KTV?

As part of the government’s minimalist approach to dealing with COVID-19, karaoke house, known here at KTVs, have been shut down. Last week, though, they were offered a reprieve—they can reopen as restaurants.

This one hurriedly printed a banner with pictures of food and put another over the doorway proclaiming the establishment as a restaurant.
This karaoke venue opted for a simple sign at the entrance renaming itself as the Golden Bridge Restaurant. The newspapers have reported the police have raided several of these establishments which put up the signs but continued their music business.
This KTV place decided to ride out the closure and use it as an opportunity for remodeling and touching up for a grand reopening when the COVID-19 scare has passed.

We Can Fix It

One of the advantages of a motorcycle culture combined with a mom-and-pop shop culture is that when your vehicle breaks down on the way to work, you don’t pull off and wait for it to be towed. You just push it a couple hundred yards to the next little moto shop and they’ll fix it while you sit and play with your phone.

Cashing In

Right across from the side entrance to St. Joseph Church is this recycling center. Today a girl on a bicycle is bringing a bag of aluminum cans and she will get 25¢ or 50¢ after the lady weighs cans on the green scale. In this culture turning in a load of cans is not an environmentally motivated recycling initiative but rather money for a family.

Moving In

Saturday morning we moved the chairs and vestments and other things to the St. Joseph chapel, the new home for the English Catholic Community. In the evening we began moving our members to the chapel! It’s one of those occasions worth a mention in our parish’s history!

The congregation for the 4:00 PM mass on Saturday. The priest is Fr. Glenn Diaz who concelebrated with Fr. Charlie.
The congregation for the 5:30 PM mass on Saturday.
The congregation for the 10:00 AM mass on Sunday.

New chapel, new priest

You never know whom you are going to meet up in the choir loft. When moving chairs and other equipment to the loft, Sr. Regina ran into a new face, Fr. Glenn Diaz.
Fr. Glenn Diaz is a priest of the Mill Hill Missionary group. He is from the Philippines but is part of his mission group’s new initiative to work in the Battambang Vicariate. Fr. Glenn is now staying at St. Joseph Church while he is learning Khmer.

Still Wet

The heavy rains continued until about 11:00 PM last night. Most of it drained away by this morning–thanks to the Japanese-financed sewer updates–but this street still had some flooding.
In another neighborhood nearer our deaf office, this man was trying to clear some drains in order to avoid such significant flooding the next time.