Stroll through Manila

one

China Southern's Boeing 737 roared through the heavy cloud blockade of Manila Nino-Aquino International Airport and flew to Guangzhou from its trip to the south.

In the evening, the black sky embraced the dark clouds under the window and gradually merged into one, as if to weave a huge black net and engulf the small plane. At this time, the last ray of sunshine in the distance, when it was about to fall, passed through the clouds, leaving a faint brown, red, purple and yellow, mixed with wisps of dark gray, woven into a strange and beautiful ribbon, which made people feel a kind of sadness and a little scared. This kind of beauty is really breathtaking, so unreal, as if it were a swan song in the sky.

The last ray of light gradually sank into the deep darkness. Below 10,000 meters, there are countless typhoons sweeping through the South China Sea in the south of China. Except for more than 0/00 people on board, how far is it to find people around you?

About three years ago, Malaysia Airlines mh370 also took off from the South China Sea and flew to China. When their relatives were looking forward to it at the Beijing airport, when they were glad to finally go home and reunite with their family and friends at the moment they boarded the plane, time stayed at that night forever.

The people on the plane disappeared forever, and I don't know where my soul went.

People at home are always lost and can't find the way forward.

The closed door is always open, expecting and waiting.

Countless nights, I heard a knock at the door, saw familiar faces and appeared at the door?

Perhaps, one day, even the figure is blurred, but the heart has nowhere to put it.

Will such an accident happen today? If it really happens, I, a person who has run dozens of marathons, 100 km cross-country and is about to finish running for 24 hours, can have one more chance of winning than others?

Or, in the face of powerful natural forces, we are all just a tiny ant, and there is nothing we can do with any struggle and tenacity?

? two

At eleven o'clock on the evening of October 23rd, the plane landed at Nino-Aquino Airport in Manila, and it was twelve o'clock when it settled in China City Hotel in Minreno District. My boss warned me that the security in Manila is not very good, and it is best not to go out alone too early and too late. But I'm used to running in any city, and I still get up before six o'clock, put on my running shoes, and run outside along with the feeling of night coming, plus the impression of Google Maps.

Just about to run, a local old man saw me greet me warmly, and I waved. Although it's only six o'clock, cars are already coming and going on the street, opposite a US-Canada square with a Chinese logo. The motorcycles passing by the street make a huge roar, as if waking up the whole city.

Running to the gatehouse of China City, I saw many grotesque cars speeding by, with a jeep head in front and an open trunk behind. There are a lot of people in it. It should be like a bus, and the noise is deafening when accelerating. Only when I came back did I know that this kind of car was called Jeepney, which was also a sight in Manila. It was originally converted from a jeep retired by the US military after World War II, but now it is generally converted from a car eliminated by Japan. It is the main public transport in Manila. Although every car has a fixed driving route, it can stop at any time. The price is cheap, a few pesos can take a trip, so it is more popular with local ordinary citizens. This kind of car is similar to the previous domestic minibus. Of course, the conditions of minibuses in China are much better than those in Jeepney, and the noise is much less. This kind of car is convenient for passengers to get on and off, and there is no door at the back. Some passengers even hang behind. It looks really scary, but for so many days, the locals seem to have become accustomed to it and have never seen any accidents. Some people say that there are eight monsters in Manila, two of which are: chaotic traffic and few car accidents. Motorcycles are loud and jeeps are noisy. I only ran one kilometer on the first morning, which was deeply felt.

One kilometer from the hotel to the gate of China, crossing the river is the Romanesque building Manila City Hall, then turn left and pass a black Nazareth church. The market is Catholic. 85% Filipinos believe in Catholicism, which is a rare Catholic country in Asia, and churches can be seen everywhere in cities. On the side of the road, there are many homeless people sleeping on the street, dark and skinny, and they see pedestrians reaching out and showing eager and sad eyes. The light rail runs on the road every few minutes, with six cars on each trip. Later, I learned that Manila's light rail has only two lines, mainly passing through the old city. Not familiar with the local area, I didn't have a chance to have a look.

