Don't you just love it when...?

What is it about the Filipino culture that...

1. ...if the person on the other end of a cellphone call can't seem to hear us, we resort to yelling into the phone?

2. ...there seems to be a need to hear the person on the other end of a call as loudly as their voice would be face to face, which also allows others to inadvertently eavesdrop on your supposed private conversation?

3. ...arguments conducted over the phone are conducted so unashamedly publicly that even the most polite witness cannot help but gape and listen, piecing together base on the one-sided conversation what must be going on?

There are no ironies here and I do use "we" to illustrate that I am not separating myself from this shameful conduct. Rather, I am trying to figure it out from the inside rather than looking at it from the outside.

In the span of two hours at a tire shop, I managed to bear witness to all three examples of strange cellular phone practices with each conversation lasting a minimum of fifteen minutes each. Despite noticing my casual observer stare, each person continued their conversation as though it were a privilege to hear their voices boom and echo in that enclosed, air conditioned room.

Please know that it's not.

Admittedly, I am occasionally guilty of the first though not because I feel that yelling will help. It's usually me venting the frustration that the other party insists on talking when I've repeatedly said that the connection isn't clear enough. Then I hang up and text them to text me back what they wanted to say. (Hahaha.)

In this age when having a cellular phone has become so normal that even a ten-year-old might have one--note to self, discuss this with husband--I find it simply ridiculous that we still treat having one like it's a status symbol. Is it the intention of these types of phone users to call attention to themselves and their possession of a mobile phone? Maybe, maybe not. There are other factors to consider when gauging that aside from vocal volume.

Are we so technologically backward that #1 and #2 are such common phenomena? Has the culture of  keeping private matters private decayed, giving way to #3? I can't really answer that by myself given that this is an observation driven primarily by those two hours of waiting.

Are there any foreign readers out there? Does this happen where you are too?