Book excerpt: Dating or moving to the Philippines can be a very hard experience if you do not know what to expect. The Philippines is a "third-world country" as defined, however it is very modern in many ways such as electronic usage, culture of the local residents, clothing and music. I wish that I could have had a book such as this before I came here, to give me some insight as to what I could expect. However, I came here without any knowledge other than the tourism website, which never tells the true everyday story of living here. The amount of money and time that I wasted is far above the price of this literature and I would have gladly paid any price to make my transition easier and quicker for me. Learning the "hard way" really is just that.