The great pumpkin

The Hague, The Netherlands — A few nights ago I was invited to visit a couple of pubs along the Scheveningen district of The Hague here in the Netherlands. The district is a major tourist attraction for beach lovers and surfers. Part of the attraction was visiting a place that claims to sell over 200 brands of beer some of which they brew themselves.

The nice thing about the night out is that people don’t frown, or mock you if you choose not to drink alcohol. As far as they are concerned you can order a coke, but just don’t try ordering warm milk because they might point you elsewhere.

The only problem about such cross cultural gatherings is that it does not take long before you realize that we don’t have a lot in common to talk about except “stupid politicians”, maybe a common interest or hobby, family values and “God”.

Charlie Brown the cartoon character always warns us that the three things one should never discuss with people are “Politics, Religion, and the Great Pumpkin”.

Unfortunately when your choice comes down to eating “Haring” (a pickled equivalent of our bangus but tastes like a three-day old sashimi in brine water) or discussing the three No-No’s, I will gladly start a war of words than be kicked out of the bedroom for my “Stinky Fish breath”.

It’s quite interesting to note the difference and similarities:

Pigeons here are the size of chickens and if you park your car under their favorite tree, you will encounter biohazard on your roof. It is illegal to hurt the foul fowls but some guys are determined to wage a guerilla war using poison, air rifles and dummy owls sold by IKEA. If caught, the government hauls your to jail or slaps you with a fine.

In the Philippines, our pigeons are smaller and if you shoot them, the government won’t go after you, but just make sure the owner does not shoot back. In the Netherlands, the other kind of pigeons, which we call stool pigeons or government eyewitness, is so protected that you rarely see one. 

In the Philippines, they are endangered species but are left based on the Darwinian philosophy of survival of the fittest.

Here the trains, the planes, the buses and the boats all follow a schedule and all stay on time because people often have to walk long distances, take connecting rides and if they miss their ride, the wait can be anything between 7 minutes to 20 minutes.

As a consequence, there is no excuse for being late. It’s considered rude and insensitive behavior.

In the Philippines, schedules are often just a list of maybes and time is but a reference point where the sun would be in the sky. For Pinoys we have all the excuses for being late.

In Europe, especially in the UK, most politicians are exposed for their hidden wealth. The London based Daily Telegraph carried a headline about MPs or members of Parliament who were hiding so much money.

In the Philippines, members of Congress can never be accused of having hidden wealth. It would be a crime for them to hide their wealth because they need to display their symbols of power such as their Bentleys, Jaguars, helicopters and yachts.

In Italy, one of the hot topics is the pending divorce of the Italian Prime Minister who allegedly saw a photo of an 18-year-old hottie, sought her out, went out on a date with her and was subsequently issued divorce papers by his wife.

In the Philippines, politicians don’t go after “hotties”; someone arranges things for them, like pimps posing as businessmen. Their wives never get to issue divorce papers because Congressmen will never allow it.

As a matter of fact, we shouldn’t blame the Catholic Church for being anti-divorce. With a good lawyer and a psychiatrist, you can actually get an annulment and walk away like you were never ever married. Imagine how good it feels to be able to “delete” a bad marriage from your “files”.

After centuries of being devout Protestants, various influences, war and disillusionment has caused a severe drop in the population of the faithful. Many huge churches are closed on Sundays and have become monuments to their failure.

As such it does not take any effort to find people who are no longer “Believers” or practicing Protestants. In fact many have no problem openly saying they don’t believe in God. Compare this to 90 million Filipinos who are predominantly Catholic or Christian and continue to flock to churches every Sunday and on “Holy” days.

The interesting thing is how the two societies go about in their ordinary everyday life.

Even the staunchest Dutch atheists end up stammering when I point out that their character and conduct reflect the core values of the very faith that they reject. In the many days I spent just walking around The Hague, it became clear that the respect, courtesy, work ethics, social conduct of ethnic Dutch people reflect biblical conduct.

They are not religious or pious but centuries of Protestantism has resulted in generations of people who are sensitive to others, responsible for themselves and for their surroundings.

In contrast, 400 years of being “the only Catholic Country” in Asia has produced a religious society but not necessarily one where people live their lives based on biblical standards. In other words we do the talk but we don’t walk the walk.

Who was it that said, “one has faith that does not bear fruit, the other bears much fruit, but has no faith. Who then is better than the other”?