June 03, 2004
Fat Plastic Chairs.
Tony Tan Caktiong, the founder and principal owner of Jollibee, was awarded the 2004 Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur Of The Year this week. Jollibee is the largest fast-food chain in the Philippines, (with branches in far flung nations such as California and Viet Nam.) In other news, a report issued last week by the Asian Food Information Center, claims more and more children in Asia are having trouble maintaining an appropriate body weight.
I failed to mention plastic seating devices in my last post. If the photo of Britney is still there, please notice the plastic benches upon which the TV-captives are seated. Plastic seating is as ubiquitous as ubiquitous can be. Somebody told me he saw the president of the Philippines sitting on a plastic chair. I’ve met a few people who have relatives working in Manila at plastic chair factories. Personally, my rear end finds plastic uncomfortable, but it will just have to get used to it. After all, when I signed up for Peace Corps, I figured it might not be the most comfortable two years for my T-hiney.
I also meant to mention a troubling statistic in my last post. According to Lonely Planet:
“An incredible 80% of tropical marine fish sold worldwide come from the Philippines. A massive diversity of fish, combined with cheap labour and export-friendly air-freight costs, means a veritable rainbow of species pour out of Philippine waters and into aquariums around the world each year.
Apart from the obvious damage to the local fish populations and ecosystems, many of these fish die from severe liver damage within days of being transported. Such damage is common in marine creatures poisoned by sodium cyanide – a chemical first introduced in The Philippines in the 1960s to stun fish and now widely used as an easy way to catch large numbers of fish for both domestic and foreign markets.”
So if you have a pretty fish tank, please keep this in mind and ask questions next time you go to the pet shop. Perhaps educate the pet-shop owner. Also, if you know people who collect these fish, like perhaps your local dentist, please share this information with him or her after he or she sands your teeth.
Yesterday, as I was floating in the Bohol Sea, I thought about my future! Maybe I will consider opening a dive shop somewhere. I’ve only been on eight dives in my life, but I enjoy it sufficiently to think I might be interested in making diving a larger part of my life. I love teaching and love the ocean and the fish. There are countless opportunities to interact with the locals. It seems like the perfect opportunity to teach environmental awareness and responsibility. (Dear Mom, Don’t worry yet. Scuba exists in your own backyard.)
I will try my hand at kayaking this weekend with PROCESS, a local environmental NGO. I hope to drag along papa, who used to be a fisherman, but who has not been in a small boat in over a decade. Next week I’ll be quite busy traveling around Bohol to participate in product development meetings with various rural cooperatives. So it might be a while before I post again.
Posted by dbs at June 3, 2004 08:55 PM