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Weekly Recap, 1537: Chinatown, Culture Problems
On the 1537th week of my life, I:
- Read: Ego is the Enemy, by Ryan Holiday.
- Reading: A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy, by William B. Irvine.
I’m adding a new feature to Daryllxd: adding books. I’ve sort of had to synchronize this blog’s reading list with that I’ve actually read and I find myself being really behind, like for weeks at a time.
I also decided no to one of the companies that I was applying to. They didn’t have a work from home option. This is actually a huge deal because a commute to and from work is almost 2, possibly even 3 hours a day. While I tried to solve that by cycling to work, the heat has been suffocating. While travelling across Manila it is not uncommon to have 34 degrees Celsius (apparent temperature is probably higher due to the relative humidity. Of course I’m going to try out but to be honest I’ve been insulated from the commute for the last 3 and a half years that I did not realize it was this insane.
Tidbits
- Went to Chinatown this week with my uni friends. Chinatown is awesome but it’s really hard to get around in. How does an urban planner fix that kind of problem? The problem with the Chinatown area (and to be honest, most of Manila) is the lack of law enforcement. We have sidewalk vendors clogging the street and people walking around, so.
- I don’t think this is a Philippines problem, this is a culture problem, meaning culture of whoever the lawmaker or policymaker of a specific area is. Don’t quote me on this, but from my experiences and from things I can compare with re: other Asian capitals, I think the problems are:
- Lack of subways/“scalable” transportation infrastructure. There are a lot o
- Lack of accountability when it comes to traffic violations.
- Morons (really small percentage).
- I’ve really pushed back on daytime cycling Manila precisely because of those reasons. You have to pick specific roads to travel because what was fun experiences become really stressful ones.
When you’re looking at a map of Manila, you think to yourself, why aren’t people passing through these specific parts of Manila? Well if you get there you’ll see why. Thin streets really suck. :(