Pei Pa Koa: The ties that bind

I am 87.5 percent Chinese. The numerical approximation is a result of two things: my being a math geek and the pursuit of an explanation for my non-Chinese eyes, which apparently come from the other 12.5 percent. Sometimes consciously, but more often not, we “half-breeds” are perpetually trying to draw the line between our increasing Filipino-ness and what’s left of our being Chinese. As a child I once asked my parents which side I have to fight on if China ever declares war on the Philippines. China has over a billion people and thousands of fighter jets, my parents reassured me; they won’t need you. That’s just as well, I said, because I wouldn’t understand the general’s orders anyway.

Chinoys, Fil-Chi, Chekwa, G.I. (Genuine Intsik), and my favorite, PROC (People’s Republic of China). We are known for our one-syllable last names and the disproportionate number of our men with the suffix “son” in their surnames (Wilson, Robertson, Samuelson, Jameson). In college, our friends categorized us Manileño Chinoys into three groups: Uptown, Downtown or Midtown. Uptown were those who went to the two schools in San Juan (geographically located on a hill); Downtown was anyone from Binondo (a place often referred to as downtown); and Midtown was basically everything in between.

Despite the many categorizations, however, it’s downright impossible to give a general description of the Filipino Chinese culture today. Every family maintains an individual set of traditions, and even similar practices are carried out in varying degrees of magnitude. My father’s sisters would rather we didn’t wear black on birthdays but if we accidentally showed up in that “unlucky” color, apologizing profusely would be enough to repair the damage. For my mother’s side of the family, it would be best to skip the event altogether rather than defy a basic tradition that reflects your good wishes for the celebrant.

Our Chinese-ness has evolved — or, arguably, devolved — over time. In fact, the politically correct title for us now is Chinese Filipino, as opposed to the first-generation immigrants who were called Filipino Chinese (Chinese now being the adjective rather than the main noun). The term “to each his own” has never been more appropriate. We’ve sifted out elements of the culture our ancestors brought with them, and selectively kept certain things for ourselves. Indeed, we’ve emerged as a different breed altogether. There are practices most of us have managed to keep: a unique sense of business acumen, playing dice during mooncake festivals, employing feng shui when building a new house. Then there are those peculiarities some in our generation don’t witness anymore, like how we decorate funerals with paper houses to represent wealth in the afterlife. One thing I admire is how we revere those who came before us, whether they be our parents or grandparents buried somewhere in China. If we somehow get our hands on a tattered black and white copy of their picture, it will surely go up on the family altar.

One particular tradition has thankfully been diluted by the influence of Filipino culture, and it has to do with how Chinese families strongly prefer boys over girls. Whereas men are prized for carrying the oh-so-valuable last name, women are less preferred because they eventually leave to become part of her husband’s family. This is still very much true today, where Chinese women are pressured to bear sons for their husbands and men can expect a bigger chunk of the family inheritance. This admittedly backward practice has been around for centuries and will probably be around for a few more, but the influence of a maternal society like the Philippines has alleviated some of the gender gap. Women now play a bigger role in the family business, and there is no doubt that we enjoy more clout in decision-making compared to our mainland counterparts.

For generations we’ve been trying to assimilate ourselves into the Filipino culture. We practice a curious mix of Buddhism and Catholicism; many of our parents were baptized in both religions. We go to Sunday Mass and at the same time visit temples occasionally. We place our rosaries right beside Buddha beads and jades of luck. We even celebrate New Year twice a year, saving extra fireworks from December so we can use them again in February. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that we’ve been so selective about our traditions: those we actually manage to keep become all the more treasured. They have been preserved precisely because we truly see the value in them.

Despite the countless efforts to be assimilated and to be just another face in the crowd, we have kept what is possibly our most popular tradition: having to marry other Chinese. I think it’s fair to say that most of us are still bound by that rule. It’s not just limited to marriage; it also follows that you have to date someone Chinese as parents naturally expect dating to lead to marriage. This highly controversial issue is an entire discussion by itself (I can smell a spin-off article for my next column). My friends call it the “Great Wall,” their own witty analogy for all the broken hearts, the ruined relationships, the you-and-me-against-the-world love stories brought about by this unforgiving rule. The classic argument we give our parents: Hey, we’re in a country where 98 percent of the population did not sail on a boat from China like our grandparents did. It’s hard enough finding someone to love; you even have to contain our choices to a minute percentage of the population?

