BY KLAUS DORING
OUR GLOBE and its population bear innumerable strange facts. Following many people’s opinion, this world shows mostly worried characteristics and symptoms nowadays. No wonder. Just try to consume and digest today’s headlines and news from all around the globe.
It is a world with quickly bridged distances – our Mother earth is becoming smaller and smaller. Any tourist, even with little time and with only a small budget, can again travel to other faraway cultures after COVID-19 restrictions. But joining them as well as different races and religious communities requires first of all, great care, tact, instinctive feelings, empathy, and logical ideas. But putting COVID-19 somehow beside, war in Europe is with us now.
The stranger whom we meet for the first time during a business meeting, for example, may be an uncommon, odd and extraordinary guy. He may be someone from a foreign country, who speaks another language and whose skin is of another color. He may be a migrant, a restless hiker or the expatriate in our neighborhood.
The foreigner beside you and me can become a provocation or a challenge. Strangeness can become exoticism. Maybe that’s why my family and I decided to move to the Philippines already in 1999. On the other hand – going abroad can open other and even better horizons. We must not feel as “a stranger in paradise”. By the way, I never did since I have been touring around the globe many times. The Philippines has a very unique culture due to the influences of colonization and the surrounding countries. Filipino people are very hardworking and strive to make life better for the next generation of their family.
However, a migrant bears a juxtaposition of optimism (even calculated optimism!), confused feelings, nostalgia, and homesickness. Yes guys, during the first two years of my expat’s life in the Philippines, the round trip ticket was always in my mind, because no one among us can escape his native roots.
But, I am really a lucky guy. I experienced an amazing tolerance in the Philippines. A real practicing tolerance. Already, during my first business meetings, I met supportive, forbearing and broad-minded people. A wonderful mix of different cultures without giving up their own identity.
Every new challenge in a strange country means a change. Changes in life are necessary and important. Let’s alter or make a difference; let’s put one thing for another; let’s shift; let’s quit one state for another; let’s take fresh clothing. Let’s burn the “lock fat” away. And remember: nothing comes from anything.
***
Email: doringklaus@gmail.com or follow me on Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter or visit www.germanexpatinthephilippines.blogspot.com or www.klausdoringsclassicalmusic.blogspot.com./PN