On the first day, I ran across the Sandulo district on the north bank of the Pasi River, which is the old town of Manila. The house is dark and old, but there are many schools. On the way, I kept passing through primary and secondary schools and saw students wearing various school uniforms. The school in Manila occupies a small area and has no walls. Generally, a doorway is left on the first floor as the school gate. None of the schools I saw in the local area had a playground, only an open space as big as one or two basketball courts. According to a friend's son, he is the owner of a well-known Chiang Kai-shek school in the Chinese area, and students have no chance to run at all. Even if they do exercises, they can't completely straighten their hands, which shows how crowded they are.

I usually run about ten kilometers every day. After running five kilometers, I went back to the hotel the same way. After taking a shower, according to the boss's suggestion, go to Jollibee (Happy Bee) across the street for breakfast. Jollibee is the largest chain restaurant in the Philippines, and has entered the China market. Its boss is also from China, and its goal is to beat McDonald's and become the largest chain restaurant in the world.

According to my boss, Jollibee's business in the Philippines is better than McDonald's. From my ten-day observation in the local area, the number of stores and consumers is indeed higher than that of McDonald's and far better than that of KFC. In fact, there is little difference between the products and pricing of both parties. Perhaps Jollibee's boss knows more about the Philippine market and the tastes of ordinary people. Judging from my consumption experience in two local restaurants, Jollibee seems to taste more delicious.

I ordered a set meal, a coke, a hamburger, a chicken leg and 95 pesos (pesos to RMB 7.5 yuan: 1.95 pesos to RMB 13), which is much lower than the domestic price of McDonald's. At first, I thought McDonald's could not compete with Jollibee because of its high price. After all, Filipinos generally have lower incomes. But then I saw that the price of McDonald's was similar.

Although Jollibee's breakfast seems quite economical to us, the locals regard it as a luxury. I see that most local people eat at roadside stalls. I didn't ask. I don't know how much a breakfast costs. It is estimated to be around twenty or thirty pesos.

During the day, my boss and I watch the local market together. Opposite the hotel is Manila's largest small commodity wholesale market, 168 shopping mall and 999 shopping mall. Several floors are divided into small shops of several square meters, selling all kinds of small commodities. The boss said that these shopping malls, from developers to sellers, are basically from China, with few Filipinos. Filipinos, if they study well and go to college, will join government agencies or foreign companies. No one will do such a small business, and ordinary people have neither the financial ability nor the resources to do business, so they can only work for the boss in China.

Except for a few second-generation overseas Chinese, most of these Chinese are new-generation overseas Chinese who came to the Philippines after China's reform and opening up in the 1980s, and most of them are from Fujian and Quanzhou.

The market is crowded and moving slowly. The boss said that after a while, when Filipinos want to buy Christmas presents, this road will be more crowded. People are like crucian carp crossing the river, and all kinds of stalls are even more difficult to move. At this time, there are still some cars to pass through these roads. I don't know how long it will take to get through the short distance.

I pay attention to vendors selling fruits on the roadside, but they are no different from domestic varieties, such as apples, bananas, longan and oranges. In the next few days, I tried to buy several kinds, the price was slightly lower than that in China, and the taste was not bad.

three

The next day, I ran from Spain to Rizal National Park. Spain ruled the Philippines from the middle and late period of 16, and it was not until the end of 19 that it was replaced by the United States. Therefore, the Philippines has a deep Spanish brand, and King City of Spain is also the highest quality and best preserved part of the old city of Manila.

When I went there, I passed a church, which was magnificent, solemn and beautiful, simple and dignified, and made people respect. Took two photos in a hurry and continued running. After all those traditional Spanish buildings, I suddenly felt that I was in Madrid instead of Manila.

After running, I punched in and found an Augustine Cathedral. I thought I had run past it. It was not until the day before I left Manila that I realized that I was passing Manila Cathedral, and Augustine Cathedral was not far from the south, only a few hundred meters away. Both churches were built shortly after the Spanish ruled Manila at the end of 16. I'm a little surprised. They are so close, why should they be built almost at the same time? Perhaps the Spanish are too fanatical about religion, and a church is not enough to accommodate their worship of God.

