You see in Philippines, we only get to decorate our homes to give it a feel of the season during Christmas. Unlike in the US of A, we don’t decorate our home for Halloween or for other holidays. We only get to do it once a year so we put the decorations up as early as possible and let them stay there as long as possible. I often hear people say that the longest Christmas season happens in the Philippines and I completely agree with that.

With their wallets bulging, more and more wealthy Shanghai families are hiring Philippine maids to speak English with the kids, despite an official ban on hiring foreign workers.

Some rich Shanghaiese are willing to pay 6,000 yuan (750 U.S. dollars) a month to hire a Philippine servant with a college education background, much higher than the average salary of 3,000 to 4,000 yuan (375 to 500 dollars) that most Philippine servants can get.

Yep, looks like more and more wealthy Chinese are hiring educated Filipinos as maids or nannies. I honestly don’t know how to react. If I were single, I’ll probably consider getting this job. Why? Because of three reasons

1. You cannot get such salary by being a maid or a (professional) teacher in the Philippines.

2. Filipino English teachers in China are not in demand because of their color. Yes, Chinese people prefer blond-hair-and-blue-eyed red necks from an English speaking country over well qualified Filipinos. It’s totally racist but that’s life. Note: I am not saying that all Filipino teachers who come to China to teach are excellent teachers or that all white people who teach English in China are terrible and are unqualified teachers, I am just stating the fact that white people have a higher chance of get a teaching job in China than the brown island people.

3. If you are a Filipino and you are lucky enough to land a teaching job in Shanghai, you will probably not get a salary more than 5K RMB because you are a brown.

I know that by doing so I am damaging the market for Filipino teachers and I am sort of giving in to racism but given my three reasons above, who is there to judge me? It may seem like it’s all about the money but if you have a poor family back home who is counting on you, you’ll do it too. Anyway, I am glad that I am not put in the position where I have to choose whether to accept such job or not but this is to say that I do understand those Filipino professionals who stomach working as a servant.

This will take some time off my blogging again so right now, I am trying so hard to finish putting up my new blog—BizzareMarriage.com. It’s almost done actually. Every task I’ve mentioned in its first entry is done plus I’ve added some more pages however they are still almost empty so I have to polish them further. I plan to add two more pages that would further allow readers’ involvement and interaction. I also plan to run some contests where readers can participate so I hope that you are tuned in for that. Right now, I have to add BizzareMarriage.com to some listings then after that I can I can start the contests immediately.

Going back to traveling to Dalian, my mom said she saw some awful news about dreadful disputes between mainland China and Tibet and now she’s worried that we are affected. Well, we are not affected although we’ve heard that there were some violent rallies happening in some major cities all over China. Hmm… Maybe it’s best to postpone Dalian for now.

But just when you thought spring is here and summer is not far away, this happens:

Yep, it snowed… again! And according to my German teacher who seems to follow weather reports closely, it’s going to be like this for a few days. Sucks!

The wall, furniture and decorations are all of Mexican theme which gives the restaurant a vibrant feel. I’ve been there twice and was amazed both times. The place is neat, food is fantastic, and the service is great plus it is not expensive. I also like the fact that they have a wireless internet connection free for their costumers. One of these days, I’ll definitely go there again for a cup of coffee.

I particularly love their pineapple cake, enchiladas, Maya soup and other Mexican pastries and drinks. I also like the fact that it is not crowded. I should enjoy it now before word of mouth spreads making people crowd this restaurant.

In the meantime, I will bore you with some things like the comment given to me in one of my posts about Getting Married to a Filipina. You may go check it out and leave your thoughts. There’s also a very interesting comment in my post, Sol Latino in Changchun which you might want to read and react as well.

I am thrilled that my blog is being read by some people who are actually interested what I write and in what I say about their situation. Cool. :)

Unfortunately, soft sleeper tickets are sold out so I don’t have any choice but to take the best from what was left and that would be top bunk hard sleeper tickets. I told the awful news to my travelling companions but they said that though they are not eager to sleep on 3-storey bunk beds in an open cabin with strangers, they think they can do it. So we’ll proceed with our tickets. Rescheduling or upgrading to plane tickets is not an option.

The European men assured us that it would be ok and that they are ok with it but I can bet my sexy ass that they will frown and complain more than Anne and I. When I learned that there are no more soft sleeper tickets available, I called them first to confirm if they want to go with hard sleeper tickets because I know that they won’t be comfortable sleeping in the same room with strangers. (I would like to add a lot of adjectives before the word stranger but I might be offending the most populous race so I won’t)

Well, good luck to us. When I am out of this country, I’ll probably say more but right now, I’ll stay quiet.

It is not like I am going on a big trip anywhere but I will stay quiet in a while. I will busy myself with some other things than blogging like my German Lesson and our bi-monthly visit to Beijing. Yep, we are going to Beijing again but this time, we are going with our hooked up but are now certified couple friends and activity buddies, Daniel and Anne.

Since Marcus, Daniel, and Anne have real jobs and are busy, the task to arrange the trip was awarded to me (thank you). We’ll probably spend three days there which is good. It should be enough time to visit Starbucks and the Foreign Languages Bookstore. Going to the great wall doesn’t appeal to me anymore since I’ve been there twice. Anne is excited to see the wall because it’s her first time to go to Beijing. I am not going there again so maybe we’ll split up for one day so they can go to the wall and Marcus and I can do something like shopping. Haha.

Marcus is having his birthday in a few months and starting today, I am trying to get some ideas about what special things I could do for him on his day. Also, I am already thinking what gift I could give him. Anne said it’s way too early. I say hey, I wasn’t me who gave a surprised congratulation party for my partner who didn’t get the promotion yet.

It’s funny how it was.

A few days ago, Anne organized a surprised party for Daniel. The party is supposed to express our heart-warming congratulations for Daniel’s promotion but then last Saturday, we were the ones surprised by Daniel when he said that he didn’t sign any contract yet and though his boss already gave him the thumb up, they are still negotiating on a few things and if these things weren’t settled for both parties, Daniel might as well forget about the promotion. Haha. Anyway, we still had a blast last Saturday. A few close friends of Anne and I came and we partied and used the karaoke I got from my parents in law. It was fun.

This is my view from right here.

That is my flight right there and I have to check-in in a bit. Chinese New Year is not my favourite time of the year to travel because airports are crowded; flights are more expensive accommodations in hotels are more expensive as well. Hate it.

I am coming home empty handed. My three nephews will look at me and wonder why their aunt Vienna doesn’t have anything for them. I can imagine now that this will break my heart. See, I didn’t know until a few days ago that I will be going home to the Philippines. We were expecting to go there in March so I said ok from now until March, we have time to go to for a weekend in Beijing to do some shopping but unfortunately that didn’t happen. Marcus working schedule changed and so the rest followed. Nobody’s fault. I was feeling a little bit heavy-hearted last night about going home empty handed but Marcus said we will make it up to them when he gets there (he will follow in a few days).

I won’t be seeing my husband for a few days. This is our first time to be apart from each other since we got married. Would be very interesting how it will be. As for me, I miss him already.

I miss travelling with my husband because it is always way easier when I am with him. He does everything like carrying his and my luggage, getting a taxi, looking after the luggage when I need to visit the ladies room, and paying for my coffee (wink*). And most of all I miss having a shoulder to sleep on.

Sigh* Miss my hubby already.