Mail Order Brides Explained

After he allows up to two weeks for delivery, the mail man staggers to the door with a large brown paper parcel vaguely shaped like a woman. The man takes the package inside, rips off the string and out pops “Miss Maria Concepcion, 22, student of Bacolod City, likes housework, reading pocketbooks and textng her friends.” From that moment on both of their lives are complete, camera pans back, lights fade, credits roll. i

The term Mail Order Bride comes from the old American Wild West days. Young women back east would list themselves in a catalogue which was distributed among the lonely men in the mining camps and cattle ranches out west. Correspondence would ensue and eventually the new school ma’am would arrive on the stagecoach and meet her husband to be.

Today the printed catalogues are pretty much done away with and it is all via the internet. Contact sites, penpal clubs and so on take the place of the catalogue and the speed of email cuts the courting time incredibly. No more waiting weeks for a reply, if you don’t hear back from your latest choice in a day or so then it is time to move on.

What hasn’t changed is simply the fact that two people get a chance to meet and evaluate each other as potential partners via written communication. Without the pressure of the bar scene, the noise and the booze, getting to know what someone wishes to broadcast via the written word has it’s advantages.

The other traditional places to meet the future spouse also have their drawbacks. The church is fine if you are religious, if not then you are wasting her time and yours. Many people meet their partners at work. With the laws on sexual harassment open to wide interpretation, most men aren’t confident enough to risk their jobs, careers and maybe their freedom just for a date.

The disadvantage with the internet is that what you read may not be what you end up getting. I flew from Australia to the mid-west of the USA in the summer of 1999 to meet a woman who had come across in her emails and during our telephone conversations as being very compatible. I will admit her photograph didn’t get me all that turned on but I felt the inner person was what counted. When I arrived I found the inner person had turned around 180 degrees and the outer one was even worse close up.

Although her friends were cool towards me at first as none of them trusted any guy who would travel that far after just a few weeks of correspondence, they quickly changed their attitudes and ended up apologising for her being such a bitch towards me. I had made up my mind I needed a vacation in the States at that time and we were able to see a lot of the places I had longed to see, like Custer’s Last Stand and Mt Rushmore, so she wasn’t the only reason I went there.

I felt if anything were to happen we would have to meet face to face one day and as my only vacation time for the next year was rapidly approaching, this was the time. We agreed to stay friends and a year or so later she emailed me and told me how she was in love, with another woman! That explained a lot of her alienating behaviour. Or maybe she thought I was ugly too?

For a while I was corresponding with Russian women and chatted with an American who lived over there and ran an internet contact site. He told me how so many men go there for a week or two with just one woman to see and the reality doesn’t live up to the dreams, for either party. They end up bitter that they spent so much money and energy. The woman gets a raw deal too and nobody wins. The people who did win were those who made contact with three or four possible candidates and then relaxed and just had a good time. If they failed to meet their true love it didn’t matter so much as their attitude had been less intense. These guys also came across more naturally to the women. Just because they might not speak English doesn’t mean they can’t see desperate when they meet it.

Filipina’s are the same intuitive female members of the species as Russian or American women, or any other nationality. Regardless of their probably poorer education or economic status, these women want the same things in a man that any woman wants. It’s just that they are more willing to take you as you are, for who you are and not for what you are worth.

Most men will start looking at the women on the contact sites who are a few years younger than themselves yet, the Filipina actually prefers an older man. They see you as more stable and less likely to roam around. The culture also appreciates the maturity and better living standard an older man can offer. Plus you are a foreigner and therefore rich, at least richer than they will ever be marrying a Filipino.

Let’s look at her options for a moment, the Filipino man. He is very full of himself and believes it is his right to have as many women as he can afford. There is an often heard saying here in Cebu that for every P10,000 a month a man earns, he should have a girlfriend in addition to his wife. Often that means an extra family, too. As he gets more financially successful he will get fatter, an accepted sign of success here. Poor people can’t afford enough to eat so if you are overweight then you have lots of money to buy food with. Simple logic.

