Posts tagged diversity

I really took the diversity of the United States for granted.

That whole “The United States is the melting pot” business they taught us in school means a lot more to me now that I’ve spent 4 months away from it all. I heard it all the time and thought “yeah yeah, I get it”. It’s really incredible thing if you look at the rest of the world though. Aside from a handful of mostly expats and Chinese, almost everybody in the Philippines is a Filipino. Everybody has black hair. Everybody has a certain darker shade of skin. Everybody is short. They all speak local dialects as their 1st language. They all enjoy approximately the same food. Religion is far from diverse - 90% Christian (About 90% of which is Catholic), 10% Muslim.

You are out of place if you don’t match even one of these characteristics.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s an amazing amount of indigenous diversity (over 180 indigenous ethnic groups, over half of which represent unique linguistic groups) in the Philippines that is rivaled by few other nations. But it’s a different kind of diversity.

It makes the culture interesting, but as a place to live or hang out in for a long time, it can get old. Definitely made me miss my insanely worldly-diverse Austin, TX.