I recently published a book on the Amazon Kindle called Expat Answerman: Understanding Philippine Culture. A fellow named Jeff purchased the book, and enjoyed it, but found that he had a cultural question that was not covered in the book, so he contacted me and asked! I decided to make a podcast out out of Jeff's question, because I believe it is very important for expats to learn about the culture of the country where they live.  In fact it is probably one of the most important things you need to do, in my view, when you move to a new country.

There has been a lot of talk on this site over the years about expats who complain a lot, or who seem to have a terrible life here.  They just don't seem to like living here at all.  From my observation, I feel that the biggest reason for this unhappiness is that these expats have not taken the time necessary to understand the culture of their new country.  When you don't understand how things work, or more importantly, why they work in a certain way, it can be very frustrating.  Because you have a total lack of understanding of the situation, it is nearly impossible to know how you can fix the situation, or how you can make yourself happy living in the Philippines.

So many people move here thinking that they are coming to paradise, and everything is going to be perfect here.  It just is not so.  There are problems everywhere.  There are pressures and stress no matter where you live.  Learning about the culture of the Philippines is a way that you can at least remove one thing from that list of stresses that you will experience in your new home.

Listen in, hopefully you will learn something, or perhaps you have information based on your experience, and you can share that with other readers and listeners!  You would be most welcome to do so!

Do You Have a Question?
If you want to send a question for inclusion in a future Podcast, just click on the blue button over on the far right side of this site, where it says "Send Questions via Voicemail".

If you prefer, you can leave your question via email and I will still respond to that on my Podcast.  Just go to my Expat Answerman page to send the email to me.

Thanks again for listening, everybody!