The whining of Assistant Secretary for Communications Mai Mislang about the wine served by the Vietnamese government, the lack of good looking Vietnamese males and the homicidal streets of Vietnam will become a classic case that lecturers will cite in countless seminars from now on, on the perils of misusing social media.
The key lesson here is that new technology still requires good old fashioned manners.
If both my grandmothers were alive today and we told them the Mai Mislang tweets, they would have reacted by exclaiming three words:
Bastos. Walang pinagaralan. They wouldn’t care if Mislang was a cum laude graduate of UP or even if she had a PhD in nuclear physics. She would still be
bastos… walang pinagaralan.
Monitoring the social networks over the weekend, there were those who said that we should be more understanding because Mislang is typical of today’s youth. I beg to disagree. I have three children ages 25-30 and they would never have done what Mislang did. It is all a question of breeding.
Mislang may have had the misfortune of not having been trained well by her parents.
It is simply basic and that makes it so difficult to understand why Mislang did it, to the embarrassment of the whole Filipino nation.
When you are a guest in someone’s home, you act like a good guest. You should be respectful. If you are offered something to eat or drink, say thank you.
If you do not like what was served, suffer in silence and even swallow it as if it was the most delicious treat in the world. When you are asked how you liked the food, smile sincerely and say it was great.
Now, if you are a public official representing the country abroad, do all those things even more. I was a mere columnist visiting Japan many years ago on invitation of the Japanese government. I don’t like eating sashimi or any raw fish, probably because I am the son of a doctor who specializes in parasites and it was drilled into my subconscious to avoid raw food. But when my host offered me sashimi over dinner, I took it and made him feel that I enjoyed it. I was not a public official but I was representing my country, and somehow I knew I had to show appreciation for the graciousness of my host.