at least, they never cease to smile at people they meet as a form of recognizing their presence.

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Best Entertainer

Filipinos are like clowns that make every people laugh amidst the moment of emotional stress. They make corny jokes just to please every visitor. It is a form of hospitality knowing that the vacationers would think that they are highly valued by their tour guides. They would even impersonate someone or the foreigners themselves just to entertain them throughout their stay in the country. Just to keep foreigners get rid of boredom, Filipinos tend to tell stories of their lives everywhere they go.

Kings and Queens of Reunions

When people from other countries can only settle with their own families once someone dies or when there is a birthday. In the Philippines, Filipinos have many reasons to have reunions. It becomes of the Filipinos’ sense of hospitality when Filipino families would have the opportunity to show their relatives, friends, and workmates how good they are by bringing them to their houses and begin having parties. As what is told, reunion is not only limited to families. Filipinos love to see their loved ones, not just families, not just once but many times in a year, and they keep being hospitable during reunions. It may be a form of arrogance by impressing people of how good they are, but it is the best thing that can happen on earth. Filipinos do not want to be alone.

Hospitality possessed by the Filipinos is unbeatable. It is part of the Philippine culture that gives color to the rest of it. Hospitality may be seen in all people. Non-Filipinos can be hospitable, too, but Filipinos have different version of it. Many foreigners even call it Filipino hospitality or simply being Filipino. The term Filipino is now synonymous to hospitality or being hospitable. One could say that one is being Filipino when he or she is being hospitable.

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