I’m with a Chinese boy, but not because he burns incense in temples or reads Chinese newspapers. Neither of us believes in the former nor has the ability to do the latter. Naturally there are those little everyday things we often dismiss at an impasse. They seem to be — for lack of a better word — undercurrents of the culture we silently share. There is a certain ease that comes with inherently understanding why we do what we do. I don’t have to explain to him why, during Chinese New Year, there are dragon caricatures dancing outside my house trying to reach the red ampao on our window, or warn him to stammer out what little we have of the Chinese vocabulary when he talks to my amah who doesn’t understand a word of Filipino.

Many of my Chinese friends are in “Great Wall” relationships. Obviously there are differing cultural elements they have to learn from one another — but at the end of the day, should it really decide the fate of anyone’s relationship? If being Chinese becomes the primary reason for either staying together or breaking up, then it probably isn’t the kind of relationship worth fighting for. Is it harder? Well it’s called the Great Wall for a reason, and bending a thousand-year-old rule has never been easy. Still, I refuse to believe that it should be the be-all and end-all of where you’re headed as a couple. In the chaos of today’s world, there are other things entailed in a relationship that are profoundly greater than one’s love for dim-sum. Once conquered, the Great Wall in fact creates relationships far stronger than those that did not involve real-life Romeos and Juliets.

My best friend is Filipina, and there is no one else I get along with better. My friendship with her makes me realize that profound human connections don’t have to be based on how frequently you eat at Gloria Maris. She’s from one of those Opus Dei schools in Alabang, and our upbringing couldn’t possibly be more different. It still shocks her that my cousin gets married on a particular date because the temple seer says it’s a lucky day, or that many Chinese buildings don’t have a fourth floor (the Chinese word for the number four is equivalent to the word for death). But so what? These things don’t shake the foundation of our friendship. We have even more things in common than some people I went to high school with: the same humor, the same taste in clothes and music, even the same favorite food. Those things — things that build a friendship before it can ever grow into something deeper — simply transcend family traditions even if they are centuries old. She’s the person I drag to chick flick marathons, my coffee shop buddy with whom I can discuss anything under the sun for an entire afternoon. We coexist and flourish as friends the only way possible: by respecting what the other believes in, no matter how out of this world those traditions sound.

I am proud to be Chinese. We are a strong, resilient people who have survived centuries of hardship. My grandparents came here with nothing on their backs, not knowing a word of Filipino and having left behind their families whom they will never see again. This is the story of most first-generation Filipino Chinese — our grandparents and great-grandparents traversed miles of open sea, started a new life from scratch, and arguably succeeded in their own right. We work hard — in fact many Chinese families today keep their warehouses below their living space so they can open shop at 8 a.m. on a Sunday. Our parents save money and live simply (it’s becoming harder to say the same thing about our generation), traits inherited from our grandparents who wanted to ensure that their children’s lives would not be as difficult as theirs. Sometimes I mourn the gradual deterioration of such a rich culture, and when I have my own children I hope to keep alive some part of the 5,000-year-old civilization I originated from.

When we were kids, there was this Chinese cough syrup our parents would make us take. We never knew what to call it because we couldn’t read the labels anymore. Years later, I was surprised to discover that all my Chinese friends also remember taking the same medicine. Only recently did I learn it’s called the Pei Pa Koa, this sticky sweetness that represents so much of who we are today as Chinese Filipino. No matter how assimilated we become, we will always bring with us an unnamed, indefinable object from our being Chinoy — whether it be a bottle of cough syrup, the smell of temple incense at altars dedicated to our dead ancestors, even the random curse words we recognize. Of course, the tiny slits we have for eyes and the color of our skin will always be walking proof that this culture very much remains part of who we are.

But does this mean I should be a foreigner to the land I was brought up in? Does that line really need to be drawn? Apart from what citizenship we put in our passports, do we really have to choose? I don’t consider myself any less Filipino than locals (who can say they are 100-percent “purebred” anyway?) and I resent the idea that I’m not a true-blooded Pinoy. I may look slightly different and sometimes the occasional Chinese accent slips in (“ai-yah” or “hin-deh noh”), but this nation is so deeply ingrained in me, in a way no other country will ever be; I owe to it who I am, and it is part of everything I still want to become. Whenever I meet foreigners at work, I don’t tell them about China. I tell them about the Manila I know, my enthusiasm stirring when I share with them fascinating Pinoy quirks: eating balut, sending out more text messages in a day than US and Europe combined, shopping in malls at 11 a.m. on a weekday. Only in the Philippines, I tell them, only in my country. As young people, we dare dream that one day we can make the world a better place. Well, if I had one place I could make better, it would be this archipelago — my little hole in the world, center of my universe as I have come to know it. I don’t think it makes me a traitor to China; it just shows exactly what two decades of living in this country have inevitably made me become: a Filipino.

And thankfully, at the moment, China doesn’t seem to be remotely interested in declaring war on our country.