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Comment by shellfishgene | Hacker News Reader

Reminds me of the Filipino maid friends living in the middle east had working for them. The pay included airfare for going home for a few weeks once a year, but somehow she always declined and rather wanted to go on holiday with her employers (and the kids, so not really a holiday for her). After 3 years they finally found out she actually really wanted to go home and see friends and family again. However she was so scared her family would guilt her into giving them all the money she had earned abroad, and making her dreams of what she would do with it impossible, she could never bring herself to book the ticket.

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I’ve heard lots of stories like this from folks who married into Filipino families.

The general idea I get is that the money of the extended family is considered accessible (at least to some extent) by the entire pool. This seems especially true for medical expenses, but also seems true for “investments”.

The boundaries seem really unhealthy to me, but I’m not part of that culture, so I don’t know how it really works (esp. for families with wealth disparities).

One “feel good” story I have heard was when a friend of mine flew from the US to the Philippines with a large sum of cash that paid for a life-saving surgery for grandmother (had to pay in advance).

I’d love to hear other stories.

A significant chunk of the Philippine economy is fueled by remittances from overseas workers (in absolute amount, it's comparable to Mexico and behind only India and China). So it is pretty common for people to "share".

On the other hand, there are people like my father, who worked until he died because he didn't want to rely on his kids for support. He even got mad at me when I got his bank account number from my mom, and did a test wire transfer of $1000.

You pretty much dotted the i’s and crossed the T’s on this one.

The general idea is too complex for me to give a solid, single piece of advice on how to identify genuine vs not, but what I can tell you is this:

I recently became aware of a very real death of a close Philippine friend’s grandmother and I knew their family couldn’t afford a proper burial. So I requested to talk to the eldest of the family, offered to cover cost (less than the price of a new iPad) with their approval to do so, and for my name to not be included in the justification.

For context - I’ve personally been to the Philippines a few times and seen some of the ups and downs (white American since birth). Never sent that friend or their family anything before nor felt compelled to do this. I’m grateful for what I have in life and for those who have done good toward me, so simply paying it forward.

I have a friend from Croatia that lives in NYC. Does not earn much, especially by NYC standards. He loathes returning to Croatia because everyone thinks since he lives in the USA, he must make a lot of money.

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