1. My favorite place is Hong Kong, not only for sentimental reasons but for very tangible ones as well. I love how it buzzes with life at any given time of day (and night), and I love how intrinsically fashionable the people over there always seem to be. They have an uncanny, almost edgy sense of style that somehow works beautifully for them. Whether I see them on the MRT, rushing through the malls, hailing cabs, walking down the street, or eating lunch, they all seem very stylish, without really trying hard.
2. Okay, I admit I love most things Asian. I do admire the finesse and the gentle calm of the Japanese, I love the kimono and their cute slippers, the delicate tea cups, the tatami, but you cannot begin to imagine how much the Chinese fascinate me. One of my favorite pictorials ever was one we did for Bench in Hong Kong many years ago, where we were asked to sit in an authentic rickshaw. The old man who owned it posed alongside us and he was in complete Chinese regalia. I don’t think that photo ever made it to press but it sits very fondly in my memory. I always think it must have been so charming to get around a place that way, except that it must have been utterly backbreaking for the person who had to drag it around. In a way I am thankful that it is no longer used as a real mode of transportation. It makes for a very lovely photo, though.
3. I love Chinese food. Dimsum, roast duck, suckling pig, tea, fried rice, noodles, machang... you name it, I love it, even eating with chopsticks. I learned from Discovery Channel that it has the most heartwarming and romantic history. Once upon a time an emperor visited one of his paramours and her way to his heart was really through his stomach. She lovingly concocted all those savory mini-treats we now know and love as dimsum and served it to him each time he visited her. Dimsum apparently means "from the heart," or something to that effect. Dimsum is such genius, don’t you think? You’re hungry, you walk into a Chinese joint and bingo, there’s steaming-hot, good food ready for the taking. Oh, yes, the Chinese work fast. They are always quick on the draw. Fascinating. Even the way they half-toss, half-drop the bowls and saucers on the table no longer bothers me. As a child I remember thinking that their tableware must be made of some really special stuff because although they handle it roughly, those things never break into pieces. Or is there some trick to that?
4. Open my closet and you will find lots of cheongsam dresses and jackets, some bought off the rack (I love Vivienne Tam), a lot of others custom-made by the late Joe Salazar and Uncle Sam, my suki Hong Kong tailor. If the cheongsam is considered one of their national costumes, then I think they have the most beautiful national costume in the world.
5. I can spend a whole day in Chinese Arts and Crafts in Hong Kong and not get bored. I buy embroidered linens, handcrafted boxes, embroidered pouches and soft bags that I use for packaging gifts, and I hoard their beautiful fabric – their brocade, most especially. For more cheongsam dresses and jackets, of course.
6. From the many wonderful Chinese people I know, I learned the value of money. How it is always better to pay in cash because it is tantamount to saving more in the long run, how to be prudent when it comes to spending and saving.
7. They have beautiful workmanship. And beautiful handicrafts.
8. Some of the nicest, kindest, most generous people I have met in my life are Chinese. My Bench family – Ben Chan, Virgilio and Nene Lim and their children Bryan, Kristine and Suyen – is a sterling example of that.
9. I admire their business acumen, their work ethic (at least of the ones I personally know), their commitment to hard work. They never rest on their laurels.
10. They have all these natural herbs and concoctions that seem to work beautifully. Anyone else who even attempts to do the same thing will just come across as a quack doctor. Somehow Chinese medicine seems so valid, almost magical.
11. Chinese Jasmine Tea, their chubby teapots, and small teacups.
12. Fortune Cookies. Whoever invented this is a creative genius. It is a double delight, finding good fortune foretold in an already-good cookie.
13. How they always like symbolism and the color red. Red is a happy color and I like all things happy. My other favorite color is pink, which we all know is just a diluted red.
14. Lauriats. I am all for long meals and the gift of family and friends to share them with.
15. I love how the Chinese are very low-key. How they are conservative, how they teach their children to work from the ranks, to do as their employees do. How as young children they are trained in the rudiments of hard work and the appreciation and respect of all its fruits.
16. I respect their traditions and customs. I am especially fascinated with the many symbolic rituals they do before a member of the family is wed.
17. Tikoy. It warms my heart to know that the tikoy is a symbol of close ties and bonding. Tita Lena, one of my mom’s Chinese best friends in Ormoc, once told her that the Chinese give this sticky-sweet treat to friends during the Chinese New Year because it represents a deepening of the friendship. Now I understand why a friend of mine, when she found the great love of her life, told me that if he gave her a box of tikoy she would eat every morsel of it. I do not know if he did, or if she ate it all like she said she would, but they are married now. With one kid. And their relationship is going strong. I must ask her again if the tikoy was once upon a time her secret weapon.
18. Ang pao. It does not really matter how much is inside. The sight of a red envelope is exciting enough. I have kept all the red envelopes I have received in my desk drawer because they say you are not supposed to throw them away. You don’t lose anything by obeying that rule, so I comply. The story goes that there was once a simpleton who wrote a love letter. Instead of placing it in a regular envelope, he slipped it inside an angpao. Despite the odds, he got the girl’s nod. His friends ask him what he thinks made her say yes (she was sought after by lots of other guys, after all) and he himself would just shake his head, at a loss for words, amazed at his good luck. I say his persistence (and prayers) probably paid off. But they say that it must have been the red envelope.
19. I love Mother Lily, she is the most colorful character I have met in showbiz so far, not to mention the wackiest. Mother Lily is, of course, proudly and lovingly Chinese.
20. I like the strokes the Chinese brush makes.
21. I like their eye for quality. It is said that when the Chinese buy diamonds, they would rather buy a smaller one that is white and close to perfect than purchase a huge one that is very flawed. I think that says a lot about their character. Appearances do not matter much to them.
22. I love how they can exist simply, even if their bank accounts are bursting at the seams with plenty.
23. I love how clannish they are.
24. The Chinese are honest and they always keep their word. My lola Carmen used to say that her best customers (she was a jeweler practically all her life) were Chinese. They had palabra de honor, were very definite about what they wanted, and they knew how to choose the best stones.
I remember we were in Hong Kong once and Richard and I called for two of the hotel’s masseuses. In came two middle-aged, delicately plump ladies who, while they massaged us, kept on talking to each other in their native tongue. Fookien or Mandarin, I could not tell. They all sounded the same to me.
I was telling Richard in Tagalog (and I’m sure we sounded just as foreign to them as they did to us) just how beautiful their skin was, both of them. And to think they probably were well into their 50s. When my masseuse started on my legs, she told me in broken but very understandable English that she thought I had beautiful skin. Oh, but so do you, I told her. She asked where I was from, and I told her. But maybe I was Spanish, she insisted. I like Spanish dance and Spanish food, I speak no Spanish but yes, I do have some Spanish blood. Plus a bit of German and Filipino.
"Why your nice skin?" she asked again, her lips breaking into a very motherly smile (by this time her expert hands were loosening all the knots on my shoulders and lower back).
"I have Chinese blood, too," I said (my paternal great-grandmother, Lola Esperanza was, in fact, 75 percent Chinese). Oh, she said, her head nodding vigorously. She then called out to the one working on Richard and talked to her animatedly, both of them smiling and nodding as if in full understanding of something.
Richard’s masseuse then turned to me with a wide smile and said, "Ah, beautiful, you are Chinese."
"Of course I am," I said.
And that brings me to the last, but not the least, reason why I love the Chinese. They have such beautiful skin.
Kung hei fat choy!