Double celebration

CHONGQING – At the Planning Exhibition Hall in this Chinese city, visitors are greeted at the entrance with a massive, panoramic black-and-white photo of Chongqing pre-World War II, displayed below a full-color high-def LED image of the modern city.

The photo reminded me of the old Divisoria, Binondo, Sta. Cruz and Quiapo districts in Manila, the city where I was born and bred.

But the difference is that in just a few decades after the war and communist China’s shift to a socialist market economy, Chongqing has transformed dramatically from the image in that black-and-white photo to its current ultramodern state, even as its rich culture and historical sites have been preserved.

I’m visiting this city in southwestern China as we celebrate our 128th Independence Day. And having been a frequent visitor to various places in the land of my maternal relatives over the past decades, I can’t help again feeling some envy over this city’s rapid development.

In those decades, I’ve also felt increasingly envious of the pace of development in our other Asian neighbors, which in my youth were behind our country in terms of economic prosperity and other human development indicators.

It was dismaying to realize, during my visits to those countries, that we were rapidly being left behind, first by Singapore, and then by Malaysia and Thailand, and now Vietnam.

This is just in Southeast Asia. In other Asian countries, Japan also emerged like the phoenix from the ashes of nuclear bombing to become a global economic and industrial powerhouse. South Korea, still technically at war with the North after the 1952 armistice, is now a cultural and industrial leader.

China has had the most dramatic leap, from the hardships during its devastating Cultural Revolution to its current status as the world’s second largest economy and challenger to the lone superpower, the United States.

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What happened to us? Do we have too much freedom?

I heard this question a lot for the first time, even from leaders in the private sector, at the height of the coup attempts against Corazon Aquino.

Today, over three decades since the end of the first Aquino presidency, I’m hearing it again as the Senate descends into chaos even as the nation is still grappling with the systematic looting of trillions in public funds by top government officials.

I like to think it’s not democracy that’s to blame for our woes. Japan and South Korea are democracies, and they’re doing much better than us.

It’s also not for lack of a common cause that can unify a nation, behind which people can develop a strong sense of patriotism or nationhood.

The creation of Singapore following its expulsion from the Malaysian Federation drove the Singaporeans to succeed. South Koreans of course united in fighting the North, with the war powering the South’s rapid industrialization. In my visits to Vietnam, I thought the people were so driven in their efforts to emerge quickly from the ruinous impact of the wars they fought to drive away foreign colonizers.

But we also waged an armed revolution and fought in World War II against foreign invaders. Yet those conflicts failed to serve as unifying forces or develop strong patriotism.

Instead what we’ve seen is every man for himself, and the mindset keeps worsening. The ongoing Senate circus is just the latest manifestation of this.

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Meanwhile, other countries in the region are showing what can be done when a nation gets its act together.

Chongqing became Republican China’s wartime capital under the Nationalist government after Japan invaded the capital Nanjing during the Second Sino-Japanese War. It became an Allied resistance hub during WWII.

In 1997, Chongqing became the fourth municipality to be directly administered by the Communist Party of China, after Beijing, Shanghai and the port city of Tianjin.

Previously part of Sichuan province, Chongqing is now autonomous. But the numbing Sichuan pepper still features heavily in Chongqing cuisine. The best I can say about this pepper, liberally sprinkled as green and red peppercorns in many dishes, is that it’s an acquired taste.

From the devastation of wars and the ruinous Cultural Revolution, Chongqing is now enviably clean and green, moving rapidly to transition into a sustainable, smart city even as its heavy industries still rely on coal.

A cruise along the mighty Yangtze and Jialing rivers in the evening when the lights come on showcases the attractive combination of ultramodern and traditional Chinese cultures. Clearly, the private owners of buildings by the rivers are all on board in turning the area into a top tourist attraction. Cable cars cross the river while a train runs across one of the many bridges.

Old quarters of the city have been preserved and turned into commercial areas and tourist draws.

Among Chongqing’s main attractions are China’s uber cute ambassadors of goodwill, the pandas (regular and red) at the Zoological Park, which also features, among others, Tibetan yaks and the white rhinoceros.

Robots for all sorts of purposes have become ubiquitous, and technology is used to enhance ancient attractions. Chongqing’s Planning Exhibition Hall, for example, offers spectacular immersive, interactive video presentations of the city’s geographical and manmade structural transformation, from ancient times to the present.

The name of the megacity means “double celebration.” Chongqing certainly has a lot to celebrate.

I wish we could say the same, even if only for our Independence Day. Instead we are preoccupied with the reported threat of violent unrest stemming from political warfare. One day soon, we must stop giving democracy a bad name.