Meet a local - Patrick Fernandez

Yesterday I met Patrick Fernandez in Sining Kamalig, an art galery in Manila. I asked him if I could interview him which turned out into a nice conversation about a lot of different topics.

Patrick is 32 years old, lives in one of the provinces and is organizing art festivals and events since 2004. In 2009 they even organized an international art festival. All those festivals are privately funded which means that they don't get money from the local government. He came to Sining Kamalig to see if it would be possible to start an exhibition at Sining Kamalig as well. 

After this small introduction he told me about his life, he just got married (this year) and his wife lives in Canada were she works in the fastfood industry. A lot of Filipino's work abroad mainly as a nanny, within the fastfood industry or on cruise ships. Patrick once tried it as well in Singapore but it didn't work out and it was easy for him to find a job within the Philippines. He has worked here as a museum director and for a big supermarket, that both fit to his educational background which is in management. 

He resigned from his jobs in 'the corporate world' to work in the field he really likes; art. I think it is really nice that he decide to make this change and do what he loves to do. 
It was nice to meet a Filipino who follows his dreams and ofcourse this is always easier when money is not directly an issue but still, dreams are the start of everything. 

We also talked about poverty here in the Philippines and Patrick told me that he doesn't give money or food to beggars. Just because he doesn't want to stimulate the kids to do those kind of things. I told him that I sometimes give them food instead of money, according to him this was still 'oke' but he prefered them to work or at least there parents. It made me think of my own way of thinking in the Netherlands, I don't give money, food or any thing else to beggars in the Netherlands. I do give to those that play music on the street, why? Simply because they work for it. Hypocrite? Different situation? You can call it whatever you want but it was nice to get to know the opinion of Patrick. 

Beside that we, ofcourse, also talked about Christmas, travelling, Filipino food (not my favorite) and a lot of other important and less important thing. In the end he invited me to come to his place at the end of my internship. I did not have the intention to travel up north but well, we will see :-) 

 

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