The story goes that my great-grandfather, Lim Eng Co, left Amoy (and I hope this was for a patriotic reason and not just to escape some bad debts) shortly before the turn-of-the-century and found himself in Sorsogon. In the town of Sta. Magdalena in the same Bicol province, he met and married a local girl who gave him four children, one of whom became a congressman and, later, a delegate in the 1971 Constitutional Convention.
Lim Eng Co was said to have worn his long hair in the traditional Chinese braid and also sported those black silk clothes commonly worn by the Chinese men of old.
But no one among his four children – as far as I know – ever practised any of the Chinese customs and traditions. The Chinese heritage sadly died along with Lim Eng Co in Sorsogon.
And strangely enough, I am the only one in the family today who looks Chinese – and that gave my beloved siblings reason to speculate I was adopted. Really – I spent part of my childhood half believing I was probably switched at birth. But now that I’m older and know better, maybe I can turn the tables on them and tell them all that perhaps they were the ones adopted. After all, the family is supposed to have Chinese blood and they all look, well, native.
However, in spite of the fact that Chinese blood runs in my veins, there is really nothing Chinese in me aside from my slanted eyes that often disappear into slits when I laugh. I don’t speak any of the Chinese languages – not the popular Hokkien or the more scholarly Mandarin. Instead, I was trained by my maternal grandmother to speak in the Castillian tongue – a language I regretfully lost through the years due to lack of practice. (But I sometimes still say my prayers in Spanish.)
When it comes to Chinese art, well, I hope the Chinese community doesn’t get offended, but I don’t exactly appreciate Chinese brush painting. And not once did I consider putting Chinese rosewood furniture in my house. (I mean no offense. I guess it’s really just a matter of taste.)
But Chinese cuisine is another story. I love Chinese food: Spring rolls, Peking duck, dimsum, wanton noodles, century eggs, mooncake and anything served in a Chinese eatery – save for chicken feet, which happens to be Rosanna Roces’ favorite.
A few years ago, I also began adhering to the Chinese calendar. That became an annual ritual for me. Whenever Chinese friends would send me boxes of tikoy, I knew that it was time for me to check the year of the animal I was born in according to the Chinese calendar and see if I would be lucky or not that year. Now, I’m not about to tell you the year of the animal I was born under because that would give away my age – and that’s still a guessing game among my new friends.
Last year was supposed to have been a bad one for me – according to the Chinese calendar. So was it really a bad one? Actually, what was horrible was the apprehension that something disastrous would happen to me. What made it worse was the fact that I knew about it as early February 2000, when Jullie Yap Daza invited the late Paul Lau to guest in the Chinese New Year episode of her program. Of course, friends pooh-poohed this fear. I felt inside and thought that I was being ridiculous. Some even went to the extent of citing Paul Lau’s failure to predict his own death – but let us not dwell on that anymore because the man is dead.
But the waiting nearly killed me. You see, according to the Chinese calendar, I was going to go through the worst of times in 2001. I would have health problems, heartaches, heartbreaks (and probably even heart burns) and end up in financial ruin. I’m telling you, Albert Camus could have written a sequel to his 1947 novel, The Plague, based on the catastrophes that were supposed to have befallen me last year.
Until yesterday, the eve of the Chinese New Year, I was hoping and praying that the dire prediction in the Chinese calendar won’t come true.
To counteract the bad luck that was supposedly in store for me, I even agreed to attend the 2001 Chinese New Year celebration in a Chinese temple in Malate where I bumped into Robbie Tan and Nikki Coseteng (this was right after EDSA II where she became one of the few unpopular figures). At the stroke of midnight, I joined the rest of the Chinese community in bowing to the porcelain images of Chinese gods in the temple while clutching a few sticks of incense in my hands. My very Catholic parents would have whacked me hard on the head with a hardbound novena to all the saints in heaven had they seen me there. (But I believe that most of the Chinese who attended the Chinese New Year’s Eve rites that night were also Catholics.)
After I left the Chinese temple in the early hours of the morning, I tried to convince myself that I’ve already been cleansed of bad luck. As a precautionary measure, I also avoided last year’s supposedly unlucky color: blue.
So did I really go through a series of misfortunes last year? I can only name two extremely awful instances that happened and I am not about to talk about these yet because those sad experiences are still painful.
Looking back, however, I have to say that, well, it wasn’t all that bad. Not as bad as I feared it was going to be.
What helped me get through the rough and tough times were the prayers – as per advice of a US-based aunt and some of my Chinese friends.
And today, the suit of the Chinese New Year, I am looking forward to a great year because – according to the Chinese calendar – it’s going to be a good one for me. Hurray!
But I will continue praying because I believe that my faith in God is my only weapon against life’s adversaries.
And to the members of the Chinese community – to which I partly belong (even if that portion is only one-eighth) – Kung Hei Fat Choy!
I can only hope I said and spelled that right.