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Macros Dictatorship

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Originally from the rural farming town of Auxvasse, Missouri, Mark Chism experienced and continues to live East Asian perspectives from his prior service in the United States Navy, and his marriage to a Filipino woman. Mark is a mid-fifties year old, Caucasian, male Westminster College student that currently resides in Fulton, Missouri, though do not let his American heritage fool you. He accumulated vast East Asian knowledge by living in the cultures of various countries. They include, the Philippines in the mid 1980s for five and a half years, Thailand for thirteen months, Guam for eight or nine months, and Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Hong Kong, Macau for undisclosed amounts of time. Along with many other non-East Asian countries …show more content…

Thus, Mark's forte is the Filipino perspective, as he spent the majority of the time in East Asia there, and became embedded to the culture with his marriage. Throughout his interview he discusses a very wide range of topics, however, the Macros dictatorship in the Philippines, the lack of educational opportunities beyond fifth grade, the prior lack of any modern conveniences, and how there is a global movement of Westernization are discussed as following. There are vast differences between the United States and the Philippines that I was unaware of, and Mark made a comment that really shocked. I expected the two countries to be similar in many ways, though he said that he sees no similarities between the two countries. However, he did point out that with recent movements of global Westernization the Philippine Islands are slowly becoming more similar to the United States, as are many recently developing countries. One of main recent reasons why they are severely behind the United States is due to the prior dictatorship regime of Ferdinand …show more content…

One was the decisions to disband all American military bases, and as an American military personnel this directly, and negatively affected Mark. This was due to the American military no longer being welcomed in the country. However, the Philippine government renegotiated the terms for American bases, but in their favor instead of the Americans like it had previously been. Mark also realized the decision was made so the Filipinos would quickly learn to become unreliant on Americans for assistance, and to provide for

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