Photos et lettres des Philippines, de France et d'ailleurs

Ma plus belle histoire d'amour

 For a change after so many articles about my trips, I wanted to talk about love in the Philippines and the men who come here to start a new love life.

Love is a Many-Splendored Thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ-vJI6jypM

This is the title of a 1955 movie with William Holden and Jennifer Jones starring, which action takes place in Hong Kong during the Korean War. It is the difficult love story between an American reporter and a Eurasian doctor.
This film was inspired by the autobiographical novel by Han Suyin published in 1952, 'A Many-splendoured Thing'.
It is also the song's title of from the film's music but is above all a strong memory of my childhood because I was 11years old  when I saw the screening and heard the music for the first time at the 'Olympia' or 'Royal' movie theater in my home town.
Even today 55 years later it remains one of my favorite songs and before whenever I was in a KTV bar, it was always the first title I chose for singing. But even though I love this melody, in my opinion the two most beautiful love songs ever sung are in chronological order, 'l'hymne à l'amour'  (Ode to love) written and performed by Edith Piaf in 1949 with a music composed by Marguerite Monnot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvHph2zrMrAhttp://

Then ' Ne me quitte pas' (Do not leave me) composed, written and performed by Jacques Brel in 1959.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k63grkip5Ihttp://

Last Saturday I was eating one of the best pizza in Dumaguete at Lab-as restaurant and a pianist played softly when suddenly the first notes of 'Love is a many splendored thing' came to my ears. I put down my fork and listened almost religiously as my memories went back to the surface as  there is always a music suited for every frame of mind or any great events of our life.

(The pianist of the restaurant playing 'Love is a Many Splendored thing')

My first love was named Muriel, she was a sales lady and I was a baker both working at the bakery P'tit Quinquin (title of a famous lullaby in patois of the North of France) in Lille, rue des Arts. She was 17 and I was 18 and I had already been introduced to her parents. At 19, I was drafted in the army, sent in the South of France and then in the Pacific.There, her letters became scarcer and scarcer until she broke-up completely.
This was my first heartache and this music was playing in my head while I shed tears in New Caledonia on my first lost sweetheart.

(1965 in the Pacific when a private in the Marine Infantry. I am first on the left on the lower row)

Without this breaking off my life would have been completely different, no doubt that after returning from the army I would have been married at the age of 21, we would have had children without delay, we would have stayed in the north of France and with a little luck and hard work, we may have become the owners of our own business.

Instead of that I migrated to Canada and after having worked there for eight months I returned in France, I changed my job, went back to school and got married at age 35.

Before my marriage I had a second great love; her name was Martine and was from Cannes on the French Riviera. Our affair ended at her initiative and this time, it was the music of 'Don't cry for me Argentina ' that accompanied my sadness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dlwVKm8ArQ

(Martine during the Cannes Festival of 1976)

Today I have no regrets, but still in my soul I am an incorrigible romantic always ready to shed a tear when I am moved by a movie, a book, a work of art, a landscape and of course by a music or song.

In the Philippines, romanticism is natural and it is not so long ago that suitors serenaded their love ones. It is still a country of love stories where these Westerners men with a bruised heart are seeking a second chance or even a last chance in life

Nevertheless, I am realistic and can still not believe in love at first sight between a beautiful girl of 20-25 years and a sixty or seventy-year-old man even in great shape. In fact I don't remember having

ever met a single, beautiful, young and educated girl from a good family falling in love with an old potbellied, bald foreigner. This young patrician girl will choose a young man of her condition and let this lifeline to single mothers, separated women and girls without money or qualifications wishing to help their families.  

To do so they won't hesitate to marry a much older man, which is not so frowned upon by the Philippines society as it is in Western countries.

There is is probably not passion when marrying an old guy, though in some cases a real loving relationship will ensue. Without necessarily being greedy, they are just pragmatic. He has more to offer than a bulge in his pants and they find with him respect, dignity, security and economic stability. Meanwhile, the man will be happy to have beside him a younger woman full of vitality to be a company and warm his bed at night. Because their partners are elderly, these ladies also think that they are easier to 'control' sexually than the cheating Filipinos husbands. In the Philippines the separations are so numerous wheras divorce, being not allowed by the law, an anulment is very difficult and expensive to obtain.
In addition, a study of U.S. Immigration has found that Americans who married an Asian woman had a success rate of 80% against 50% with a born American girl, so …why not?

