Everyday is a winding road

We might well say that the Chinese Filipino is the chameleon of our times, and whom, the more you try to describe, the lesser chances you have at arriving at a worthy definition of this age-old "integree" of Philippine society. And so a book, in this case a coffeetable one put out by an erudite mother-and-son team backed by a trio of Jesuit giants, would help, through reams of photos and text, to define the Chinoy, though again there is always the risk of this being an exercise in futility.

What does seem apparent, while leafing through the formidable tome Chinese Filipinos (published 2003, making it a prime candidate for this year’s book awards, but the category characteristically overlaps–history? sociology? social sciences?), is the inimitable blending of cultures to come up with one distinct however in the long run indefinable, but which helps enlighten us nonetheless by the sterling photography by both veteran and greenhorn lensmen as well Ellen and Clinton Palanca’s work on the text, indeed they know whereof they speak. Clinton Palanca, who writes like every Chinoy mother’s son, came out, along with two other writers, in Anvil’s new fiction anthology in 1995, publishing a novelette entitled Identifications, actually just a third of Catfish Arriving in Little Schools (Ricardo de Ungria, editor).

At the time, de Ungria wrote of the young Palanca: "Clinton Palanca writes like no one his age. He is still young in writing but already old in his readings–most revealing of which, I believe, are philosophy and the French texts. The tension he sustains between erudition and sensuousness is a minor feat that demands much of his readers but is well worth witnessing."

Palanca’s fondness for the French would later manifest in his founding of the restaurant Prospero’s, which again indicates virtuoso inclinations of the not-so-average Chinoy. He himself has since come out with a book of short stories published by the UP Press, and a novel is reportedly in the works. But unlike, say, Charlson Ong, whose writing is readily identifiable as Chinese Filipino in subject and grammatical nuance, Palanca’s revels and even basks in an identity crisis that verges on the novelistic and almost self-mocking, as if challenging the reader to try this point of view for size. The rub is that this coffeetable book could help resolve some things for Palanca the fiction writer, if not the restaurateur.

Now we take a trip through the long and winding road of Chinese Filipinos much like we take a walk through the dizzying streets of Chinatown, a convergence of sensory intimations, significations, renderings in prose and photographic image of a particular space in time, that of a Chinese space in Filipino time, or vice versa.

If it’s true that we learn something new everyday, then Xavier is a saint and not just a school in San Juan, and the distinction pointed by the authors between Chinese Filipino and Filipino-Chinese is crucial and enlightening. Mostly the terms are interchangeable and equally hyphenated in modern journalism, but the Palancas say that the Filipino-Chinese were the first generation migrants who made their way to the islands by way of Engineer Island in the north and, lately, Laoag International Airport, while the unhyphenated Chinese Filipinos refer to the well-settled Chinoy or succeeding generations of the original migrant, and so already a fair if not radical departure from the stereotype caricature of the Chinaman as negosyante, although the book also explains why most Chinoys are tradesmen because such occupations were stipulated in visa conditions.

Aside from the Palancas, the book also features essays by prominent writers and columnists and academics, all Chinoys who spring out of the landscape of our impromptu tour like caratulas of Eng Bee Tin or the omnipresent smell of Chinese medicine, clip-clop of hooves on cobblestoned streets and the promise of romance.

Essays that serve as sidebars are worthy testaments of how it is to be Chinese and Filipino in our time. Thus on this long and winding road we have magazine editor Doreen Yu, whose thoughts on the subject we may have subconsciously mimicked, reminiscing that her Chinoyness has much to do with family, though not necessarily Catholic; Caroline Hau, who has done for the term intsik what feminists have done for the word regla, and so strives for a re-definition atypical and perhaps asymptomatic of Chinoy society at large; and Queena Lee, firehorse and math whiz who can write up a storm on everyman science at the drop of a chalk.

They, among others, would know the gist of being Chinoy, and their recollections help stir up our own memories of Chinatown. It’s not some racial memory roused in anyone even one-eighth or one-sixteenth Chinese, with a brisk walk among the vendors of Carvajal, or while staring out solemnly from the lrt platform on Carriedo looking out to Plaza Sta. Cruz, a semblance of night and crumbling hopia in the distance?

Or how as kids we savored our first trip to the Ma Mon Luk restaurant, marveled at the gleaming formica tables and clink of silverware and the steam rising from the partitioned area where noodles were doused in broth from constantly simmering cauldrons.

These and more are what make up the collective national soul, if we can dare call it that, and it’s just incidental that it also happens to be Chinoy, or is it.

Let’s hear from Clinton again: "The Chinese-Filipino of today is the inheritor of a legacy; not just a legacy of history, but a legacy of culture. In the years that the Chinese lived in the Philippines, somewhere in between the time they changed from being sojourners to calling the Philippines their homeland, they forged a culture that arose from necessity, from uncertainty and eventually, from a growing sense of identity. The culture was fleeting and accidental; and as such, too easily forgotten. It must live in memory; but then memory is in itself something that must be remembered. First we forget, then we forget that there was even something to be forgotten. Perhaps it is this sense of loss that gives us the conviction that there was indeed a culture that was created, that there was an identity that was real, and that there is a heritage to be preserved. We don’t know what the future holds for the Chinese who live in the Phi-lippines, but what we now have is something rich and complex and unique; it is a heritage that is too precious to be forgotten."

Well said, bro, as it is well-written, and Chinese Filipinos with its awesome photography and worthy blend of writers is the first step to ensure we don’t suffer from either willed or involuntary amnesia.