For anyone seeking to understand the Philippine mind-set I would recommend watching "Filipina Dreamgirls", which is something of a cult movie among the Anglo-Philippine crowd (the whole film is viewable on youtube). My Mahal bought me a copy of Joze Rizal's book "Filibusterismo" which shows how heavily the Spanish taxed the Philippines, and how even in the 1800's the education was basically just that of the medieaval Catholic Church (there is another Rizal book called "Noli Me Tangere" which I haven't read yet). Last but not least, there is Timothy Mo's book "Brownout on Breadfruit Boulevard", which I found a good read and a good laugh. The wife of a politician manages to get an international confererence centre built in her city; there are several interesting sub-plots, a German professor with a rather strange fetish, and some of the characters have crazy surnames in Visayan.