Eventually random Filipinos asked this random Caucasian guy mundane questions, such as where he was from, where was he going, or did he have a girlfriend. He was even offered a seat on occasion. Now would people do that to a Filipino in another country? When pigs fly, I guess. One look at the Caucasian guy and I could tell he was kinda annoyed. I guess that is why Filipino hospitality is so legendary in a sense that if you couple it with colonial mentality, voila, the end result of being overly-nice to foreigners.
This attitude is not exempt to Caucasians alone. Probably almost any foreigner with a certain accent that silly Filipinos call "twang" would pass as a candidate for our hospitality. Singaporeans, Australians, and even the Koreans would suddenly get some sort of VIP access to many areas around the country. When I was waiting for my guest at NAIA Terminal 1, this group of Koreans were suddenly allowed to go past the Greeter's Area so that they could welcome their friend. Filipinos who wanted to do that were still held by the guard as opposed to the Koreans who were simply waived through.
In terms of customer service, as a Filipino, if you go to most retail stores or other service-related places, you would be given a rather indifferent treatment and most service staff would just give you an indifferent experience with limited smiles and limited customer service. If you were a foreigner, you would instantly become a VIP in your own right and you would get what you want if you simply complain. Basically if a Filipino is in trouble, we treat it as a "wala lang" kind of deal. Indifference. If the customer was a foreigner, we would be very careful and give this foreigner the best, and only the best.
So why is it that we Filipinos don't help our own kind? Probably because we got fed up of seeing each others faces for a long time that we just don't care about each other any more and apathy took over this thing called "bayanihan" that seems to surface only during times of crisis and elections. Then we see these foreigners in the poshest of places in the country, enjoying whatever is there.
I performed a little experiment with some friends one time. Because of my knowledge in Nihongo and my looks that could pass off as a Japanese person, we went to some stores and I acted like a Japanese person, speaking in Nihongo to the best of my ability. (And how convincing it sounds, I might add.) I just told my friends to play along and observe how people would react at the stores we visited.
At a retail store, we went around the store and I gave comments in Japanese, with my friends playing along. I eventually noticed all eyes were on us and the sales staff were stalking us around the store. When I reached for an item, one sales staff suddenly offered me a shopping basket. I just said "Iranai." (no need) as a reply. When we left the store, we tried to hold in our laughter until at the mall's exit where we finally let out our laughter and had one of the best trippings ever.
I've been using this colonial mentality to my advantage somehow. If I wanted to get a bit more, I would simply pretend to be a Japanese person at let's say, a fast food outlet. If I wanted a bit more in my serving, I would talk in Nihongo and they would give some more fries in my serving. If I revealed my identity as Filipino they'd probably tell me that's the normal serving.
Unless Filipinos could learn to mature and say that foreigners need not be our masters, I can always go around the next store and exploit the sales/service staff with my Japanese facade.
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