Pea On The Bed - A Sick Video!

Pea films from her sick bed after being hit with severe diarrhea, headaches, and fever for two days, with her camerawoman Lucy away for the holidays. Despite being visibly unwell and unable to prep a scripted video, she delivers an informal grab-bag of cultural quirks, language traps, and practical tips that foreigners will encounter in the Philippines, plus a few medical notes about getting sick there.

Pea's illness and medications available in the Philippines ​

• Woke up in the middle of the night with "the most savage attack of diarrhea" she's ever had, plus intense headaches and raging fever — has been going on for two days
• Lucy (her roommate, friend, and camerawoman) is away visiting family for the holidays, so Pea's been alone dragging herself to the bathroom
• Medications available locally, but if you prefer branded names like Tylenol you can bring your own for extended stays; Amazon now offers free shipping to the Philippines for many Western products
• Using Japanese "Cool Fever" patches on her forehead — notes that Japanese people use them casually just to cool off in summer
• Filipino universal remedy: Vicks VapoRub for everything — fever, cough, cold — "dab a generous amount onto your chest, your nose, the bottom of your feet." She saw comedian Jokoy do a bit about it and confirmed it's accurate
• Drinking water and sugar-free Gatorade mixed with oral rehydrate salts to replace fluids; initially thought it was food poisoning but diarrhea kept getting worse
• Has zero appetite but knows she needs to force herself to eat — maybe saltine crackers

Sari-sari stores and buying everything by the piece ​

• Sari-sari stores are variety/mom-and-pop shops, usually attached to a household
• Everything sold individually — even cigarettes are sold per stick (price when she was a kid: 25 centavos, a quarter of a peso)
• As a child, no ID required to buy cigarettes or alcohol — her dad sent her to buy cigarettes at age seven
• Even screws and nails sold individually — if you buy a whole box, they'll still count every single one before selling; there's no bulk discount

Language traps that confuse foreigners ​

• Negative questions get reversed answers: "Have you never seen that movie before?" — a Filipino answering "yes" means "yes, I have never seen it" (opposite of what a Westerner would interpret). Safest approach: avoid asking negatives entirely
• "Until" means the opposite: "It was raining until now" means it's STILL raining. In Western English, "until" implies things have changed; for Filipinos it means it's ongoing
• "Green-minded" means dirty-minded/always thinking about sex — she doesn't know how the term originated
• "Close the light" means turn off the light; "open the light" means turn it on — she acknowledges it doesn't make sense but that's what they say
• Calling someone a "bitch" means you called them a prostitute (also referred to as "pokpok")
• "Hostess" also means prostitute — so don't tell a restaurant manager "the hostess gave you great service" unless you want very weird looks. Pro tip: call the hostess a "receptionist" instead

Soda in a plastic bag ​

• In some places, if you buy soda it's served in a plastic bag with a straw, not in the bottle
• Reason: soda companies charge store owners extra for the glass bottles, so sari-sari stores open the bottle, pour the soda into a plastic bag, and return the bottle

Vague directions and lip-pointing ​

• Filipinos are extremely vague about locations: ask where the can opener is and you'll get "over there" — or just someone pointing with their lips
• They expect you to read their minds instead of saying something specific like "it's in the top left hand drawer underneath the placemats"

Renting a car comes with a driver ​

• You can rent a car without a driver, but Pea highly recommends getting one — locals know the roads, can communicate with people if you get lost, and you avoid dealing with Philippine traffic

Rocks on steep roads = improvised brakes ​

• If you see a bunch of rocks on a steep road, don't remove them — they're being used as wheel chocks behind tires to prevent vehicles from rolling back

Very little wildlife ​

• Mostly just snakes, lizards, frogs, and insects — no squirrels (at least in Dumaguete, possibly the whole Philippines), and even rare to see large flocks of birds
• Pea jokes: "Maybe they're all dead because we ate them already"
• She was amazed seeing squirrels for the first time in the UK and again in Thailand
• Regarding deadly snakes: they exist but mostly in jungle areas, nothing to worry about in the city (she references a separate video about "a thousand ways to die in the Philippines")

Appearances over reality ​

• "It doesn't matter what it is, it only matters what it looks like" — appearances are more important than reality in the Philippines
• Example: getting an emissions test on your car — good chance they won't actually test anything, you just pay a fee. "As long as people pretend that they're doing something, that's good enough"

Why "tampo" (silent treatment) exists — Pea's theory ​

• Tampo is when a Filipina refuses to talk to you because of something you did but won't tell you what it was
• Pea's theory on why: most Filipinos don't have the space to get away from each other — many don't even have their own bedrooms
• When you're mad at someone you have to share space with, the best course of action is to just shut up
• Combined with the Filipino aversion to confrontation, it's easier to "just go silent and soak in the corner" than talk it out

Upcoming content ​

• Promises a video on the new SIM card registration law — she's met with people from the Bureau of Immigration and a major telecom company and is waiting for the full scoop

📺 Watch the full video on YouTube

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