The Filipino will expect to be shown respect from his wife, at least on the street and in front of others. Inside the home he knows who wears the pants, he does and she is letting him wear the blue ones today. This is a matriarchal society, but that doesn’t stop the men displaying the characteristics of the “macho” Latin derived society. They were under Spanish occupation for over 300 years and before that the culture held similar concepts of what a man is and can do. Pagkalilaki is the “Way of Being a Man” and was the curriculum at the ancient Bothoan’s (schools, actually derived from a term meaning “bone breaking place” in Tagalog) where not only martial arts were taught, but also manners, leadership, culture, art and so on. The Filipina is also very Latin in that she plays this coy, demur, very feminine character who expects a man to chase and even fight for her to prove his value as a mate. Mind you, it is a case of the steel fist in the velvet glove.

The economic reality is that the woman will tolerate her man’s infidelity so long as he doesn’t embarrass her in public and is discreet and looks after the children. She will hate every second of it but making a fuss could see her out on the street with no means of support and no chance of ever making an income. In a society that employs only the young, anyone over 25 and with children and a “sordid” past hasn’t a hope of being employed in a decent job.

My wife found herself a single parent at 18 through no fault of her own. Her dreams of graduating college as a teacher were shattered. No school would employ a single parent as a teacher! So many young women are the victims of incest and rape and the culture turns on them as if it was their fault. Obviously they must have been “loose and immoral” to let that happen to them. In a society where judges will rule a man has a right to rape his wife because it is her conjugal duty to provide him with sex, whatever the circumstances, a man who strays is seen as having a poor wife who can’t satisfy his natural needs. So the blame is on her and that is another reason she will tolerate his behaviour, to a point.

Into this climate arrives the “foreigner” as we are colloquially termed. The other term is “Kano”, short for Amerikano and it doesn’t matter if you are German or Australian, white foreigners are all called Kano’s! You have “peso-nality”, but don’t think she is just after your money. Even men of modest means can match well here as the Filipina really does fall in love fast and deep. I guess it’s the Latin influence again.

You are so much more attractive to many Filipina’s. You come from a foreign country and obviously have the means to travel. You are more mature, have established yourself and are less likely to need numerous partners. You will make that most treasured possession of any Filipina, the “Foreigner baby”.

In the Philippines they have an inferiority complex nationwide. Everybody wants to be white, or at least paler. Dark skin tones are ridiculed and abused! While back home women spend fortunes chasing a tan, here they buy skin whitening products. Most of these merely remove the first layer of skin and for a few days she is, indeed whiter. Then they overdo it and end up with permanently damaged skin. Or else they use pancake makeup and look like Casper the Friendly Ghost. The white stops at the neck and ears and gives them a mask like look most western men find very unattractive.

All of the TV stars have had nose jobs, breast jobs and skin jobs. Everybody wants to look like a movie star, a caucasian movie star. Although more women do get breast enhancement surgery, just the improvement in diet with better foods being more readily available has led to an increase in average breast size over the fifteen years I have been visiting and living here. Hair is often tinted brown and the noses are getting straighter, at least in the cities and among those with the means to do so.

In the provinces the women still hold that classic Filipina charm and beauty, but beauty truly is only skin deep. If you are looking for indepth conversations as a vital part of your future together, don’t lose touch with your male friends. Most Filipinas are fairly shy creatures anyway, few are educated enough when you first meet them to hold their own on any topic not within their realm of limited experience.

You can’t expect a woman who has spent probably all of her life in an area defined by how far she can walk in an hour at the most, or travel for a few peso by jeepney to know anything of current events or world history. Poor people don’t stray far from home as a rule and travel really does broaden the mind. Lack of travel can have the opposite effect.

Television has changed that situation considerably but then in many provinces it has only been available or affordable in recent years. Plus the quality of the programming and the content of the shows on offer is limited in its scope to what is commercially viable. In the chapter on Filipino TV and movies I go into more detail. Here I will merely say they get a lot of the same thing and so little chance to expand their horizons vicariously via television.

This doesn’t mean these women are unintelligent, just lacking in exposure to a broader forum of knowledge and experience. Most are avid learners and will soak up new concepts and experiences like a sponge. My wife loves for me to buy her magazines when I am away in the city as she could never afford them before and there was no library to speak of at her school or in her barangay.

Although in the first twelve months of our marriage I know she has learnt so much, she still asked me the other day if mermaids were real. We’d been watching the movie “Splash” on VCD and she had no other point of reference other than our daughter’s Disney movie “The Little Mermaid” regarding the concept of mermaids. How would she, coming from a culture that believes in Onggu’s and evil spirits, know instinctively that mermaids are mythical creatures when she has only ever been exposed to them twice in her life.

