High Level of intollerance in Dumaguete and Lee Plaza

Good points. There definitely needs to be a balance. A well-rounded education is best, and that includes a chance to develop social skills. The Philippines is off the deep end on social skills and needs to move (quickly) toward the hard work of classroom learning. (How many sales clerks in the Philippines could make change if the power went out and the batteries in their calculators died? My wager is close to zero because they have never learned even the basics of arithmetic. Memorize multiplication tables? Does anyone do that anymore? At 67, I still fall back to that frustrating exercise often and thank those nuns for pounding it into my head.) But too much homework can slice away at the social aspect and go off the deep end in the other direction.

 

Totally off-topic, but this will improve a few lives...

Actually you can use Amazon USA quite easily in the Philippines.
Open an account at www.shippingcart.com have amazon ship to their CA warehouse and once you gather all your stuff (from any online retailer that ships to warehouses/po boxes) at your PO box, you tell shipping cart to send it to you. They can do air cargo (10-14 days to my doorstep in duma) or sea cargo (4-7 weeks, but way way cheaper). The final delivery is done by LBC couriers, right to my doorstep. Totally hassle free.

I've used them pretty much bi-monthly over the course of 3 years. They only let me down by measuring pants as being 12 kilos once because the packaging was weird...
Other than that I shipped (heavy) motorbike parts, accessories like helmets and all kinds of gear from Amazon.
The only downside is that there are no returns, so you have to be sure that what you order is the right thing.

 

This thread has gone off topic so many times that it must be feeling giddy ... but perhaps you win the award for taking it most off topic. We will all have to try harder from now on.

 

It's true that there are forwarders who are set up to accept packages from Amazon and other vendors, box them up and ship them. I plan to make use of one myself. However, that is a VERY different situation from Amazon having their own presence in the Philippines. The attraction of Amazon shopping (and arguably the primary reason they are putting brick-and-mortar stores out of business) is the near immediacy of delivery and ease of returns. Getting your product in two days, rather than two months (your bi-monthly routine), is not even comparable. Not being able to make returns may make the freight forwarders even less attractive.

I imagine Amazon has researched Lazada and any other online services here and found that they can come in and take the business away simply because they are Amazon, and Lazada is (by their own admission) an Amazon "wanna be." Amazon has the clout (read: money) to come in and dominate almost overnight and they will be widely accepted.

 

Reading this post made me feel quite at home, in Thailand, substitute a few place names and the post could be about Chiangmai, Rayong and they are fairly progressive area's other places say Issan are even less Proficient. In fact many ladies of the Night speak excellent English and other languages depending on what section of the Sexpat patronise individual bars