Grumpy old men

[triple5]

I've noticed this in other countries where there's expats, old guys who've been in the country for more than 10 years seem to be very very miserable. Most the ones I meet here it doesn't take them long to start complaining about the country they've chosen to live in. I was in a bar a few weeks ago and an English guy, late 50s, was tearing into filipinos, oblivious to the ones sitting around him nearby. I won't repeat some of the things he said, but when I gave him a funny look, he got defensive and said he'd been here 30 years and knew exactly what he was talking about.

Is this common you think? When you spend too much time away from your own country everything begins to wind you up. Be interested to know how the ladies who have been in the UK awhile feel about the UK now?

[maria_and_matt]

after having been here for almost 18 yrs now, i cannot wait to go back home for good!

i have and will always find UK boring, it is just as boring as the day i arrived, no offense to all the brits.

[triple5]

Thanks for replying maria As you were one of the few I knew of here who had been in the UK awhile, I was hoping you'd give your thoughts. Are you saying its always been the same for you? The grumpy old men I talk of I think came here with a vision of paradise which slowly trickled down the drain over the years.

[maria_and_matt]

yes it has stayed pretty much the same for me, only now i know how to deal with living here, i think most of it is missing my family and the difference in culture, we filipinos tend to be more chatty and outgoing, but i was shocked when i noticed i am becoming more 'british'!

[KeithD]

Dom's always grumpy

[pennybarry]

Dom's always grumpy

CQ CQ DX Papa Italiano calling!

[somebody]

I guess its just old people all round the world. Older british Indian people i know moan about the UK as we all do (you know not as good as it was five mintues ago etc) then moan when they get back fom India that its not as good as it was a few years ago

Get a bunch of old gits in this country togeter and they all be moaning

I get Maria's point the although the Wife loves it here somtimes she dont wanna be here. But I guess I'm the same aout the UK and I know I would be bored senseless in Phill, which is why we hope to retire to a third country in the long term a tad closer to Phill but with more going on

[triple5]

I guess its just old people all round the world. Older british Indian people i know moan about the UK as we all do (you know not as good as it was five mintues ago etc) then moan when they get back fom India that its not as good as it was a few years ago

Get a bunch of old gits in this country togeter and they all be moaning

I get Maria's point the although the Wife loves it here somtimes she dont wanna be here. But I guess I'm the same aout the UK and I know I would be bored senseless in Phill, which is why we hope to retire to a third country in the long term a tad closer to Phill but with more going on

I think you've got the right idea there That's how I'd spend my time in an ideal world, here, UK and somewhere comfortable inbetween.

[Arthur Little]

Get a bunch of old gits in this country togeter and they all be moaning

, Andy ... I'M an now ... although I like to THINK, I've mellowed with age for two good reasons:

Chronologically, I opted out of the "rat-race" by offloading the responsibilities of a stressful occupation and retiring long before I'd reached the age of sixty. And thus I became a free agent - able to please myself for the first time in my life! But the 'icing on the cake' REALLY came in September 2007 when - quite out of the blue - I began corresponding with a lady of like mind ... who happened to live on the other side of the world ... a Filipina, no less - whom I met [in person] a year later, and subsequently married.

[somebody]

, Andy ... I'M an now ... although I like to THINK, I've mellowed with age for two good reasons:

Chronologically, I opted out of the "rat-race" by offloading the responsibilities of a stressful occupation and retiring long before I'd reached the age of sixty. And thus I became a free agent - able to please myself for the first time in my life! But the 'icing on the cake' REALLY came in September 2007 when - quite out of the blue - I began corresponding with a lady of like mind ... who happened to live on the other side of the world ... a Filipina, no less - whom I met [in person] a year later, and subsequently married.

Yep you do seem to have got the balance right and not stressing about things

I think it is right if I was in phill I would either pass the responsbilty to someone else to deal with the bizzare and often chaotic services in Phill or simply start moaning loads as a outlet

I agree about those ex pats who dont seem to have tried to intergrate and I even met some when abroad moaning about the bloody darkies in the Uk who dont intergrate. yet they knew little of the native language or very many locals and even fewer were actual friends

[triple5]

Although countries like the Philippines are way behind the UK in terms of infrastructure, service etc I do think people here are more self sufficent. If there was ever a major disaster in the UK and the supermarkets couldn't get filled for weeks on end how would people survive? I'd fancy my chances out here a lot more tbh.

[KeithD]

If there was ever a major disaster in the UK and the supermarkets couldn't get filled for weeks on end how would people survive?

