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I heard an interesting fact on a WW II DOCUMENTARY. Berlin received the most damage of all capital cities in WW II, however, Manilla was second on the list. Was it the epicenter of the Pacific Theatre?
I heard an interesting fact on a WW II DOCUMENTARY. Berlin received the most damage of all capital cities in WW II, however, Manilla was second on the list. Was it the epicenter of the Pacific Theatre?
Since Japan surrendered before the advancing armies could reach their cities or the Chinese cities from India and Burma Manila was the only major city in the Pacific theatre that was fought over. Being blockaded there was no chance for the Japanese to abandon and menueaver to stop their army from being flanked along with a die in place ethic so they stood and fought in place. Meanwhile the Americans did not know that the war would come down to a nuke delivered from a sparsely populated island in B-29 range
I heard an interesting fact on a WW II DOCUMENTARY. Berlin received the most damage of all capital cities in WW II, however, Manilla was second on the list. Was it the epicenter of the Pacific Theatre?
that's correct. only Manila was the scene of urban warfare.
it is only the Philippines and to lesser extent Burma resisted the invading Japanese. that's why a lot of atrocities were committed in the Philippines because they didn't want to be subservient to the Japanese
None of this has anything to do with the topic. I dont care if you hate Filipinos. We're talking about how the cities look. They generally look the same, like this in most of each city
[URL="https://www.google.com/maps/@14.5730957,120.9922722,3a,75y,146.33h,79.36t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s-oWqxY96FBz0cIbN80qS5A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656"]Typical Manila[/URL]
[URL="https://www.google.com/maps/@13.7326535,100.5194532,3a,75y,268.35h,89.27t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1syogdTd5tLGjSvhM3FyD2mg!2e0!7i1 3312!8i6656!6m1!1e1"]Typical Bangkok[/URL]
But is there anywhere in Bangkok that looks like these central business districts in Manila? I havent seen any Google street view of Bangkok that looks like any of this
[URL="https://www.google.com/maps/@14.5532926,121.0456488,3a,75y,247.12h,98.81t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sXe5r4n5mWDYtK-a5lqR9Fg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid %3DXe5r4n5mWDYtK-a5lqR9Fg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_s v.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26ya w%3D16.502422%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1"]BGC[/URL]
[URL="https://www.google.com/maps/@14.556654,121.0210489,3a,75y,6.34h,104.62t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s7DNFFNBEKL_pyWDRVF-8dQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656"]Makati[/URL]
[URL="https://www.google.com/maps/@14.5887959,121.0614527,3a,75y,259.82h,102.94t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sn78GBK2RYyHmBTm_C6K0BQ!2e0!6s% 2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Dn78GBK2RYyHmB Tm_C6K0BQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_ sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26y aw%3D70.866379%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1"]Ortigas[/URL]
I'm looking for a ground level view, not a skyline picture. Manila's nice areas look nicer than Bangkok's nice areas. Manila has nice, compact central business districts. But Manila's poor areas look worse than Bangkok's. Both cities mostly look the same though (see the first two links ^)
To answer your question, Manila has some REALLY nice areas like Makati and BGC but a step outside and it's all messiness again. Bangkok doesn't have a dense, nicely planned-out areas like that. We have Thong Lor, Siam, Sukhumvit, etc. that have some pretty nice buildings and trendy shops and malls. While they are not as nice as nice areas in Manila, most of Bangkok are consistent in its appearance and look more or less like areas mentioned above.
As a Filipino who has never been to Bangkok, my opinions:
Manila is a slum. Like most Filipinos from the "provinces", we are still embarrassed by the fact that Manila is usually the first city that visitors see when they come to the Philippines. It's poorly planned, dirty, polluted, and rife with corruption. A testament to how badly our leaders (almost all of them based on the capital) have handled this country.
While this may be similar to Bangkok, there is one major difference. The Philippines is simply not that exotic.
