Tracing the Bridge of the Filipino-Chinese Friendship
Filipino-Chinese Friendship Day 2023
Editorial | Ashley Cua
Every June 9 marks the celebration of Filipino-Chinese Friendship Day, with this year commemorating 22 years of the date and 48 years of official diplomatic relations. These nearly fifty decades are not the only monuments of Filipino-Chinese relations, however, as contemporary culture and history owe much to this friendship that extends even to pre-colonial Philippines and ancient Chinese dynasties.
Yet, for the past few years, the day has been greeted not with cheers but with skepticism and even fear. This is a reflection of how many Filipinos view China today — through the lens of maritime disputes, economic trade deals, contentious infrastructure projects, and most recently, global pandemics. The last three years of the COVID-19 pandemic saw a rise of Sinophobia in the Philippines and many other nations unjustly pinning the blame on Chinese and Chinese diaspora as the bringer of the illness. In the sea of controversy, where can the bridge of friendship between Filipinos and Chinese be found? How might we retrace it in the present day?
One can look no further than the winding Pasig River that carried waves of Chinese traders to the port of San Nicolas in the 16th century. The traveling merchants and accepting townsfolk created a central marketplace for the exchange of goods like silks, porcelain, jade, spices, and so on. This hub wasn’t the first of the trading relations, however, with archaeological finds on Butuan’s balangay boats as old as 300 AD and a vast quantity of Song dynasty 9th-10th century ceramics suggesting some Filipinos themselves traversed the seas for trading missions with the Chinese (Tan 1991). The East Sultan of Sulu, Paduka Pahala, was one notable figure who sailed to China himself with 300 of his men for a friendly visit and tributary mission with the Ming Dynasty Emperor Yongdi in 1417. He was buried in a tomb in Dezhou, Shandong province where it remains to this day (Tordesillas 2015).
When the Spaniards arrived and colonized the Philippines in 1521, Filipino-Chinese relations were affected, but not cut off. The San Nicolas markets continued to boom, so much so that the Spaniards placed heavy regulations on Chinese traders, regarding them as illegal immigrants who must only live in small, cramped housing districts in San Nicolas that they called Parián (Ang-See 2020). Despite this, the community of Chinese and Chinese-Filipinos grew, with the notable example of national hero Jose Rizal’s great-grandfather, Cua Yi Lam or Domingo Lamenco, being an immigrating merchant from Jinjiang, China to Calamba in 1697 (Pa-a 2018). Moreover, Jose Rizal’s monumental martyrdom for the nation has also been venerated by China with the creation of the Rizal Park in Jinjiang as a direct mirror to the Rizal monument in Luneta Park.
Beyond improving the economy through trade, Filipinos and Chinese have also shared cultures with one another. The first published book in the Philippines, Doctrina Christina, was originally printed by Keng Yong in 1592 and was translated for the Chinese audience a year later (Kueh 2019; University of Michigan). The religious syncretism or mixing of beliefs in San Agustin Church and Santo Cristo de Longos also show the harmony achieved through the mutual respect Filipinos and Chinese have for one another’s religious beliefs. Then, there are also the many shared words in Tagalog and the Southern Chinese language Hokkien: ate, kuya, tsaa, hikaw, hukbo, tanglaw, and many more.
Apart from the foods inspired by Chinese cuisine like lumpia and pansit, even our agriculture has been influenced through Filipino-Chinese interaction. The carabaos working in our fields have a lineage that dates back to water buffalos in the Chekiang province of China that were brought to the Philippines and traded in during the mid-16th century (Roque).
By walking through all these bridges of old, we see the way Philippine history and culture has been influenced by the Chinese. The question remains, however, as to how do we maintain these bridges of old friendship to be sturdy enough for us to hold on when the delicate balance of official diplomacy teeters to one end? There are no clean-cut answers before us, apart from the choice to remember the people, not the state. When the seas crash against us again, remember the faces that have sold textiles in Divisoria their whole lives as part of their small family business and remember the faces we know from high school or work that laugh and cry under the same night sky as us. Remember their forebears who chose to stay and these descendants who will now fight for the peaceful future of our land, just as we do. Just like our ancestors, whatever troubles we face today are things we cannot face alone. We need one another and this bridge of our historical and cultural connection to make the journey across. Will you walk the way today?
References:
Ang-See, Meah. (2020, October 16). The Parian and the Spanish Economy [video file]. Retrieved from https://intramuros.gov.ph/2020/10/16/the-parian-and-the-spanish-colonial-economy/
Kueh, Joshua. (2019, October 28). “Doctrina Christiana”: More than Four-hundred Years of Filipino-American History. Library of Congress Blogs. Retrieved from https://blogs.loc.gov/international-collections/2019/10/doctrina-christiana-more-than-four-hundred-years-of-filipino-american-history/
Pa-a, Saul. (2018, February 27). Calamba City forges ties with Jinjiang on Rizal’s Chinese lineage. Philippine News Agency. Retrieved from https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1026662
Tan, Rita C. (1991, February 6). International Seminar for UNESCO Integral Study of the Silk Roads: Roads of Dialogue: “Manila as an entrepot in the trans-pacific commerce”. Retrieved from https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/knowledge-bank/participation-philippines-nanhai-trade-9th-16th-centuries
Tordesillas, Ellen. (2015, September 12). ‘Our hearts are connected’- Sulu king heir on PH-China relations. ABS-CBN. Retrieved from https://news.abs-cbn.com/blogs/opinions/09/12/15/our-hearts-are-connected-sulu-king-heir-ph-china-relations
University of Michigan Library Online Exhibits. (n.d.). Cover pages, from left to right, of Doctrina christiana en lengua española y tagala (Christian Doctrine in Spanish and Tagalog Languages), Bian zheng jiao zhen chuan shih lu (Testimony of the True Religion), Doctrina christiana en letra y lengua China (Christian Doctrine in the Chinese Language and Letters). Retrieved from https://apps.lib.umich.edu/online-exhibits/exhibits/show/translation-memory/item/9345
Roque, Anselmo S. (2015, September 11). Carabao rises to new-found importance as farmers’ ‘beast of fortune.’ Philippine Carabao Center. Retrieved from https://www.pcc.gov.ph/carabao-rises-to-new-found-importance-as-farmers-beast-of-fortune/