I'd be just fine... but then I live in the countryside not far from live food and a big reservoir

[stevewool]

we all complain it could be the weather where we live and so on but home is where the heart is and at this moment my heart is not here in england only my work that will get me to that better place i hope

[Pete/London]

I`m ok for about 2 days in the P.I. Then something winds me up then I really start to feel the heat, then I`ve lost it, plus the fact i get bored stiff. Smiling at the family gets tiring and conversation is difficult, made worse by the fact I`m a fast talking Londoner and they do`nt always follow what I`m saying.
Then when I get home I`m surrounded by more people who do`nt always understand me, so I`m just as bad here

I`m just old and moany wherever I am my wife wrote this

[triple5]

I`m ok for about 2 days in the P.I. Then something winds me up then I really start to feel the heat, then I`ve lost it, plus the fact i get bored stiff. Smiling at the family gets tiring and conversation is difficult, made worse by the fact I`m a fast talking Londoner and they do`nt always follow what I`m saying.
Then when I get home I`m surrounded by more people who do`nt always understand me, so I`m just as bad here

I`m just old and moany wherever I am my wife wrote this

I get that all the time - "You're so slang," I'm always told. Hold on, we're talking in English and I'm from the middle of the England, and you think I'm talking slang Try telling them they got this weird American kind of twang and they won't have it

[somebody]

I`m ok for about 2 days in the P.I. Then something winds me up then I really start to feel the heat, then I`ve lost it, plus the fact i get bored stiff. Smiling at the family gets tiring and conversation is difficult, made worse by the fact I`m a fast talking Londoner and they do`nt always follow what I`m saying.
Then when I get home I`m surrounded by more people who do`nt always understand me, so I`m just as bad here

I`m just old and moany wherever I am my wife wrote this

LOL I get the same that they dont understand me and often the accent they dont get the most is if i speak in a cut glass well spoken surrey BBC English

Then when you meet people and they go where you from you say Egland and a little later they mention I have a funny English accent. I then explain im speaking it as it should be the expression apears on their face

The best are my Wifes friends who work for an online English Language school now they know im English they wont dare complain But you can see them really having to compute when i switch accents just for the hell of it or the Wife who now has a couple of different English accents she has perfected start swapping accents in mid convo

I get that all the time - "You're so slang," I'm always told. Hold on, we're talking in English and I'm from the middle of the England, and you think I'm talking slang Try telling them they got this weird American kind of twang and they won't have it

The wife was told she would need to learn a Yank accent if she was to work at the online language school mentioned above untill they realised she was speaking with an English accent which the students from various countries would pay a fortune to learn and copy

[RickyR]

To be honest, in the likes of Cebu in bars such as Badgers or around Ayala you see a lot of the ex pats that seem pretty bitter and have a disdain for the locals, some of them trapped out there as they couldn't afford to return... A lot of them convinced, they know everything there is to know, but actually know very little and after 20 years still speak only a few words of local languages. This is isn't everyone, just a lot of them that have no interest in integrating, and stick with expats.

In Manila some of the groups of expats working out in the Philippines in one way or another tend to have more positive views, they work alongside Filipino workers including senior management etc and seem to have a more open minded view of the country.

This is in my limited view of living out there...

[sparky]

i have seen the same thing with expats in thailand- and they are usually the ones as has been said that dont speak the local lingo and dont immerse themselves into the culture they are living in.

many also have a superiority complex in thinking that cos the locals are generally poorer they are beneath their contempt.

of course naturally as us blokes get older we tend to view things from the past with rose tinted glasses- for example- i think that the music today is ***** whereas the music from the 80's when i was growing up was terrific

[Arthur Little]

of course naturally as us blokes get older we tend to view things from the past with rose tinted glasses- for example- i think that the music today is ***** whereas the music from the 80's when i was growing up was terrific

, for the most part. Like YOU, my son and daughter both grew-up into teenagers in the 1980s ... and I noticed on 'Facebook' just the other day [she was obviously too modest to tell me herself!] that the latter recently won a competition on Eighties' music - held by some organisation in Aberdeenshire (where she now lives). For ME, though, there'll never QUITE be anything that can compete with "Sounds of the Sixties" ... ... except ... perhaps ... 'Abba' - (even better!) in the 70s!

[gWaPito]

Grumpy old man huh..that's what Jane calls me when thing done go my way...the red mist falls and then that's it, more so when we are in the Philippines.

We take much for granted here like hot and cold running water 24/4.
The phone line goes down and someone is out to fix it the next day.
There are so many other thing I could mention I take for granted living in the UK.
It's not until I go to the Philippines to play house, you realise not all is as it should be, what would be a simple solution in UK there in Phil you have have to move mountains to solve and know as I'm getting older my limits are getting and and less.

Jane tells me 'Mark this is what it is here and it won't change' and I say 'It won't change because nobody complains, you all just accept'.

One more example. From Dasma town to Baclaran we take a bus, not a jeepney but a proper aircon coach.
The driver just keeps on stopping to collect passengers, all seats are taken and paid for but, he still stops to collect passengers so, you end up getting 3 people in 2 seats and then you get people standing, crushed in the middle between the seats.
I for one, will not move over so someone can sit all over me!
This has ruined my day many times.
Jane accepts the ways there, I can't. It will always be a third world, no one wants to fight the injustices. You just look while you are on these buses and jeepneys, just look at the faces, the faces of the condemed.

From a grumpy old man

[triple5]

We take much for granted here like hot and cold running water 24/4.

What do you do for water the other three days