Once you see a Filipina of two that you like, you will send them an email. This is far quicker than the old snail mail days of waiting two or more weeks for her to hopefully receive the letter, then another two weeks or more for her reply to hit your mailbox. In those not so far off days you might take a year to exchange no more than a dozen letters. You can do that much “getting to know each other” in less than a week with the internet.

There is no substitute for being on the ground and taking a look for yourself. As my old Troop Sergeant used to say, “no times wasted what’s spent in recconaisance”. And a “Recce”, or “Recon” as the Americans call it, is how you should look at your first visit to the Philippines. Don’t go with meeting just the one woman in mind. It’s a long way to go to be disappointed in the first day or two.

She will be writing to as many men as she can, playing the numbers game. Many men waste women’s time, and their money, as internet access usually means spending hard earned peso’s in an internet café. She will likely have been burnt before and she will be a quick learner and not have all her eggs in the one basket. You should do the same.

Never, ever tell her you are writing to other women or that you have other women to meet on the trip. Nobody really likes competition and even though you might feel you are being honest and open, it will only cause trouble. Filipina’s are intensely jealous creatures as the chapter on Tampo (sulking) will attest. It is none of your business who else she may be writing to, nor is it any of hers who you are also planning to meet. Ignorance, truly is bliss.

Tell her you have business in the country and will combine that with the chance to meet her. Keep your schedule open in case she or one of the others turns out to require more time. Despite how she comes across in her emails and any telephone calls you may have made, she might be totally different in the flesh, as was my experience in the USA. For any of a number of reasons your favourite choice might not be the same when met in person and the one you least like via emails might really trip your wire.

The other thing to keep very much in the front of your mind is how easy it is to meet women in the Philippines. How easy? They are everywhere you look. This country is jam packed with people and at least half are women. More than half of those are under thirty according to the latest Census figures. Of course they don’t count anyone under school age or not enrolled in schools so the actual population is higher than the quoted 80 million or so. There are actually almost as many males under 25 as there are females, but since men hang out with men and women with women, and who looks at men anyway, it always seems that attractive young women are everywhere!

Women will give you the eye just because you are a foreigner. Even with my very pregnant wife beside me I get the upraised eyebrow all the time. Do not wink at a Filipina, even in fun. It means you want to have sex with her. Then again, try it! Filipina’s will flirt unashamedly with foreigners, they just do it in a very subtle and feminine way. My wife firmly believes that the young girls around here in Bogo would be happy to have me as a boyfriend, knowing full well I am married. Just so long as I “visit” them once a week and help support them. For less than P2000 a month I could have a concubine!

Just walking around the Malls, or wandering around SM or Gaisano you will meet hundreds of eligible women. Most employers won’t employ anyone over 25 or married. They state in the employment ads the candidate must be at least 5 feet 2inches, college level, attractive and single. In the west the ad would not even get into print but this is the Philippines. What it means to the Bachelor is that nearly every woman in the department store will be single! I met my wife at her work. She had just started that very same day and I took one look at her smile and told myself a “feint heart never won a fair maiden” and asked her out.

If you only have a week or two then make sure all of them are in the one major city, like Manila or Cebu. Days can be lost travelling to and from smaller cities only to find she is not what she said she was, or has a better prospect on the hook. Remember, she will be writing to several men too, keeping her options open and playing the numbers game. Just never, ever mention this. Never acknowledge you have options and never ask her about hers. If she wants you to know she will hint or tell you outright. If she does, never tell her you have others too. It’s a Filipina thing. No matter how honest and open you think you are being, it will haunt you. I mention this again because it is that important! You can lose a promising partner because of this.