Of course not all of these young ladies or old gentlemen are beyond reproach.

 
Ladies first, here they often think that their guys being from abroad have inexhaustible money and readily mistake their companion for an ATM. It does not come to their mind that many are just small pensioners with low incomes. Ladies, the real rich are not in the Philippines but in Florida, St. Barthelemy, the Cote d'Azur, the Costa Brava, the Seychelles or elsewhere. Moreover this fact finally admitted, you do not need to console yourself in taking a young Filipino lover who will not need Viagra to be able to satisfy you.

Then, the gentlemen, the 'Foreigners' as they are commonly named in the Philippines, often of a certain age, are supposed to provide comfort and security to their soulmate. In Dumaguete they are mainly Americans and Germans then followed by the other English speaking men. Back of the pack, there are the Norwegians, French, Belgians, Italians, Spaniards, Japanese, and Koreans and so on.

Certainly many of them are honest often separated or divorced looking for a new life; they can be called 'Sugar Daddy'. They either settle in the Philippines or go home with their partners in their respective countries.
About the others as you may have guessed already, not all are nice fellows, far from it, they are the liars and game players whose purpose is to have sex with as many as gullible girls as possible during their two or three weeks vacation. Some Americans will even give them grades  based on their sexual performances.

Next they are the DOM or (Dirty Old Men), here to 'buy' fresh meat and very young meat in some cases. I think that still nowadays, virginity can be bought in Manila or Cebu around 5 to 600 € of which only a small portion will go to the lady. Amateurs are, among many others, often Japanese. The pleasure with pain is not a prerogative of the Marquis de Sade who may have a Japanese equivalent.

Last but it is not a exhaustive list, are the weak and the cowards who enjoy a higher purchasing power to exercise authority over their wives or even abuse them. Their spouses or girl friends have no access to bank account or credit card, no driver's license or means of transport. For their needs they depend on the goodwill of their master who furthermore won't hesitate to openly cheat on them. 

After almost ten years spent in Dumaguete, I tried as a joke to give a term or a definition to the main ethnic groups regarding their relationships with Filipina women.  Of course it is a prank not to be taken seriously.

The Americans, the largest community. They are as diverse as their great country; some are very interesting and educated people but many are also rednecks. For the latter the most important cultural event of Dumaguete in 2009 was the opening of a Mc Donald's restaurant. They all have in common the hatred of their ex-wives probably due to the significant amount of their alimony. A good point for them, they are rather less alcoholic than Europeans and Australians.
The Germans and other Teutonic tribes, second in number. They are authoritarian with their wives and those of my generation are not yet freed of racism inherited from their fathers.
The Swiss. Whether German or French-speaking, they are stingy (koripot in Visayas dialect).
The Australians. They are rude but nice guys when they are not drunk.

The Norwegians. These are people looking toward the sea and fleeing their endless winters. They are pretty decent, when they get drunk, do so peacefully. They are as sectarian as the French but they speak by far a better English...

The French. According to locals, they are pretty decent and romantic but also a bit stingy and cannot help but raise their voice when talking of politics. Is it to make up for the size of their peters that they have such a big mouth? I don't think so as the Americans say of them 'French are pricks'. Many other foreigners also think that French are snobbish and pretentious.

The Japanese. They still feel guilty for the war crimes committed in the Philippines during the last World War. They are a little macho and sometimes into games like bondage, submission, pain etc. According to many girls, the small size of their penis is compensated by the thickness of their wallet.
The Koreans. They are haughty and contemptuous with the Filipinos but they invest a lot in the country.
The Iranians. In Dumaguete, they are mostly students and are said by their classmates to be arrogant and dirty. Some of them marry a Filipina not to return to the paradise of the mullahs anymore. However, without falling into Islam phobic stereotypes, I pity those of their spouses who will follow them in Iran
The Filipinos-Chinese. They are established for one or two generations in the Philippines where they own many businesses, shops and banks, they are hardworking and thrifty, and reproduce between themselves. They look like having an orgasm everytime then open the cash register.
The Filipinos. Honor to whom honor is due. They say of themselves that they took the worst among their former colonizers, Spaniards and Americans. Husbands are often seen by their wives as irresponsible, drinkers, gamblers and womanizers. Don't we say that when a Filipino makes 1000 pesos he will spend 1500 while a Chinese will save 500.

