Google Flights... Air BnB.... also might be useful.
Explain the marrying the family idea. I marry a woman, not a group of people.
I can tell you with some degree of experience that any dealings with the extended family will depend on the ground rules you lay at the beginning. For me, since my wife and her family are professionals, we have no need of financial involvement, although we ask the others to contribute for the 24/7 care of her mother. Hahaha, that cultural thing works to our advantage!"Marrying the family" is a simple way of expressing the cultural clash that occurs when marrying into a close-knit family that has different expectations to a Western culture. For instance, when a filipina woman marries a "rich westerner", the extended family will assume she's wealthy now and hands will be perpetually out for help with everything.
Edit: Hence why @frederick and my ongoing joke is that he's looking out for an orphan for me.
Then they will continually have empty hands. I’m not opposed to helping people who need it. I consider myself generous, but if someone expects and demands it, I start saying the magic word “no”. I’ve dealt with many people who had their hand out to me while squandering away what they do have on frivolous things. Lesson learned.
If people are surviving ok before I meet them, then they can continue to survive ok now they have met me. However, the challenge comes with the added suffering e.g. the covid mess has created. There is more sickness and death in the community. As with everywhere else, inflation has caused economic hardships. When you see emaciated children with a young woman it is difficult to just keep walking past. Until you have been right in amongst it, walking and talking with the people, it is only facts and figures on a page.
The government of the Philippines really handled COVID badly. Sadly, they bought into the lies of Fauci and crew, and really hurt their people.
American culture places little value on family orientation. We move out of the home at 18 years old, accumulate tons of debt, become single parents, force grandparents to help raise the children we created. Then proceed to throw those very same parents into nursing homes to die alone once they're old. It's a vicious cycle
Yes, the covid restrictions were extreme and many small businesses failed.
Sadly I think it's the same in a lot of developed countries. The USA is not unique in that regard.American culture places little value on family orientation. We move out of the home at 18 years old, accumulate tons of debt, become single parents, force grandparents to help raise the children we created. Then proceed to throw those very same parents into nursing homes to die alone once they're old. It's a vicious cycle
Students in Japan all take at least six years of English, but don't have the best teachers, and don't get to practice much. As a result, most Japanese people aren't very proficient in English. They are frequently embarrassed to make mistakes, and therefore hesitant to speak English with foreigners. Interestingly, their written English is often much better than their spoken English.
One of the challenges in the Philippines is there are some 200 distinct dialects which the locals speak. My local language skills are very poor because I can get by with English. The people are very kind and understanding, and we have a lot of laughs in our confusion.
