Hey, Joe

Rating:
Summary: Appreciating the Foibles of Manila...
Review: For any foreigner who wants a primer on Filipino street culture, and especially life in Manila, this book is an excellent read. Lerner provides a sympathetic and insightful, if somewhat superficial, treatment of Filipino culture and Manila's street life. Lerner achieves a level of insight into the lives of the average man-on-the-streets that eludes most foreigners who have lived in Manila for decades.

The stories are not particularly deep, and contain very little profound insight into Filipino culture or life. But for what it is--an affectionate, honest, no-holds-barred description of life in one of SE Asia's least pleasant capital cities--the book succeeds. For anybody looking for amusing anecdotes about the foibles and ironies of life in the biggest of Filipino cities, this is a very good read. If you're looking for profound cultural insights, you'd best keep looking.

Rating:
Summary: Appreciating the Foibles of Manila...
Review: For any foreigner who wants a primer on Filipino street culture, and especially life in Manila, this book is an excellent read. Lerner provides a sympathetic and insightful, if somewhat superficial, treatment of Filipino culture and Manila's street life. Lerner achieves a level of insight into the lives of the average man-on-the-streets that eludes most foreigners who have lived in Manila for decades.

The stories are not particularly deep, and contain very little profound insight into Filipino culture or life. But for what it is--an affectionate, honest, no-holds-barred description of life in one of SE Asia's least pleasant capital cities--the book succeeds. For anybody looking for amusing anecdotes about the foibles and ironies of life in the biggest of Filipino cities, this is a very good read. If you're looking for profound cultural insights, you'd best keep looking.

Rating:
Summary: Lerner Is A Hoot!
Review: Ted Lerner has a wonderful ability to capture into words both the poignant and hilarious contrasts between Filipino and U.S. culture. And he indeed represents the reactions of the "wide-eyed" foreigner. This is not the jet-setting rich of Manila that he is observing - this is the life of the other 97%.. He's a student of the sweet science and the deft turn of phrase. Lerner is just the man to put this into words

This is a guy who rides "jeepneys" to work and back - something very, very few foreigners do. It is this kind of lifestyle that opens up the culture to him. But it's a culture that is easily recognizable to almost any foreigner that has spent significant time in the Philippines. As a five-year resident of Manila, I thoroughly enjoyed Lerner's writings.

A reader unexposed to the events described by Lerner will be enlightened; but the reader who recognizes and identifies with his observations will laugh out laud at times or even shed a tear or two.

Rating:
Summary: Lerner Is A Hoot!
Review: Ted Lerner has a wonderful ability to capture into words both the poignant and hilarious contrasts between Filipino and U.S. culture. And he indeed represents the reactions of the "wide-eyed" foreigner. This is not the jet-setting rich of Manila that he is observing - this is the life of the other 97%.. He's a student of the sweet science and the deft turn of phrase. Lerner is just the man to put this into words

This is a guy who rides "jeepneys" to work and back - something very, very few foreigners do. It is this kind of lifestyle that opens up the culture to him. But it's a culture that is easily recognizable to almost any foreigner that has spent significant time in the Philippines. As a five-year resident of Manila, I thoroughly enjoyed Lerner's writings.

A reader unexposed to the events described by Lerner will be enlightened; but the reader who recognizes and identifies with his observations will laugh out laud at times or even shed a tear or two.

Rating:
Summary: Lerner Is A Hoot!
Review: Ted Lerner has a wonderful ability to capture into words both the poignant and hilarious contrasts between Filipino and U.S. culture. And he indeed represents the reactions of the "wide-eyed" foreigner. This is not the jet-setting rich of Manila that he is observing - this is the life of the other 97%.. He's a student of the sweet science and the deft turn of phrase. Lerner is just the man to put this into words

This is a guy who rides "jeepneys" to work and back - something very, very few foreigners do. It is this kind of lifestyle that opens up the culture to him. But it's a culture that is easily recognizable to almost any foreigner that has spent significant time in the Philippines. As a five-year resident of Manila, I thoroughly enjoyed Lerner's writings.

A reader unexposed to the events described by Lerner will be enlightened; but the reader who recognizes and identifies with his observations will laugh out laud at times or even shed a tear or two.

Rating:
Summary: The World's Largest English Speaking City
Review: This book , which could also be called Good Morning, Zir(Sir, which is what I heard alot from locals there)tells it all about a city the world has not yet given itself the precious time to know. Manila is filled with gross poverty and stunning wealth, a city where a CEO will make $60,000 a year, not much as CEO's go in the US but is opulent there. A city where a maid makes $600 a year but still has to pay the same price for food and electricity and entertainment as you and I do. I spent time there this year , my first visit, since we were going to meet my inlaws who could not make it to my wedding to their daughter and was slapped in the face by the ghastliness and the elegance that live side by side there. The poverty is bad but what struck me the most was the unbelievable haze that stays in the air & will not move. Surrounded by smog in an Asian capital with as much intense history as this city has stays in your mind as you leave the airport. This city , with perhaps the freest press in the Asian world, millions of English speakers and yet troubled, uprooted traditions will fascinate you and the author relates issues well with brevity and clarity. Read 'America's Boy', about Marcos and also 'Ghosts of Manila' too if you want to get the feel of this awful, wonderful place that God looks upon, not angrily, as men do, but with compassion and patience because His people live there.

Rating:
Summary: The World's Largest English Speaking City
Review: This book , which could also be called Good Morning, Zir(Sir, which is what I heard alot from locals there)tells it all about a city the world has not yet given itself the precious time to know. Manila is filled with gross poverty and stunning wealth, a city where a CEO will make $60,000 a year, not much as CEO's go in the US but is opulent there. A city where a maid makes $600 a year but still has to pay the same price for food and electricity and entertainment as you and I do. I spent time there this year , my first visit, since we were going to meet my inlaws who could not make it to my wedding to their daughter and was slapped in the face by the ghastliness and the elegance that live side by side there. The poverty is bad but what struck me the most was the unbelievable haze that stays in the air & will not move. Surrounded by smog in an Asian capital with as much intense history as this city has stays in your mind as you leave the airport. This city , with perhaps the freest press in the Asian world, millions of English speakers and yet troubled, uprooted traditions will fascinate you and the author relates issues well with brevity and clarity. Read 'America's Boy', about Marcos and also 'Ghosts of Manila' too if you want to get the feel of this awful, wonderful place that God looks upon, not angrily, as men do, but with compassion and patience because His people live there.