Have you ever gone on a shopping spree and blurting out "Oh, it's cheap, sooooh cheap!" thinking how things in Japan are simply too expensive? With the currency exchange rate around JPY1 : PHP0.42, a cursory mental calculation of prices in pesos to Yen shows how cheap things must cost to Japanese coming to Cebu.

So, how much is a peso when changed to Yen? With the current rate FreeInfo gathered, 1 peso is equivalent to about 8 yen. This means that a can of coke which costs 15 pesos would roughly be 20 yen. Using this rate and doing mental arithmetic shows how much things cost in the Philippines. Hiring a helper through an agency in Cebu costs 2000 pesos a month initially. Waitresses and cash register clerks receive about 200 pesos plus a day. The overtime pay that a driver which had been working in one company ever since receives working late into the night is just about 20 pesos an hour. Surely, for people coming from Japan, things in the Philippines really are cheap, even the services of the people. But, wait, did I just mention how much Filipinos trying to eke out a living here receive? For sure, with those monthly income, the prices of goods must be heavy on their pockets. So, when buying things inform of the Philippines, perhaps it might be good to suppress our surprise and cry out loud in front of the locals, "Oh, how cheap!"

"But how does itreally cost to Filipinos trying to eke out their living?"