Manila is not a big city, only more than 6 million square kilometers, but the actual population is more than 20 million, known as the most crowded city in the world. So there is little public space in Manila, and it is difficult to find a good place to run. Rizal National Park should be the largest park in this city. The park is divided into three blocks by the road, the middle block is the core, and there are many people running and exercising in the morning. The brick road in the middle is only one kilometer, surrounded by beautiful water features and fountains of various shapes. There are also several small gardens in the park, including China Garden, Australian Garden and Japanese Garden. China Garden is the largest and most beautiful. The door is engraved with Dr. Sun Yat-sen's "The World is Public". I ran in and walked, too. In the park, besides running, there are some people who practice Tai Chi and sword, and some who dance a kind of square dance similar to China's, but their square dance is more exciting, and there are also leading dancers, but the participants are mainly young people.

After that, I basically went to Rizal Park for running every day and ran a few laps in it. Only once, I left Ricardo Roberto Barreto da Rocha Park and ran to Rawls Beach Avenue below, because I had to stretch the distance as usual on weekends, and wanted to see the scenery of Rawls Beach Avenue, which is said to be the most beautiful in Manila.

Today is Sunday, and it's strange that there are no cars on Rawls Avenue. Opposite is a parade that looks like a float parade, and there are many people running here, but not as many as the domestic marathon, and there is no road closure. There are no cheerleaders and volunteers on the roadside. More importantly, these runners have no number plates on their chests.

When I went to Manila, I always wanted to have a chance to take part in a local running race, preferably a half marathon. When I turned to the bay and ran to a seaside square, I saw that there really was a timing arch for running races. It should be a half marathon. After taking photos, I continued to run for several kilometers. When I came back through the arch, the game was not over. Finally, I saw some runners with numbered cloth on their chests, but most of them didn't. I wonder if most of them come for a walk or don't need to hang numbered cloth. Later, I asked the proprietress, and she said that there was a marathon every Sunday in the local area, and Rawls Avenue would be closed. But on the one hand, because of the weather, on the other hand, in order to less affect the traffic, the game started early. No wonder I started running at five in the morning. After running in Luo Cha Park for a while, many half-horse runners have finished running on Rawls Avenue. The local marathon is far from being formal in China, but it is a bit like a reunion run in China. Maybe you supply it yourself. Next time I have a chance to go to Manila, I will try to take part in their marathon.

? four

It's very important to visit the local real estate industry in Manila. Compared with the domestic real estate as the main economic body, Manila's real estate is also very hot in recent years, but it is far less than the domestic real estate, which is a topic of concern to everyone. Some people even say that Manila has nothing to do with most Filipinos. A rough observation shows that Manila, with a population of more than 20 million, may have a turnover of less than/kloc-0.0 million square meters a year, which is not as good as China, a prefecture-level city with a population of one million.

On the one hand, Manila's average GDP is only about $5,000, and the gap between the rich and the poor is wide. The monthly income of the ordinary class is only 3,000 to 5,000 yuan, while the price of a new house in Manila is more than15,000 yuan, which of course exceeds that of the ordinary income class. Moreover, Filipinos' enthusiasm for buying a house is far less than that of China, or only China people in the world are most keen on buying a house. For them, renting a house and spending money on eating and playing will be much happier. What Filipinos like to say most orally is that the most important thing for people to live is to be happy, so they will spend most of their income on consumption and have almost no savings, let alone take on mortgages for decades to be house slaves.

The underdevelopment of Manila's real estate is also due to the private ownership of land in the Philippines. If developers want to acquire land for development, they can only buy land from private hands. Because of the scattered land, it is very difficult to develop large-scale projects. Therefore, the average scale of real estate projects in downtown marathon is very small. If it covers an area of 20,000 to 30,000 square meters, it is a big project. Moreover, the marathon is not limited by the floor area ratio and building density, so most houses are densely packed, and many units have poor ventilation and lighting. Of course, it is impossible to have common garden facilities in China, so the overall living quality is relatively low. Like the house rented by the boss, the bottom six floors are shopping malls and the top floor is residential. There is an overhead garden in the shopping mall where you can walk, which is already a good condition in the local area.

