Apart from the 'hospitality, friendliness and joy', life is pretty much the same for locals. You only have a better time because your money goes a lot further here. Locals earning local wages are as miserable as you are, just without public healthcare.

Life is harder for most Filipinos

35k is more than a teacher's salary. You could survive in the province, but it's not fun. It'd be the same: eat, sleep, work, repeat. And if you get sick or the vehicle dies.. bad luck, no savings. Summers in Germany are great — not many mosquitoes and much more light and long sunshine — but the winter that's coming... ugh! Life can be expensive or cheap; it depends on the standard of living you want. A German standard of living in the Philippines can cost more than in Germany.

That's the dilemma, my friend. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

Germans barely work. Do you think it's easier for a random local guy to get by in Manila or Bangkok than in Berlin? Rose-colored glasses, man...

From a native Filipino in the Philippines: the people here are miserable. All we do is work, eat and sleep, and repeat until we're 70. It's not the country or the place, it's your privilege. We're not generally as 'nice and friendly' to each other as we are to you, because we have this inferiority complex and white worship, and want to use you. So basically you want to keep enjoying the special treatment that comes with an unequal dynamic? And you're whining because 'friendly country that treats me like a god' isn't the same as 'country where I can make enough money'. For us natives this country is neither, so quit crying