You might get an introduction to Tampo, the sulking. She may get violent as one did to a good mate of mine when he told her she was great in the sack but he didn’t want to marry her. He was a mid-forties guy who had met her through the Filipina wife of a buddy of his that lives here. She was a fine girl from a fine family, but that didn’t stop her knowing what she wanted and how to get it! She virtually dragged him to bed that first night despite his good intentions of being a “gentleman”! He had decided over their first dinner together she was not his type and really tried his best to dissuade her from consummating their nebulous relationship. This girl would not take “No!” for answer. The last straw was when he told her outright he was not going to have anything more to do with her. Her response? This five foot Filipina, weighing maybe 100 pounds, picked him up by the scruff of the collar, slammed him against a wall and told him she was not going to let him go! She had found her Kano and she wasn’t going to lose him! He had to agree to her demand for more sex to seal the deal, then he snuck out of town while she went home for a change of clothes. The emails and text messages and late night phone calls went on for several months after he returned to the States. He is yet to find his Filipina but will be back this year to search again, just not in the same city!

She may file a false case against you with the police for rape, it happens. A local expat here in Bogo picked up a girl in a Mall in Cebu and took her back to a “love motel”. These places are set up for short time assignations and any taxi driver can find one for you. It turned out he only wanted a casual fling and she thought she had finally hit paydirt and was already planning the wedding. When he went to leave she got angry and he thought she wanted money, so he gave her what he thought was a fair price. She got on the phone and called the police and had the motel security guard keep him there until the police arrived. Several hours and P120,000 later, he was set free and scurried back to Bogo.

Be a man of mystery when it comes to other women, once you finally marry you will no longer have any privacy so enjoy it while you hold the leverage of a proposal. In other words don’t answer unasked questions.

On the subject of privacy, do not be surprised if she reads your diary, checks your cell phone or even opens your email if you have a laptop with you. Filipina’s do not know the concept of privacy. They will search your room like the KGB looking for secret formula’s. If you mention this they will challenge your fidelity. Obviously you have something to hide if you object to them exercising their birthright to be nosey. No, it doesn’t work both ways, these are women, remember? Just because they are exotic, dusky creatures doesn’t mean logic or reason has any more value to them than the plain western variety back home.

So you surf the net, find a few Filipina Penpal sites and make contact after typing in your credit card details. You could save the money by joining one of the free Yahoo Groups involved with the Philippines and simply asking if anyone has a relative looking to meet a foreigner. You might be inundated! Everyone has a relative hoping to marry a foreigner, I have dozens! Just go to yahoo, select groups, then Philippines, then cultural and so on. Or simply run a Google search using “free” and “penpal” and “Filipina”. Sort through the obvious porn offerings and you will find lots of interesting surfing to be had.

Are you aware that it is illegal to operate a penpal site in the Philippines? This is why most of them are run by the Filipina wives of foreigners and based in the USA or Europe. It is part of the government’s attempts to stamp out the sex trade that makes slaves out of Filipina’s hoping to work as domestics or entertainers and send some money home. Most of the villains are not Americans, Europeans, British or Australians, they are Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese and Arabs but the law covers everyone so don’t think of starting a penpal business if you move here.

One trip here a few years back, I had arrangements to meet two women I had met via the internet site “One and Only”. The first girl lived in Manila and told me she worked for the Post Office in the cafeteria. As soon as we met at Harrison Plaza I thought “bargirl”. She had her “cousin” with her, who was actually much nicer looking and more outgoing and fun.

She shared dinner with us, and a trip to a Karaoke Lounge and then on to the LA Café. Funny how a cafeteria worker in the Post Office knew people at the LA Café in Ermita, a dedicated, freelance hooker hang out. The cousin went home and my date accompanied me to my hotel.

The following day she said she didn’t have to work and hung off my arm like a cheap suit. The next day she left for work in the morning but was back within an hour with a tale that the cook hadn’t turned up so she had the day off. No way she could have gone to the Post Office from the Hotel and back in an hour.

I told her I thought she was lying to me about her job and that she was a freelance hooker or a bargirl. She had shown me her bedspace apartment she shared with her cousin the previous night when she needed a change of clothes. It was around the corner from the EDSA Entertainment Complex and with that, and the other signals, it didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out she was on the game.

She cried, made the big scene, threatened violence, the police and then did the tampo, sulked. I grabbed my packed bag and checked out, leaving her to decide if she wanted to deal with Hotel Security or simply go. She went.

The next one was far more upscale as I had realised from her emails. She lived in Olongapo and ran a small internet café there. She was much more attractive, nearly thirty and very smart. However she loved herself more than any man and this was evident as she dragged me from one Karaoke lounge to another so she could show off her talent with the microphone.