Of course, there are also a few big projects of big developers. For example, Ayala, the largest developer in the Philippines, is a Spanish consortium. Makati, the CBD of Manila (called a local city, actually equivalent to the size of a street office in Shenzhen), is planned and built by Ayala as a whole, with a high level of construction, which can be said to be no less than the CBD of any first-tier city in China. Many internationally renowned enterprises are working there, and there are also a large number of international famous shops. Makati began to develop in the 1970s, and then Ayala developed BGC New Town not far from Makati, which is a more modern business office area than Makati. When you come here, you feel that he is completely different from the old city. The building is fashionable and beautiful, full of modern flavor, luxurious and elegant, with wide roads and orderly traffic. High-end shopping malls are connected together, and the public space is clean and comfortable, just like a paradise, which is beautiful.

BGC has been developed. Ayala is running five kilometers in BGC and has started to develop a new city called ARCA SOUTH. This new town covers an area of nearly 1000 mu, mainly residential and equipped with large commercial facilities. But I am surprised that there is no supporting school. I don't know how to solve the problem of children's enrollment in such a large community in the future. Is the government responsible for the next construction? In short, the real estate development model in Manila is quite different from that in China.

For example, for such a large project, a beautiful exhibition area, a beautiful marketing center and exquisite garden landscape will be built in a conspicuous place at the entrance, and there will be towering advertising walls around it. Even Ayala, the first developer in the Philippines, has no such thing at all. A slightly shabby small sales office is located inside the project, and we have to drive in from the construction sidewalk, not to mention the landscape display advertising wall at the door, and there is not even a guide. We still have to invite security in. Several high-rise apartments were built in the first phase and have been sold for two years. The price has risen from the initial 1.5 million RMB to the present 1.8 million RMB, which shows that the sales speed is still very slow. I think that if the same project is developed by Vanke, Evergrande and other large domestic real estate enterprises, even if the demand for real estate in Manila is not as strong as that in China, the sales speed will be much faster.

It should be said that Ayala's architectural design and interior design level are still quite high, which can be seen from the architectural appearance of BGC and the model houses we saw in their headquarters building, but their overall development concept, especially marketing concept, may still have a big gap with China. It is said that well-known domestic developers are preparing to develop large-scale real estate projects in the marathon, which may have a great impact on the real estate industry in the marathon at that time.

Because marathon houses are permanent property rights, the rental return rate is relatively high, with the highest annual return rate reaching 10% and the lowest above 5%. Therefore, many domestic investors have started to set foot in Manila real estate in recent years, and Ayala, a big developer, is naturally their first choice. When we looked at the house in Ayala headquarters, there were only two people in it, and the other was a China native who spoke Mandarin.

In addition to high-rise apartments in the city, we also inspected some villa projects. These projects are mainly distributed in two areas, one is Pasay near the airport, and the other is Alabang south of BGC.

The legal system of the Philippines is almost completely copied from the United States. Their land is privately owned, and real estate development land is divided into two types, one is villa land and the other is apartment land. Villa land has both land rights and property rights, but only Filipinos can buy it, foreigners can't buy it, and foreigners can buy apartments. Therefore, both local Chinese businessmen and China investors can only buy apartments. Of course, there are not a few local Chinese businessmen who buy villas in a flexible way. A partner of the boss bought a holiday villa in Pengdao, a seaside resort more than 0/00 kilometers away from Manila/KLOC.

The villas in the suburbs are generally large in scale. However, because villa land can only be used to build villas, it is an organic combination of villas, houses and high-rise buildings, unlike domestic composite real estate, which is fast to digest. Pure villa projects naturally digest slowly. Coupled with the underdeveloped local economy, traffic congestion and low development level, the development progress of several villa projects we have seen is quite slow, and the residents inside are still sparse for many years.

