It’s been a week since my Philippine trip but I am still in shock over the prices of basic food items over there.
Grocery shopping in the Philippines
Take refined white sugar, for instance — it costs only RM1.55 per kilogram in Malaysia but P36 to P40 (RM2.58 to RM2.87) in the Philippines.
Cooking oil in Malaysia, which is normally sold in 5-liter bottles, retails for RM13.35, which translates to RM2.67/liter. In contrast, cooking oil in the Philippines costs P42 to P46 for a 750-mL bottle, which is equivalent to P56 to P61.33 (RM4.03 to RM4.41) per liter.
We’re talking about basic household necessities here, people! Not some fancy-schmancy stuff like horse supplements or car accessories.
I understand that the Philippines is fragmented into more than 7,700 islands, thereby presenting a huge distribution challenge which translates into added cost. And granted that the cost of production may vary from country to country. Hence, I decided to take a look at the price of Nestlé Koko Crunch cereal, which is manufactured in the Philippines. Logically, since it’s made in the Philippines, it should be cheaper in the Philippines, right? Wrong! A 500-gram pack in a shopping centre in Cebu costs about RM20 whereas it’s only RM13.59 in most hypermarkets in Malaysia. How is that logically possible?!
So who gets most of the profit then? The retailer? The wholesaler? The distributor? The manufacturer? Whatever the answer may be, I only know one thing for sure — it’s the Filipino consumer who suffers.
[NB: I made some errors in the conversion and have corrected the figures. The difference is not as big as I initially calculated...but the difference is still significant. Sorry about that. Current rate is around PHP13.90:MYR1.]
Tags: Philippines
Just when I had everything planned for today, life throws me a curveball. It was nothing elaborate, really — just a simple matter of planning out my entire Thursday. I ended up canceling everything because my twins got hit by the dreaded diarrhea+vomiting combination.
The funny thing is, I’ve been through all sorts of things in my life but nothing makes me feel quite as helpless as seeing my child — or, in this case, my two youngest children — weakened by illness. It doesn’t matter if it’s a fever or a broken leg or chicken pox.The point is, their illness reminds me just how fragile their tiny bodies are and of the fact that, apart from giving them their medicines and giving them tepid sponge baths and rubbing ointment on their backs and bellies and praying to God to please, please, please heal them, there is simply nothing that I can do about it in the end. They are human. I am human. And no matter how much I love them, even if I cry until my tears run dry, even if I stay up all night and end up with dark eye circles like blackeyes, after I’ve given it my all…the rest is up to God.
Tags: sick kids
One small thing that I’ve allowed myself to collect in my not-so-frequent travels to Europe are Tintin comic books. In French.
I started with one comic book from Geneva on my first visit there. I thought to myself — rather that buy some tiny souvenir that will end up gathering dust in a drawer somewhere, why not get something I can read and display on my bookshelves? (Besides, our fridge has so many fridge magnets already!)
The comic books are hardbound and are not cheap by Malaysian standards, no thanks to the strong Euro. However, I allow myself this little luxury because it’s a fun way of brushing up on my French. The illustrations provide the necessary context for me to understand better what’s being said.
Even the twins enjoy the comic books, thanks to the illustrations that are all drawn in Hergé’s signature ligne claire style. Their favourite is Tintin Au Congo (Tintin In Congo) because it features a lot of animals.
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| Twin1 “reading” | Look! Elephants! |
Despite the fact that my French is really rusty now, somehow I find the comic books funnier in the original French text. Certain elements of humour get lost in translation, I suppose.
But I digress. My point is, when DH and I found ourselves in Antwerp, I squealed in excitement as I scanned a map of tourist attractions in the city. The reason? It highlighted a comic book shop called “Mekanik Strip.”
Image from apen.be
DH must have been relieved that I was more keen in buying comic books rather than diamonds (which Antwerp is most certainly famous for) so much so that, when I asked him if we could look for the shop, he acquiesced faster than you can say bcbsnc. Quite an unusual thing for him to do, considering how much he hates shopping in any form!
Mekanik Strip is quite easy to find on foot. From Antwerp’s Centraal Station, find your bearings and walk the whole length of Gemeentestraat, continue walking straight on to Franklin Rooseveltplaats, then you’ll find yourself at Sint-Jacobsmarkt, where Mekanik Strip is located.
Mekanik Strip is comic book heaven! Not only did they have Tintin comic books in several languages, they even had Tintin collector items — older editions — carefully wrapped in plastic.
They have a huge collection of all things comic-related — comic books of all types and genres, dolls, t-shirts, among others. They claim to have the largest worldwide collection of comics in Europe.
These truth magnets at the counter caught my eye. But I balked at the price tag because €1 is about RM5 and the cost of one magnet is equivalent to the cost of about 10 loaves of sliced bread in Malaysia. (The comic books aren’t cheap either but they’re more utilitarian as compared to magnets. Right? Right?)
I found the shop’s proprietors to be very friendly. They gladly acquiesced when I asked if it’s okay for me to take photos. They even invited me to check out the art gallery in the first floor. [NB: 'First Floor' in Europe and Malaysia is called 'Second Floor' in the Philippines. What Filipinos know as the 'First Floor' is referred to as the 'Ground Floor'.]
So if you like comics and find yourself in Antwerp, make sure to visit Mekanik Strip.
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Mekanik Strip
Tel: +3232342347
Mon – Fri 10:00 – 18:30, Sat 10:00 – 18:00
I’m back from my whirlwind holiday in the Philippines, feeling all bruised and battered from all the weight that I carried with me to and from the Philippines while running around after the twins.
On the one hand, I wished I didn’t bring my MacBook Pro because of its size and weight. But on the other hand, my 87-year old grandmother enjoyed the photos of my family and my trips all over the world on my Mac’s huge screen. I briefly considered copying the pics from the Mac to a smaller Netbook (from the office) but didn’t have the time to do so last week. That MacBook Pro is to blame for most of my backache right now. But in the end, it was so worth it.
On the one hand, I wished I stuck to my brother’s Olympus wide-angle point and shoot camera. But on the other hand, I’m glad I chose to also bring along my D90 with the lighter 50mm f/1.8 lens because it took pics in low-light situations that the Olympus couldn’t. So in retrospect, it was worth the bulk and extra weight.
Right now, I need to catch up on my emails so the pics would have to wait until later this week. In the meantime, I am most tempted to look for weight loss pills that work. My trip to the Philippines may have been short, but it involved waaaaay too much eating all the foods that I missed and sipping on cup after cup after cup of rich, thick sikwate (hot chocolate)!
Sikwate with sticky rice & mango (image from wanderlustsha.com)
Tags: Philippines
By the time this post gets published, I’ll be in a small village somewhere in Southern Philippines with the twins, a place so small that everyone knows everyone else and what everyone else is up to, where Ladybug steam cleaners are unheard of, where you can ask the tricycle driver to wait for you while you get off at a small bakery shop en route your destination, where the skies are still smog-free and the waters run so clear, you can see right through the bottom.
We’ll be visiting my paternal grandmother who has always wished to see the twins while she’s still alive. She has already seen my three older children when we visited her in 2005. (I was pregnant with the twins back then although I didn’t know it yet.)
Incidentally, today is also Deepavali, the Festival of Lights for Hindus, Sikhs and Jains,when lamps are lit to signify victory of good over the evil within an individual.
Even though Indians only make up some 8% of the total Malaysian population, Deepavali is a Malaysian national holiday nonetheless.
Deepavali Valtikal (Happy Deepavali) to all!
Tags: celebrations