Even with an offer to pay her ticket to Sydney to see if she liked the place she felt she was too busy with her business. I went back to Manila and much later received an email from her telling how she had met an American and he was paying for her to go to the states. She went on as to how her career as a singer could be much better launched in America than Australia, so her intentions in finding a “husband”, were finally made clear.

Meanwhile, back in Manila I decided to splurge and stay at a four star hotel for a night or two. While at dinner I asked my waitress for her email address. I left the next day and then we corresponded for a few months until I returned on my next trip.

This girl was 29, educated at the best university in the Philippines and very smart. We both enjoyed the same books and got on fine. The first night we met she was more than willing to risk her reputation so there went the myth of girls from good families keeping it for the wedding night.

Things seemed to go well and she even planned to have her two week vacation with me in Sydney. However she reported she had been denied a visa (despite having all the criteria as I had already spoken to the Embassy) and she was calling it off. I received an email a few days later from her ex-best friend who also worked at the hotel and was going out with the Executive Chef, a Swiss guy.

She gleefully informed me my ex-girlfriend was taking up a job offer at one of the Hotel chain’s Singapore Hotels after having passed the entrance exam the outgoing (and soon to be in residence in Singapore) Executive Chef had set for her! It was then I decided my next trip I would explore Cebu and on the very first day there I met my wife to be!

Just because the girl of your dreams, as decided by long hours of staring at her photograph, is computer literate and uses an introduction agency doesn’t mean she is a “good girl”. Plenty of bar girls are very savvy to working the internet as well as the bar, as happened to me. Plus maybe she is in the bar to make money to support her family, or just likes a lot of attention?

Her life as a Filipina will change dramatically if she marries a foreigner. Immediately there is a better future ahead of her. More security, more quality of life and a lifestyle she can hardly imagine, compared to living in a bamboo hut in the province. It really is a Cinderella thing to her and you are her Prince Charming. I wouldn’t get too carried away with the romance of it all. After a while the reality of marriage is that she grows accustomed to the life you have provided and besides, nobody should marry purely to have their spouse forever feel obligated and grateful.

There are travel companies that offer tours for single men to the Philippines and these can be a good way to do that first “recce” or recon. Find them on the web.

Other tour organisers are more subtle and some are very purely marriage focussed. Search the web and decide for yourself. All of my travel has been as an independent traveller, making my own arrangements beforehand or from experience gained with every visit. Obviously the benefit of paying someone to lead you by the hand is that they should do their best to give you value and service and live up to their promises.

The downside is that the cost could be quite considerable and no reputable business would guarantee anything other than they will take you here, let you meet these ladies, then go there etc. The rest is always up to you.

Perhaps there are Filipino’s where you work? If you have a Filipino friend they will have a relative or neighbour who might be interested. Stay non-committal and be prepared to carry tons of goodies over with you for the family from your friend, but it gives you a point of departure, or arrival. Once you have someone in the country to visit for a day or so, opportunities will open up. Just don’t get trapped.

My first trip to Manila I carried some goodies for the family of a workmate’s wife. He brought the open box to work and showed me the contents, then we sealed it so we both knew there were no drugs or other contraband inside. I contacted the family when I arrived and we made arrangements to meet and for them to take the package off my hands.

When a brother and a cousin and several female relatives arrived at the hotel, I handed them the parcel and was all set to go out for the night by myself. They would not hear of this and offered to show me the town in return for bringing the box of goodies. This sounded fine but then the family thought I was there to take them out and pay for everything. Of course they travelled in a clan, (which is bigger than a pack) and the cost went through the nipa roof!

One of the cousins was very much the reason I had come to the Philippines but as it was my first trip, I didn’t know how to get her alone and then pose the question. I felt inhibited and knew instinctively, nothing would develop unless I broached the subject, but I was too inexperienced to know how.

All I had to have done was simply tell the brother that I fancied the cousin and could I take her out the next night, just the two of us. Either a chaperone would have come along or he would have said go for it. Most likely a chaperoned date would have been the result, but then I could have had a second date with just her and I. All I had to do was ask! Since I was too shy and didn’t want to risk upsetting the relatives of the wife of a man I worked with, it became an expensive bore having them traipse around with me wherever we went.

