A Red Brick House, A White House & 'Signs' of China's Progress

There have been many articles written lately about China and the writers basically share the same observations. One, they are both shocked and impressed by China’s progress especially in terms of infrastructure and two, that China has managed extremely well to preserve its cultural heritage – its parks, monuments, and centuries-old art pieces. If we don’t watch out, the Rizal Park in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province might even be better maintained and visited more often than our very own Rizal Park. The last time I was at our Rizal Park, there were only two groups of people there – two busloads of tourists from Taiwan and a whole bunch of squatters and beggars at the entrance.

I have written about China twice myself, one about Shanghai and a two-part series on Beijing, and this is going to be my third. The pieces on Shanghai and Beijing were travel pieces. I learned my lesson about travel pieces. You have to have pictures so your readers won’t fall sleep. As much as I hate featuring myself in my own articles, much less being featured dancing awkwardly like a dirty old woman with a member of Los Masculados the other week, I guess this feature wouldn’t look good without people in the photos. This is a feature about Gulangyu, or Gulang Island, in Xiamen, Fujian Province. This is where we can trace back our own family’s history. This where my great-great-grandfather, Pedro Gotiaoco, lived.

And no, this is not going to be travel piece. But note that Gulangyu has become a wonderful tourist destination itself, complete with brochures, maps and organized tours, courtesy of the Xiamen Tourist Bureau. You would never imagine that the little island where my ancestors lived would soon become a favorite destination of both local and foreign tourists. Go there, and you would think that you were in a little town in Italy or France, what with historical ancestral homes, quaint curio shops, cobblestone alleyways and old couples playing checkers in the park. They even have a piano museum featuring 19th- and early 20th-century pianos made in the US and Europe. And no garbage on the streets.

Gulangyu means Drumwave Island in English. Maybe the sound of the waves hitting the shore sounds like the beating of drums, I don’t know. I just invented that. Chinoys call the island Kulangsu, which is Gulangyu in the Fujian dialect. There is a red brick house along Gong Ping Lu (Gong Ping Road) that my great-great-grandfather Pedro Gotiaoco bought sometime in the 1920s in the name of his three sons, Go Chong Ut, Go Tian Uy and Go Chong An. Go Chong Ut was the grandfather of my dad, John Gokongwei Jr. Across the red house is a beautiful white house which was patterned literally after the White House in Washington DC. The white house was owned by Go Quiaoco, younger brother of Pedro. Go Quiaco had a son, Go Chong Kang, who was the grandfather of Filinvest founder Andrew Gotianun.

I would like to thank my Uncle Johnson and Auntie Lily, my dad’s siblings, and my dad of course, for giving me all these facts, or I wouldn’t get any of the names right. According to my Uncle Johnson, Tiaoco was named after a kind of fish and Quiaoco was named after a kind of dumpling. It was the belief before that if you had a son, you wouldn’t want to give him a real name or a great-sounding name or the gods would be jealous and take away your son from you. By the way, I was NOT named after a kind of chicken. Anyway, since I was born a daughter, the gods wouldn’t be interested in me, even if I had a beautiful name like Flying Snow, one of the main characters in the critically acclaimed movie Hero.

Pedro Gotiaoco sailed to the Philippines in 1870 at the age of 17 to seek greener pastures. He literally had only his shirt and a pair of shorts on. He started out as a cooking oil vendor and later on, was able to build a small store selling cooking oil. A few years after, he asked his younger brother Quiaoco to join him. Pedro was the salesman while Quiao Co was the treasurer in their two-man team. Eventually, the small cooking oil store became Gotiaco Hermanos, one of the biggest trading companies in Cebu at that time.

In 1893, Pedro became the biggest taxpayer in Southern Philippines, paying 32.60 in Mexican dollars annually compared with the average fee of 9.78 which other businessmen paid to the Spanish authorities. Sometime in the 1920s, Pedro Gotiaoco bought the three-level red brick house along Gong Ping Road on Gulang Island.

Go Chong Ut, my great-grandfather, lived on the second floor and unfortunately, lived a life of luxury and became an opium addict. It was Go Tian Uy, the second brother of my great-great-grandfather, who eventually took over the family business. On the third floor lived my grandfather John Sr., his wife Juanita and their children. The family of Go Chong An, Go Ching Ut’s youngest brother, also lived on this floor.

My Uncle Johnson and Auntie Lily both have fond memories of the house. Auntie Lily attended a girls’ school right across the street. Uncle Johnson said that during those days, there were no toilets yet, so when it was time to go to one, you had to do it on an open pit (believe me, those open pits still survive in China up to this day, except that they’re now tiled). Surprisingly, no one got sick. There were no showers yet so when it was time to take a bath, they would go to a nearby well. During winters they would just wipe themselves with a wet cloth as it was so cold. I think that it was from this practice that the myth about the horrors of taking a bath after giving birth came about. There is a belief among some Chinoys that you should not take a bath for one month after you give birth or else your joints will ache when you grow old. Show me an old woman whose joints don’t ache and I’ll show you a talking dumpling.

Anyway, it was unfortunate that we were not able to enter the house as it was condemned. This is what happens when too many families own a house and only one family wants to spend to fix it. But then this is another story.