Chinoy Tourists in Europe

Budapest is now teeming with tourists!  This afternoon, at the West End Mall at Nyugati, there was a strong presence of Chinese tourists.  We were sitting across a bunch of them as my wife and I were feeding our baby in a coffee shop (and slurping on caramel gelato).  And then, a question: "Mga Pinoy ba kayo?"  The most senior of the bunch directed his question at us.  It turns out they were Chinese-Filipinos.  They are here on a package tour of Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria and Hungary.

"Opo. Akala namin Chinese kayo. Chinese from China. Pinoy pala kayo."

"Chinese-Filipino," he further clarified.

My wife volunteered the information that I too was of Chinese ancestry, but I had to clarify that I did not speak Chinese.  As intended, the result was he didn't have to ask about my ancestry as my lack of Chinese language competence meant I was not really one of them.

Being the ever sociable person that she was, my wife proceeded to ask about the circumstances of their tour and that's how we found out that they spent USD 3,000 per head on this two-week tour; that they were staying in a five-star hotel in the Castle District; that this tour was a graduation gift for the eldest daughter; that like the daughter, the father and uncle were Ateneo alumni; and that there were sixty of them who were on the same tour, all of them Chinoys!

I made a quick computation in my head: USD 3,000 times 6 (Daddy, Mommy, Uncle, three children) = USD 18,000.  My golly!