I managed to ditch them after three days with the old “have some business out of town” excuse. If I had known that my being a good samaritan would lead to wasting three days of my vacation, I would never have let it be known I was going. Once I let on where I was going my colleague seized on the chance to send a peace offering to the family he didn’t wish to visit because of the huge cost in “pasalubong”.

It is a custom of bringing a gift of some kind when visiting or returning from travels. It is called pasalubong and with such large families and even distant relatives and neighbours expecting gifts from the foreigner son in law, it can make a home visit too expensive to contemplate.

The upside is that at least I got to see parts of the city tourists rarely visit. I would recommend a trip to Cubao Mall and Quezon City near the university belt, lots of scope for finding someone there. Most tourists stay around Makati and Ermita, maybe Ortegas and never see the different areas where nightlife for Filipino’s abounds and is far more affordable than in tourist areas.

Manila is a big, smoggy, crowded city. It has all the advantages of being able to find anything you need that any major city in the world can offer. It has ten million people to choose from, but it is not the real Philippines of rice paddies, coconut trees and laid back living.

The real Philippines is outside Manila. Get to the province as they call the rural areas. Here you will be more of a rarity and your peso will stretch a lot further. Facilities may be lacking but the odds are your wife to be will come from a province anyway, so you might as well get used to it.

Even in Cebu, though still a cosmopolitan city, there is a different pace and atmosphere here that lets you start to absorb more of the country than just it’s vehicle exhausts. Great beach resorts and friendly little towns and villagers are just an hour or two out of town by bus or cab.

There are over 7000 islands in the Philippines and each one is slightly different. Some are very primitive still and others are more open and relaxed, like Dumaguete or Cagayan de Oro. Leyte and Samar are very large islands with a diverse range of places to visit and find someone in. Luzon alone, changes within an hour of the center of Manila.

To the north lies Angeles, Olongapo and Subic Bay, further still Tarlac, La Union and on to Baguio. Even further north and you are in a different Philippines altogether with new dialects, foods and faces.

South of Manila lies Lake Taal, Pagsanjan Rapids, Batangas and the ferry to Puerto Galera. Down south further is Sorsogon, Bicol and the Mayan Volcano. You can drive or take a bus from Manila all the way to Davao in Mindanao, island hopping on vehicular ferries.

Around Cebu is Negros, Bohol, the Camotes and Panay, all very individual islands in the Visayan region. Mindanao is not the death sentence many think it is. Stay away from Jolo, Basilan and even be careful in Zamboanga, but the rest of Mindanao is safe enough and full of many, wonderful women. If you want an iron clad guarantee you won’t come to any harm, stay at home and stay in bed.

The best option is to be able to come here for a few months. Get an (long term hotel room) or small apartment and settle in. Hire a domestic helper or two and live large. If you can’t get away for more than a week or two, then come anyway. Ask any and every woman that takes your fancy if she would like to go out with you. You will get plenty of takers. Ask waitresses, store clerks, bank tellers, stall vendors, anyone you fancy. Ask politely with a smile and you will get a few laughs and giggles, but few knockbacks unless she is married or has a boyfriend.

These Filipina’s are as ready and willing to meet you, as you are to meet them. They dream of meeting a foreigner, marrying and raising a family. As I said before, they might not be ready to discuss world politics or quantum physics, but they will do their very best to make you a happy husband.

What if you are overweight and well, ugly? Don’t let that worry you. Most women prefer men who are confident enough to ask rather than a pretty boy. I have already mentioned age is rarely a factor. We all look like movie stars to them and they are lousy at telling our age, just like most 25 year olds looked like jail bait to me until I lived here for a while. When I was 16 I could tell if a girl was the same age, a year older or a year younger. It was an instinctive survival thing all teenage boys had to save us from looking too stupid in front of our peers. As you get older the young look younger and asian girls look younger still. They will hold their looks and age well if you save them from a life of multiple births spread less than a year apart and hard toil in the sun and fields, but do make sure they are over 18!

I don’t have to tell you to shave, clean your teeth and comb your hair and be presentable, but don’t worry if you are older and fatter than what would snare a sweet young thing back home. You will be amazed at how many sweet young things really are interested in a serious relationship with you.

