Below is the article of a Hongkong columnist depicting Philippines as a “nation of servants”. I saw this from TV news minutes ago (senators calling to boycott traveling to HK.) The HK Magazine.com removed the article already. Thanks for the google cache I found it, go on read…

The War At Home
March 27th, 2009
Chip Tsao

The Russians sank a Hong Kong freighter last month, killing the seven Chinese seamen on board. We can live with that—Lenin and Stalin were once the ideological mentors of all Chinese people. The Japanese planted a flag on Diàoyú Island. That’s no big problem—we Hong Kong Chinese love Japanese cartoons, Hello Kitty, and shopping in Shinjuku, let alone our round-the-clock obsession with karaoke.

But hold on—even the Filipinos? Manila has just claimed sovereignty over the scattered rocks in the South China Sea called the Spratly Islands, complete with a blatant threat from its congress to send gunboats to the South China Sea to defend the islands from China if necessary. This is beyond reproach. The reason: there are more than 130,000 Filipina maids working as $3,580-a-month cheap labor in Hong Kong. As a nation of servants, you don’t flex your muscles at your master, from whom you earn most of your bread and butter.

As a patriotic Chinese man, the news has made my blood boil. I summoned Louisa, my domestic assistant who holds a degree in international politics from the University of Manila, hung a map on the wall, and gave her a harsh lecture. I sternly warned her that if she wants her wages increased next year, she had better tell every one of her compatriots in Statue Square on Sunday that the entirety of the Spratly Islands belongs to China.

Grimly, I told her that if war breaks out between the Philippines and China, I would have to end her employment and send her straight home, because I would not risk the crime of treason for sponsoring an enemy of the state by paying her to wash my toilet and clean my windows 16 hours a day. With that money, she would pay taxes to her government, and they would fund a navy to invade our motherland and deeply hurt my feelings.

Oh yes. The government of the Philippines would certainly be wrong if they think we Chinese are prepared to swallow their insult and sit back and lose a Falkland Islands War in the Far East. They may have Barack Obama and the hawkish American military behind them, but we have a hostage in each of our homes in the Mid-Levels or higher. Some of my friends told me they have already declared a state of emergency at home. Their maids have been made to shout “China, Madam/Sir” loudly whenever they hear the word “Spratly.” They say the indoctrination is working as wonderfully as when we used to shout, “Long live Chairman Mao!” at the sight of a portrait of our Great Leader during the Cultural Revolution. I’m not sure if that’s going a bit too far, at least for the time being.

*Chip Tsao is a best-selling author and columnist. A former reporter for the BBC, his columns have also appeared in Apple Daily, Next Magazine and CUP Magazine, among others.

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The columnist apologized already, saying that his article is a satire.
So, meaning it’s just us again – being so sensitive?
Hmm some jokes are half meant eh?

For your info Cheap Tsao, aside from those wonderful Filipina maids, we also have engineers, teachers, designers, programmers, writers, bloggers…and believe me there are numerous Filipino blogs out there that is even more popular in readership and Google rankings than all the articles that you’ve written.

Also, did you know the reason behind why a lot of countries consider Filipinos as good servants?

Because we are the only people in this world who has a real heart that cares, serve, help and love the elders and children. We care about one’s health by not eating noodles that is high in MSG and other preservatives. Or milk and candies that has melamine.

Lastly, we are also the happiest hopeful people and we don’t have suicidal thoughts like jumping off buildings or mass suicides…does it sounds so familiar to you now cheap tsao?

Eat your noodles, it’s a satire.

There’s this recent news in the world wide web about the Google web designers leaving Google and blaming data centrism, etc.

Well, obviously…looking at the Google page – white background, center aligned logo, text area search field, 2 buttons, and less than 50 words of links located top and below…and that’s it.

Kick-ass functionality aside, what kind of design do you expect right?

I believe the only “real” artsy design work that can Google may demand are:

1. GUI application designs, prototyping, layout wire framing
2. Corporate identity: marketing brochures and other print ads.
3. Interior designs for their really cool working environment
4. And their seasonal Google logos

If you are the kind of art-focus designer, working as web designer with Google can be such a bore.

It’s like working with web design nowadays…this web standard thing is really limiting our creativity.

First, there’s the coffee table guestbook with all our prenup photo shoots from our official photographers.

Then there’s the sign stand frame, a gift from a friend who runs her own advertising printing company. I forwarded the PSDs of my design and our photos to her to so that we can at least stick with our wedding design identity.

And there’s the 3 panel photo frame divider that hubby and I bought a week before the wedding day. The first column of the frame has pictures of hubby’s family and special friends; the middle section was pictures of us; and then the third column has pictures of my family and friends.

(sign stand frame, photo frame divider, tarp)

We decided to have the said frame because we discarded the idea of AVPs that includes old photos of childhood, family etc.

What I didn’t know though is that — there’s the free guest book (the one that you can buy from bookstores) and signframe from the catering. *ang dami na!1 umuulan tuloy ng frames*

My fault, I forgot to inform them not to include those. There’s a free tarpaulin too from photographers. I almost want to get out of the bridal car immediately the moment I saw the tarp at the reception entrance, if only I can remove it hehe but I didn’t of course, too late. I am not a fan of tarpaulins that is why, it’s a kinda corny thing… :p sorry naman.

One of my best friends signing the stand frame.

This is the official guest book.

Dilemma / Lesson Learned. (Bride to Be Tips):
Make sure you don’t forget these details. 1 guestbook and 1 signframe will do. In our case, the guest didn’t know where to really sign and there are also duplicate signs. :p