Asia's Music Powerhouse

There is a strange phenomenon that one finds in any major city in China (and in Korea and Japan to a lesser extent) whenever you look at the listings for bar events, you will often come across this "Live Filipino Band." It didn't really strike me until this past weekend in Hong Kong where I went to a number of bars, all featuring live bands, all of which were entirely (or almost entirely) Filipino. Okay, an obvious reasoning for this is that the Philippines has a large population that speaks English as a first (or very close second) language. Another reason is the large amount of Filipino immigrants that can be found throughout Asia.

But this got my mind to wandering, what makes it such a big draw to have a Filipino band? Does it bring in more business than a local band who (especially in HK) should be able to speak excellent English? Is it that you can pay them less? Is it "exotic"? Bourdain claims there is a town in Mexico that produces the majority of cooks in New York kitchens, is there one Filipino town that is producing all these bands? A bored mind wonders...