When it comes to breaking the ice, keep it simple. They might understand more English than they can speak, but the fluency is not what is claimed by the government, church and colleges. The top twenty percent might be fine with English, but those girls in the province that you will meet and who will make the best wife for you may not have had much chance to practise what she learnt in High School.

Speak slower, but without the ridiculous accent I hear so many men use when they are peaking to a non-English speaker. Don’t try to mimic their accent, just speak clearly and slowly. Americans will actually have an advantage as the Filipino accent copies the American intonations more than any other.

Be polite, smile a lot and ask them something simple like “Kumusta, (how are you) what is your name?” “That is a pretty name, is that your nickname?” (they all have nicknames like “Baby”, “Ningning”, “Vangie” or whatever). “Where are you from?” In a city they will most likely be from “da province”, wherever that might be.

A good opener is “Can I be your text buddy?” This way you get to swap cell phone numbers and then gooey text messages. These girls can text faster than they can blink! Get a cell phone when you arrive. A Nokia 5110 will set you back US$50 brand new, set up with a phone number and pre-paid calls, much cheaper than using the international roaming system if your cell phone has one. There are cell phone shops everywhere and plenty of girls will help you buy the pre-paid cards and “load” your phone for you.

Cell phones are a great ice breaker. Every Filipina has one and they all text as text messages are far cheaper than voice calls, unlike the USA where most people have never heard of texting. If you have the latest and greatest cell phone then you can dazzle them with it! Ask them to “come to my room to see my charger” just might work! Even if it is an old 5110, get one!

If you plan on coming to the country regularly, keep the local phone, number and charger and use it every visit. If this is a once off, which I doubt, you can always make some girl happy and give her the phone when you leave. If you meet someone you like you can always buy her some prepaid cards so she can call you, or text you until you return. They start around P250 or US$5. You can also send her text messages via Yahoo and Hotmail, a lot cheaper than voice calls.

Whatever you say, do not be afraid to ask her out to dinner or a movie or to show you the town. Don’t be afraid to ask her to accompany you to a resort like Boracay or Puerto Galera. It doesn’t hurt to ask and even if she says no, for whatever reason, she knows you mean business. If she doesn’t want to do anything or go further than a platonic date, she will let you know. Do not make the mistake of presuming anything other than she wants what you want. Negative thought produces negative results, so think positively.

Filipina’s are different. The old rules don’t apply here. Different game, different players. I have a good friend, Jim who is 74 and an entrepreneur, separated from his third wife. His girlfriend who was introduced to him by a friend of the girls’ aunt, is 19 and they have a 6 month old son and are very well suited to each other. She is quiet and shy and he is no longer the stay out till dawn type. This age gap is the exception, but it is not an isolated example.

Most men around 40 have wives around 20. I was two days off turning 40 when I met my then 21 year old wife. A good friend living close by, Greg, is 54 and his wife Brenda is 31. They met via Filipino friends of his in New Zealand who suggested he needed a Filipina wife and they happened to have a cousin who needed a Kiwi husband! I know one man who is 34 and his wife 36, another married 31 years who is a year older than his wife but these guys are the exception, I follow the rule. I know many men here who are in their fiftiesand sixties and have girlfriends and wives younger than their own kids. Nobody cares!

It might be a little uncomfortable to a western man to be older than his parents in law, but few Filipino’s would worry about that. They are more concerned that their daughter has found a good man who will love her, care for her and give them grandchildren. I am seven years younger than my father in law and four younger than his wife. I still call them Papa and Mama but they are more like friends than inlaws to me. If your wife comes to live in your own country then you will only see them every couple of years on average.

Perhaps when you get her back to the States or wherever some might whisper behind your back. I know one man, Dave, who is 51 and has a 21 year old wife, Rosa. Rosa is a college graduate in marketing and they live in Raleigh, South Carolina. When Rosa first arrived last year they had several instances of comments being made, usually by the wife while the husband looked on admiringly. Dave told one pair of old biddies “my wife is a golddigger and I am a dirty old man. Don’t you think it wonderful when two people so compatible find each other?” he left them speechless, naturally.

How you handle your family and stranger’s reactions to your disparate ages is up to you. If you decide to live in the Philippines then few will even notice, let alone comment. It is more likely, your wife will be picked on by the other wives for being from a different province, or having darker skin, than any age difference. Filipina’s married to Filipino’s will probably just be envious of the children of the marriage being so light skinned!

