How's your night?

In the Philippines, if someone asks you that question, you will either grin or get offended, but normally, you will never respond back. Nobody in their right mind will ever ask you about your night unless the person asking is a close friend and something interesting really happened that night or your life is an open book to the world.

My first time, I booked an Uber to take me somewhere (I couldn’t remember). It was a morning ride, I didn’t have enough sleep the night before because of jetlag and alcohol.

“How are you ma?” (ma = ma’m)

“I’m ok, thank you”

“How was your night?”

“Excuse me?”

Yes, that stranger guy, the Uber driver just asked me how my night was. Why does he care? Do I look like someone who was just hit by a bus? Do I have something on my face? WTF.

My second time, I was leaving the hotel when the security guard smiled.

“Good morning ma”

“Good morning, how fa?” (that’s me trying pidgn english for “how’s everything”)

“I dey fine, how was your night?”

Seriously?

Yes, folks. After several encounters, I realized that Nigerians don’t really give a damn about your night - it’s just an extended way of asking how you were.

And what is my point here?

Culture. Customs. Social behaviour. Way of life. If you go to other places and you see how others do things differently, you will realize how amazing diversity is. How strange people say their greetings. How they celebrate birthdays and special events. How they treat each other and outsiders. How they enjoy and have fun. How they value things that you and your people from home take for granted.

How they live.

But you will never appreciate all these things until you learn how to really observe and understand it. The comparison, the complaining and liking. I guess all of that is part of learning.

I can make friends, sure. But I never liked talking to taxi drivers on the road. I’d rather check my phone or sleep. But here? I lost count how many times I had a good conversation with my Uber driver. I told a friend once that you can’t really be sure how sociable you are until you travel alone and test your social skills.

Social skills? Ok, that’s another story. That’s for next time.

But have you ever wondered why you suddenly become a different person when you are out of your box? It’s a “survival” thing and we have that instinct for survival. We adopt and adapt.

And when you’re out there, you move, and you change. And when it’s time for your return, you go back with more things. More experiences. More stories to tell.

In the meantime, I have quite a list of things I’ve learned and still learning about this country and I assure you, it gets more interesting.

Cheers.