Rolex and the Filipino-Chinese

Rolex, one of the most known and expensive watches. Status quo, plain RICH. This has been my brother's problem starting last night. Apparently he had a conversation with his fiance about it. She wants a rolex for their engagement, but mainly his mother-in-law to be wants it for them. In the filipino-chinese culture, dowry is still practiced and from all the filipino-chinese marriages and engagements the damn Rolex company is earning a lot from it.

Our family is a very practical family, almost everything has to be functional when u buy stuff, we came from literaly poverish living. then 12 years back we gained luck and blessings, hence our big house. which we sold 2 years ago. My brother is very thrifty and again very practical. Before knowing about the mother-in-law wanting a rolex, his mind was set on buying a pair of Tag heuurs for his engagement. but now he is trapped with a Rolex. Ofcourse he can decline not to give one, but seems like its not an option. His mother-in-law to be asked him how much was his budget for the whole engagement thing, and told him that she will just add in her own money for whatever they want more. WOW... ok they are really rich... filthy rich! whenever you hear someone say about a filchi that is in cebu or any other province that is rich, they are all filthy rich! well all i read from my brother's msgs online were... "Pota naman eh... ang panget panget... mukhang mabibili sa Quiapo..." well it is so true though... the watch wasn't anything great to look at. but the diamonds ofcourse and the gold and the 2 tones... but still it sucked... looked like RADO to me or Seiko... hahhahha...

It got me thinking, the filipino-chinese people in manila and in any other part of the country still hasn't changed. yes they have a lot of money but why waste it on a dumb watch... the watch that they were meaning to buy was priced at $7950 each... you have to buy 2 of them... so total of that would be amounting to my brother's Lancer. and the car has a clock inside too. Spending habits here in manila sucks. People here are still into status, social climbers, and just plain bragging. Where is the culture dowry now? it should have to be just some sort of tradition or just for show. but no... its still there... the concept of dowry is like paying the family respect and in kind to say that we are responsible for your daughter and we value her. In this time, that shouldn't be the case anymore. While there are tons of people working their ass off and trying to feed families and kids... u go off anf buy a Rolex watch? thats too wrong. It's ok though if the Rolex is like the best watch and your like some guy who needs time at a precise tik. but no, its just for show. show for what? nothing more than just hey I'm a rich ass motherf*cker.

Looking back at the Chinese, the mainland was wrapped with poverty and the communism rule was strict and nobody had possesions. People looked up to the elites in the country and always craved and dreamed to be like them. So a lot of chinese migrated, moved to manila and tried to look for their dream here. I could forgive my forefathers who set forth in this land for spending and over spending and spending. but for the generation now? it does'nt have to be that way. we were born with freedom and semi-equality. That's good enough to be happy and just live life. The world is changing, having a lot of money really means more oppurtunities in life, we can't do anything about it but that is the fact. but we can't waste the money on bling bling material things that don't mean nothing at all. Imagine my brother 5 foot 10 working at Arena Maxtronic, a company who builds Raid Servers. Do u think its appropraite for him to wear a Rolex and work on a server? It's not like he's going to shake Bill Gate's hand soon. It is so inappropriate.

The Rich has to maitain an image of being rich, that's always certain. They say image is everything, but i say how u live your life is everything.