Don’t take these women for granted. They are not sex slaves or domestic helpers to run to your beck and call. They will take care of you but they expect you to be the man of the house in return. They will let you make the decisions but you had better make them and you had better take their hints and advice. Unless you get the she bitch from hell Filipina they will have your best interests at heart.

If you want someone a man can relate to as a husband to a wife rather than a competitor for his job, pants and role in society, the Filipina has many advantages over her western sisters. They are more home minded in the main. They do want families and children and to be mothers, but they will go out and work if they have to.

If you have had a vasectomy or don’t want children, then tell them that in the first letter. Tell them again in each subsequent letter and again when you meet them. If they are still happy to continue the relationship and you marry, don’t be surprised if she starts talking families and making inquiries on vasectomy reversal procedures. I have yet to meet a Filipina who truly doesn’t want children, no matter what she might say prior to the wedding.

Unless you get caught by a gold digger, expect the marriage to be intended for life. She will clean you up, put you on a budget and give you some worthwhile goals that will, with the new family additions, give you a new lease on life you never expected to have. Life will begin at forty, fifty or whatever age you are when you find her and you will be better served looking forward than worrying about how old you are and anything else you have no ability to change or control.

One more thing. The speed of communication with the internet will make everything happen so much faster. Try to appreciate the delays between meeting her and making the decision to marry, then follow up visits and the wait for the visa.

Things always seem bigger and brighter when on vacation or doing something for the first time. Everything is sharper, more in focus and really imprints itself on your memory. This will fade once it becomes the everyday. After the excitement of a trip to the orient to meet the woman of your dreams, the reality is you often return to the same house, same job, same everything.

If she comes with you it will seem more interesting for a while, but sooner or later it will dull and resume it’s regular hue. This is when the reality of being married to a person, the same person, every day, day in and day out hits home.

These women might not have your education or sophistication but they are not stupid and they do feel pain, shame and the anguish of leaving their beloved families behind to start a new life in a foreign country.

There was a Filipina I met in a bar once, years ago in Sydney. She had run away from her husband and headed for the big city to try to get back to the Philippines. Her sad story was that she had met a man much older than herself, which was not a problem. What did create some ill feeling was that he had not told her he had four teenage children from a previous marriage he expected her to become a mother to.

Worse still was the fact he lived in a crudely built shack in Lightening Ridge, an opal mining town in the far Outback. She did the best she could but finally his drinking and violence, coupled with the children’s total ignoring of her efforts to take care of them and the abject loneliness she felt in such an isolated settlement, were too much.

She ran away and was waiting for the Philippines Consulate to give her some assistance to fly home to Manila. She had tried her best and left her family and friends with every good intention but her husband had not told her about where she would live or that he had children. She felt she was returning in shame and that her future was non existent as no man would want her after she had abandoned her husband.

I read on the net last year about a Filipina who had gone to Florida to be with her fiancé. When she arrived he virtually made her a prisoner for ninety days, forcing her to have sex with him and his drunken friends, then told her he was calling Immigration and having her deported. He kicked her out with no spare clothes, money or return plane ticket. She had lost her virginity to him and felt she would never find a man who would marry her.

Her family would think it was her fault and she was too ashamed to return, even if she had the means. Luckily, some decent Fil-Am couples came to her aid and I believe she is still in the States and now married to a much better man.

Sometimes it goes the other way. My friend Col, 59 and a US Army Vietnam Veteran left his wife of 16 years here to get medical treatment back in the States. By the time he returned a year later, she had cleaned out the US$70,000 in their joint bank account and was a Shabu (meth amphetamine) addict. She was carrying a Filipino man’s child and had turned into everyman’s nightmare.

Shrew does not describe the behaviour change the Shabu had wrought. She refuses to leave his house and he sleeps with a Bolo under his pillow. He now lives from day to day and will have to find work until he qualifies for a pension in three or four years. Tough way to end a marriage that he said gave him a decade and a half of the best years of his life.

I won’t tell the happy stories as there are too many of them. Statistically Fil-Am (or Fil-Foreigner) marriages last and are more successful than any other, according to statistics gleaned from various Census reports and polls I have read on the net. The first year or so might be tougher in some ways as you both adapt to the cultural differences, but they are a lot of fun too.