Cebu Island Stay: Interacting with People Who Don't Act Rationally or Efficiently

I am currently staying on Cebu Island. I am spending my second life in a relaxed and leisurely manner.

Since I often act alone, I have had many more opportunities to interact with Filipinos.

I have spent a long time working by honing my skills as a businessman. Compared to the average Japanese person, I have probably always tried to work efficiently in a short amount of time. Also, I was the type who was always coming up with ways to make effective use of wasted time.

Now that I am in Cebu, I am meeting and spending time with people who are almost the exact opposite of me.

I have already come to Cebu Island about 10 times in search of what happiness is. The reason I want to know so much about the Philippines is that I think I might be able to understand "what happiness is" by getting to know these Filipino people.

After all, Filipinos always seem happy.

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Now, let's look at some examples of people who don't act efficiently.

Experience 1: I booked a taxi at the hotel. The taxi I booked for 8:00 AM arrived at 9:00 AM. You have to tolerate this much.

Experience 2: To buy a boat ticket, you have to go at least an hour in advance. If you go 30 minutes before departure, they will calmly tell you, "Please take the next boat." Since there is only one boat every three hours, missing this one changes your whole day's schedule significantly.

Experience 3: I visited the construction site of an English conversation school. When I asked, "When will this school be finished?", they replied, "It was supposed to be finished six months ago. Hahaha."

Most things are like this.

Inefficient, unproductive, or perhaps "careless" is a more appropriate word.

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When I was buying a boat ticket, I chatted with a Filipino who had come to buy a ticket as well. He said he had worked in a factory in Japan for three years, ten years ago.

When he found out I was Japanese, he apologized on behalf of the Filipinos at the ticket counter, saying, "This is usually how it is, sorry about that."

The reason was that he knows it is natural for Japanese people to always act efficiently and quickly, so he was apologizing, asking me not to get upset at the Filipinos' extremely slow movements.

He said: "Suica is great, isn't it? I love Japan."

It is fun to hear the word "Suica" from a local person after coming to the Philippines, which feels so fresh.

I was so dumbfounded by the sales clerks who would start chatting or using online chat while there was a long line that I couldn't even say anything.

Thanks to that, I was able to talk with him for a long time, and we hit it off completely.

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By having so many experiences like this, my own way of thinking has gradually started to change. It was in the Philippines that I derived a theory of happiness: not to "become happy," but to "be happy."

I have started to get irritated or angry less often over small things (which are big things in Japan). I think that if you accept everything with a big heart, you can live a more carefree life.

This is what I learned from Cebu Island.

How to spend my second life is a lesson from the Philippines♪

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