The Chinese Among Us - Why And Why Not

It wasn't too long ago that Chinese New Year pertained only, well, to the Chinese. Just like Ramadan to the Muslims and Yom Kippur to the Jews, this annual shebang was deemed foreign, exotic and farthest from the Filipino imagination. True, you always knew when the Chinese were at it again because those ubiquitous tikoy or rice cakes would be passed around. But to make a big deal, prance about in the streets or otherwise do those silly things the celestials do, that was pushing it a little too far.

Times have changed. Lest you haven't heard, the Year of the Dragon begins after midnight today. The whole town has been in breathless anticipation for weeks on end, what with the newspapers bursting at the seams with full-color supplements, the toniest hotels and restaurants going on promotions overdrive, and the media itself taking hype to ever more ridiculous heights (some say depths).

My dear friend Paul Lau will kill me, but it can't be overlooked that he's become the guru of everything Chinese in this land, some kind of Pope or Aga Khan reigning in splendor from his Vatican of sorts, the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Makati. I wouldn't be surprised if, in addition to the red envelopes, his growing legions of followers would soon offer him an annual tribute equivalent to his weight in gold.

Perhaps it's no coincidence that Paul's apotheosis comes with the passage of Filipino society from the centuries-old orbit of the Castilaloys and Amboys to that of the Chinoys.

Everywhere you look, from the biggest banks to the most exclusive clubs, you'll find monosyllabic names that never were there as late as the Marcos or the Cory years. It's no coincidence also that today's hottest controversies seem to be made in Macau or Taiwan, and that the dubious art of political grandstanding has shifted from age-old fury against US imperialism to the supposedly creeping Chinese invasion of the Spratlys. Some insist they've long conquered Greenhills.

Nobody would ever have thought the proud Castilaloys and Amboys would bite dust so soon and so completely.

The rise of the celestials is even more astounding because for the past 400 years, Philippine laws were specifically tailored to keep them out or at least keep them at bay. From the 16th to the 18th century, there were mass programs of Chinese by the natives, no doubt with much prodding from the Spanish overlords.

Because the Philippines was the farthest outpost of the Spanish empire, there were never a few thousand Spaniards in this colony at any one time. What passed for the local Spanish ruling class was at best a transitory elite. Most left as soon as terms were ended and fortunes were made. The handful who stayed after the empire was lost simply had no place to go back to in Spain. In the 1880s, in the twilight of Spanish rule, the writer Sinibaldo de Mas warned that the colony's ascendant class consisted of Filipino-Chinese mestizos, the progeny of Chinese fathers and Filipina mothers. And he was right.

Still, this emerging mestizo elite remained besotted with Spain and wanted nothing to do with China. They hispanized their names (Rizal, Aguinaldo, Palanca, Cojuangco), sent their children to Catholic schools and gave rise to a nationalist tradition which lumped the Chinese along with the Spaniards and the Americans as foreigners to be wary about.

How the Chinese have somehow risen above age-old fears and prejudice in the Philippines and elsewhere bears closer scrutiny. Some say this shift was inevitable, given China's return to international respectability and great power status in the post-Mao and post-cold war period. No longer can China be regarded a pariah among nations nor the Chinese people the object of foreign ridicule and charity.

Closer to home, there's also the old correlation between the traditional Chinese and entreprenuership, and of their eternal patience in adversity. Hindsight indicates this has turned out to be the better strategy for survival and eventual dominance. It is in sharp contrast to the Spanish sense of aristocratic entitlement and the American penchant for lopsided parity rights -- all non-competitive traits that have been unwisely adopted hook, line and sinker by the increasingly endangered Filipino elite.

Because nothing succeeds like success and many Filipinos take after their real national fruit, balimbing, it should come as no surprise that the same people, who go bananas on January 1, will party even harder for the glitzy arrival of the lunar new year. Kung Hei Fat Choy!