henkybaby

Sitting here minding my own business in the CX 'FLounge' at MNL. Then this shabby looking (Western, American by the looks of it) guy comes in, opens his bag, fills it with what must have been at least 10 cans of Schweppes. Drinks cabinet is around the corner so I could not see if he appropriated the bottle of Gin too...

No shame, no guilt, no nothing. I looked him square in the eye and he just grinned and took his seat. I know there is no point telling the lounge staff here but if you read this per chance: be ashamed of yourself!

ajax

I've not been around that long, but I've been around long enough to know that, no matter how much you've seen, you've never seen it all.

PTravel

What does an American look like?

ajax

To that I might just add: I'm trying to work out why his appearance, ethnicity and nationality are important to this story and I'm having difficulties doing so.

henkybaby

How true.

ajax

You know: shabby-looking and apparently the type who would steal from lounge cabinets - unlike saintly Europeans, who are beyond moral reproach and always dress up nicely.

PTravel

Ah, thanks for clearing that up.

Yahillwe

My biggest pet peeve on how to spot an American... Jeans and an untuckted shirt... Or very baggy pants/polo shirt (if they want to look in).

mattm199

Weren't there any crisps in the lounge?

ColdWalker

I don't think the OP mentioned anything about the ethnicity of the greedy man in question. All we know is that he was a shabby male and that his style an mannerisms appeared western, probably American. In my experience, as world culture homogenises onto the US culture, there are more exceptions to the rule, more 'world citizens'. But in some cases, like it or not, Americans do have an American style about them. So it seems perfectly reasonable to say he looked American. Had Mr Greedy been wearing sandals and socks, it would have been very reasonable to say he looked British. Is that he looked American relevant to the story? Probably not, but it adds litary colour to the tale; a courtesy to the reader that is so often lacking on the Internet. Is there an implied insult to Americans? Well, that depends on the intent of the OP and only he or she can answer that. But I would have thought one can infer no such intention: Had the intention been to insult, then something like "a westerner, fat and loud enough to be a Seppo" would have been more efficient and would have tapped into more stereotypes.

matthandy

Shameless! I guess it brings up the age old debate on whether such actions constitute theft or not. Let's hope he was connecting through another airport and has them taken off him at security.

corporate-wage-slave

In a way I'm quite impressed. The F lounge in Manila takes one back to the first stabs of airport lounges in the former Eastern bloc. It's got dour chairs, glum tables and a very limited range of drinks. Coffee comes from a bottom of the range machine, "tea" involves water that doesn't get to 80 celsius. I'd far rather be lounge-less in almost any airport in the world than in CX's F lounge there. The F lounge is just around the corner from the main CX lounge and is out of sight of the reception desk due to that corner. The only trouble is that somehow the rest of that MNL terminal is even more grim. This being Manila there is a beautiful spanking new terminal next door, used only by low cost carriers.

So for our fellow passenger from a country that wasn't blessed by the full colonial experience did well to even find that much product to snaffle. Furthermore unless he was on some obscure code-share, he could only be flying for 80 minutes to Hong Kong. If transferring there, there is no way he'd get the liquids past the rigourous security checks there.

I was there on Wednesday evening. Gosh I was within 24 hours of meeting Henkybabes. Scary.

PETER01

Never judge a book by the cover is what I was brought up to believe. Thought this story was interesting!

http://galwaytent.blogspot.com/2010/...atened-by.html

cat 35

In Manila the odds are that a western looking bod is going to be American. Same as in SIN you assume (well I do) an Anglo is a Brit or Aussie.

Sweeping generalisations over for the moment. back for more later.

lorcancoyle

But it does have cake! Or maybe he'd already snaffled that too. Kind of explains why they have the normal cx lounge under the nose of the receptionist...