300 years of Spanish rule, and 50 years of American rule will do that. Unlike the Dutch or the British who left the cultures of their colonies intact, the Spanish assimilated their colonies as much as possible (hence Latin America). The Philippines is no exception. And it was followed by the US which also tried to assimilate the Philippines resulting in a double dose of European influence.
Not even the Chinese immigrants were spared. While in other parts of Asia, Chinese immigrants are usually well-separated from the natives (the most glaring example being Singapore), in the Philippines, Chinese immigrants are all virtually assimilated fully. They are Christians and identify as Filipinos first. They constitute around 20% of the Filipino population, but in almost all cases, the only way you can tell if someone has Chinese ancestry is by their surname (often hispanicized). In everything else, they are Filipino.
You won't see pagodas or old temples here either. The Philippines was the last of the Southeast Asian Austronesian regions to be Indianized, and it never got Islamized fully before the Spanish arrived. They retained more of their original Austronesian culture than neighboring Malaysia or Indonesia (hence why culturally, the native un-Hispanicized people are a cross between Malays and Oceanians). Whatever structures that were built by pre-Hispanic Filipinos are long gone, as they were made of wood. And the knowledge of building them as well is also gone, as the Spanish made sure of that. Only traces of it remain, like in native Austronesian roof shapes (Indonesia and Malaysia has similar pre-Islamic and pre-Hindu architecture).
In contrast, Bangkok has absolutely beautiful art traditions that survived the colonial era. The temples and the palaces have characteristically lovely Indochinese artstyles (itself heavily influenced by India and China).
The Philippines doesn't have those. While it does also have Spanish-inspired architecture, you won't find much of it in Manila anymore. Manila was hit HARD in World War II. Absolutely FLATTENED. Very little Spanish-era architecture survived the Japanese invasion and the American retaliation, which is a shame really.
Manila was once described as the "Paris of the East" in the 1800s. That title is now used for Hanoi because of its canals. But Manila held that title for a more direct reason - because it really did look and feel like a European city smack-dab in the middle of Asia. Here are some old pictures of it so you can see what I mean.
To even better appreciate it, the following are pictures of modern-day Vigan, Ilocos Sur. It's famous for its Spanish Filipino architecture. Imagine this on a city-wide scale and you'll get an idea of what Manila used to be like before it got devastated by war.
I still mourn that Manila. Not the dirty smelly Manila we have now that rose up from the ashes of the Japanese and American bombers and corrupted by the shortsightedness and greed of Filipino oligarchs.
Last edited by Existential Monkey; 01-22-2017 at 01:21 PM..
^ To describe the whole city as a "slum" is a bit extreme. Yes, there are slums, and big slums, but most of Manila is not a slum. It's crowded and compact. Most of the city's neighborhoods look like this https://goo.gl/maps/f6ef7Z46wuB2
Wouldnt you agree? I wouldnt call that a slum. Most cities in Southeast Asia (even Bangkok) look like this, and cities in developing countries across the world look similar too.
To see the slums, go to Navotas, Baseco Island, and parts of Tondo. Thank God most of Manila doesnt look like that. There's a good documentary on Aljazeera called "the Slum"
Basically the whole series takes place in Tondo and Baseco Compound. One could easily get the idea that all of Manila looks like that because they dont show anything else outside of that small area. You're kind of reinforcing that idea by calling the whole city a slum.
True. But it's still dirty, polluted, and overpopulated (not to mention bland), especially in comparison with other Philippine cities. And while the slums don't really encompass all of Manila, they still constitute a very large part of it. And the poverty there is in truly horrific proportions where people EAT GARBAGE. I'm from Mindanao, and we're not exactly that wealthy here (we have slums too), but even I look at the Manila slums with pity
Thank you for your information. Wow, Manila looked really lovely back then, it's sucha shame all of it got destroyed by war :/
If it helps, I don't think it is necassary to have exotic or unique appearances to be recognized as beautiful. Singapore and Seoul, to my knowledge, don't have much old buildings or unique architecture and yet they are seen as "cool" cities. I believe Manila does have the potential to become an attractive city.
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