Old Man's Paradise

His looked and acted like an old seaman. Deep wrinkles, permanently tanned skin, and a horrible mouth. He was already smashed when he left the poker table and came and sat with me.

"Wow. I haven't met anyone over here who's even heard of Louise ville, Kentucky."

He was one of about fifteen minute playing some late afternoon poker. All of them lived on Bantayan Island. I assume all of them had local wives too. They were all easily over 50, most had beer guts, and all were exceptionally drunk.

"I'm 65. I've got a 33 year old fiance with and she has a six year old kid I love more than anything. It's an old man's paradise out here..."

He had fixed up there shack in a village on the north end of the island with 90% unemployment and was sending her daughter to private school off his small pension. He was an old charter boat captain and was living off social security.

And there I was, with own Filipino girlfriend next to me, as we spoke. Hera and I both felt like we were being being put into the same category as the other couples. It really forced the question of how I felt about these men and their women. The reality is that we couldn't be more different. Hera comes from an educated upper-middle class family. She was making over twice as much money as I was at her last job. Still, it feels a bit weird.

Being also by far the youngest couple vacationing out here, we've decided to tactfully handle the situation by fitting in as best as possible. Our story is that I'm a 37 year old school teacher from Manila and Hera is my 17 year old just-graduated student. We'll see if anyone bites.

It's ironic... when I got to Shenzhen I made a long-running joke of wanting to find a peasent girl who speaks fluent English who'd be more than happy just to have running water and maybe, just maybe, hot water twice a week. I didn't know there was actually an island out there where men could go to find just that...