Beach Wednesday - Paradigm Shift in the Philippines

This picture was taken in 1996, on Boracay, Philippines, during my time as a diving instructor at Lapu Lapu Diving.
The original is a print from which I created this picture with my mobile.
While it is not much of a beach foto, I chose it to support my story.
The guy in the white T-shirt is me, by the way.

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In his book “The seven habits of highly effective people“ Stephen Covey talks about paradigm shifts .
He gives examples of paradigm shifts, in the psychological sense of the term, meaning radical changes in personal beliefs.
One example is the conversation between a US Navy commander and some Spaniards where at the end the commander surely had an enlightening paradigm shift.
This conversation became quite famous in the internet later as in this video for example.

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Now my own paradigm shift was not so funny, it took place one day in 1996 at Lapu Lapu Diving Center.

Two Japanese divers were sitting at one of the tables you see in the picture, talking to each other in Japanese.
Suddenly an old man came along the road in front of the dive shop, which would be to the right side of the picture. He came very close to those tables but stayed on the road, so not entering the premises of the shop. He had long filthy grey hair, dirty torn cloth and a dirty face.

Since even the poorest of people in the Philippines always take great care of their appearance in public I knew immediately that something was wrong with him, and immediately he proved me right.

He started to snarl something in the local vernacular towards the Japanese. I did not understand the meaning of his rant, but common sense told me that it were no pleasantries, and the Japanese were under the same impression.

Rage started to crawl up along the spine towards my brain.
„What the fuck is wrong with this guy? Leave them Japanese alone, you bum!“, I thought to myself, feeling the need to protect our customers against this obviously deranged guy.

Japanese are in general very polite people. They sensed that something was not ok, but did not know how to react properly. They looked over to me, who was still behind the counter, their eyes begging for assistance.

Having been in Asia for almost four years already at that time, I had learnt to not jump to conclusions and to always get a second opinion, preferably from a local, in case of conflict.
So, with barely conceiled indignation, I asked Grace, the Filippina wife of the dive shop owner, who had watched the whole show calmly from a distance „Who is this guy?“

Even today, more than twenty years later, her answer brings tears to my eyes.

„This is Antonio. The Japanese killed his parents in front of him during the war when he was still a child.“ she said matter-of-factly.

Now imagine my paradigm shift.
Words can hardly describe this cocktail of emotions running through me.
First of all shame.
Shame because I, in my self-righteous way, had failed to see the suffering of this poor man.
Then compassion. After understanding that this man was still traumatized by his terrible experience, still a child caught in a time capsule of dissociation, triggered by the sound of the language the murderers of his parents spoke, what else could I feel but compassion.
Then rage again.
Not against him, but against some diffuse something which makes those terrible things happen, the dark side or whatever.
Helplessness! What to do now? How to react?
I honestly don´t remember how the situation got resolved. I think it was something utterly unspectacular, like somebody he knew calling him away or something like that.

There memory fails me, but I remember this rollercoaster of emotions like it was today.