Many young Pinoys (Filipinos) are still reluctant to use condoms therefore after they make their sweetheart pregnant at night behind a coconut tree, they run away from their responsibily and making one more single mother looking for a foreigner husband.

Well I stop my rant here but one last thing. Who of these men are the most virile? Well according to each of them individually, they ALL have the strongest manly strenght regardless of their age and nationality! Congratulations and thanks to the street peddlers of the Dumaguete Boulevard who are selling their counterfeit Chinese Viagra to them.

Now finally let us have a few nice love stories of happy couples:
There was this Norwegian who was in the same hotel as me. The poor was severely disabled physically though not older than 30. To imagine him you have to think of the Hunchback of 'Notre Dame de Paris' played by Anthony Quinn though my friend was less affected. His battered body was home, in my opinion, of an above average intelligence. How nature can be cruel!
One day he came to sit at my table in the restaurant opposite the hotel and introduced me to his fiancée. She was from Bayawan in the mountains about 100 kilometers away, she was about 23-25 years old and if not really beautiful, was still cute.
I saw him several times and eventually one day he confided to me that between the two of them, it was love in its purest form. I refrained from smiling as I respected his feelings and I was right. Today, five years later they are still together and married.

The second story is that of Remy, he was 65 and had never been married and had been around the world all his life. Someday an Englishman, who recited texts by Sartre in the original version, introduced him to his 30-year-old maid, Marilyn. They were wed and he became a father for the first time at 67 years of a beautiful baby boy named Adrien, whose I am one of the godfathers. Sadly he lost his life by drowning shortly after, while, ironically, we all thought that alcohol would kill him and not seawater Today his widow lives in Paris with his son and earns his living as a domestic helper. A strong and great woman must I add.

(Remy, eight days before he passed away)

The third is that of Roland, who is now 77 years old and lives on top of a hill with 250 steps to climb before entering his house. Retired from the French railroad company, it took him ten years to build his boat and sailed on the seven seas for seven years without even knowing a word of English.
During his journey, he stopped in the Bay of Tambobo in the Philippines to repair some damage and no longer returned to sea after meeting Annabelle, now his wife to whom he preferred to teach French to communicate rather than learning English. He just recently sold his catamaran to an Australian but is already constructing a new boat in the local style.

(Roland, our 77 years old seadog friend)

The Tambobo Bay did even more victims, Claude the Belgian sailor who met Brigitt and has not been back in Belgium for more than twenty years and also more recently Christophe arriving from New Caledonia and who was supposed to continue toward the Maldives and Reunion and who is now hesitating because of a cute lady from Cebu.

(Brigitt, Claude and their 2 children)

She's pretty, how can she still love him? She in springtime and he in the twilight of his life.

In French : elle est jolie, comment peut-il encore lui plaire? Elle au printemps lui en hiver  etc.… (Lyrics from a song by Serge Reggiani).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqaSdy3lR7Q

Among my friends there are those for whom the age difference does not seem to be an obstacle. In any case they openly show their happiness and that's all that matters.

(Michel and Cecile, 70 and 48 years old) 

(Virgie and Leon, 30 and 73 years old)

(Rosalyn and Sam, 31 and 76 years old)

Then there are couples started here in the Philippines for a longer time, Charly and Marichu with 17 years of marriage, Angelo, our Italian friend, and Elma 17 or 18 years of marriage, Eva and Gerard, Raymond and Rovie, Paul, the German and his Frida, Patrick and Debbie, Philippe and Joy etc.

(Elma and Angelo)

(Charly, Marichu and their son Joël)

In France among the French-Filipinos couples there are Susan and François, Marissa and Jérôme, Nida and Jano, Carolyn and Jean-François, Emile and Perla and so on.

But what is the most beautiful love story will you ask? Obviously it is ours Dhana my wife and I. It began here more than thirty years ago and will continue until deat do us part.

Ma plus belle histoire d'amour c'est nous !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1ET9la1JuM

(Dhana and I during our honeymoon in Baguio in January 1981)

Is it not true that 'Love is a Many Splendored Thing'?