When the villa was sold in Manila, the whole land was planned as a plot. The customer bought the land and then entrusted the developer to build and decorate it (it is ok to build and decorate it yourself, but it is much easier to entrust the developer). The developer will have several design schemes for the owner to choose from. A villa covers an area ranging from 300 square meters to 500 square meters. The price of a piece of land is about 2 million-5 million, and the construction cost is about 6,543,800 yuan. For a provincial capital city, this price is not high. However, in the villa area of Manila, developers have few public facilities, which are basically simple houses, and the actual living quality is not high. Judging from the several projects we have seen, there are so many doors that we can't see the exquisite landscape display and luxury clubs that are common in domestic high-end projects. There is only a villa project developed by Ayala, because the first and second phases have been moved in, and there are some commercial facilities outside, with more guests living inside and a strong living atmosphere.

? five

There are some universities of St. Thomas near my residence. I looked up the information on the internet and said that this university is the largest Catholic university in the world, which has preserved many ancient buildings. Naturally, I will get to know it.

I checked the route online first, and then drove there, but it took me a long time to find the university. Because, this so-called world's largest Catholic university is really humble. It doesn't have the walls of domestic universities, and it doesn't have large school buildings, so it's hard to detect even if you pass by. Wandering around the map for quite a while, I finally came to the ancient buildings I saw on the Internet. There are many exquisite sculptures in this Romanesque building, and the ancient stone walls show the massiness of history. I really wanted to go in and have a look, but unfortunately the security guard wouldn't let me in, so I had to ask someone to take some photos of me and left in disappointment.

There is a standard football field on campus, but there is no runway. This is the only football field I saw in Manila. Marathon is so expensive that most schools don't have playgrounds. What I saw most in Manila was the humble basketball court. Some of the basketball courts are located in a small clearing on the roadside. Choose a high place to hang a basketball stand (the height is not necessarily standard, there is no rebound, just a shelf), and some just put two shelves in the middle of the road. What's more, on the edge of a small village going to Pengdao, I saw a basketball stand hanging on a branch, and there were several children on the ground under the tree.

I passed a slum when I was looking for St. Thomas University. A group of children are playing on the basketball court by the roadside and watching me take pictures. A child immediately stopped and posed for me to take pictures, with a proud and happy expression. Filipinos love basketball very much and once took the lead in Asia. I wonder, one day, will this teenager appear in the Asian arena on behalf of the Philippines and come into my sight again? Who knows?

On the last day, I went to China Yishan, where the souls of Chinese living in Manila returned to heaven. They came here from their homeland thousands of miles away to make a living, and maybe they thought about falling leaves all their lives. In the end, they can only go to heaven to find their old dreams.

This day is Halloween, the sky is raining in Mao Mao, and the quiet and lonely Yishan is crowded. Tourists like me are more descendants of the victims. The cemetery in Yishan is very expensive, even higher than the house price, and the land fee will be paid every year after the expiration. A cemetery ranges from 10 square meters to nearly 100 square meters, which shows the economic strength of the deceased family. Some families later lost their business and could no longer afford their ancestors' cemeteries, so cemeteries would destroy their graves and sell them to others. At that time, I'm afraid it will be difficult for future generations to raise their heads among their compatriots.

There are dozens of descendants of a deceased person, and they may rarely get together on weekdays. On this day, they gather from all directions and even overseas to commemorate their ancestors and talk about their families. There are even rooms and beds next to the tomb, where you can live. Of course, most of them just come to worship and sweep. Maybe in the afternoon, the cemetery will be quiet again. However, a Chinese anti-Japanese monument in the Philippines, though engraved with hundreds of names, is desolate and embarrassing because there are no dead people.

The cemetery where tens of thousands of overseas Chinese are buried is also like an international architectural museum. There are China traditional architecture, Lingnan architecture, Romanesque architecture, Greek architecture, and even luxurious Byzantine church architecture, mixed architecture, dazzling and varied. These previous experiences must be full of legends and rich waves, and after their death, they left the world with magnificent buildings, allowing people to spy a complicated history from a pile of solidified stone tablets and walls.