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'Hua fei'

HUA FEI isn't the name of a new Chinese rock band. They're two Chinese words that appear on the cover of a new coffee table book, a direct translation of the English title "Chinese Filipinos."

Some time back, writer Gilda Cordero Fernando told me I should do more articles about "Chinoys" (Chinese-Filipinos) because there's still a great divide between "Filipino Filipinos" (sorry about the awkard term) and Chinoys. Well, I think this book does more than what I could ever hope to accomplish even if I were to devote all my columns for the next five years to matters Chinoy.

"Chinese Filipinos," a joint production of Xavier School and Ateneo de Manila University's Chinese Studies Program and Jesuit Communications, helps to explain the Chinoy world, not just to Filipino Filipinos but also to Chinoys themselves. The chapter titles hint at what you get in the book: "Between Worlds," "Dreaming of Fortune," "Words and Worlds," "Learning Chinese," "Aspects of Ourselves," "Who We Are," "A Symphony of Manners," "Whither Now?"

We are taken back to Fujian (Hokkien), the Chinese province where most Chinoy have their "lao jia" or ancestral home, to Engineer Island, where new migrants had to stay, sometimes for months on end, while their immigration papers were processed. There's even a photograph of "tua di" (Hokkien Chinese for "big words"), the certificate of landing allowing someone to enter the Philippines. Many literally received new identities through the tua di, getting a new name different from that which they had back in China.

The bulk of the book is devoted to the present. Lush colors splash across the pages, introducing us into the many facets of Chinoy life. Peek into classrooms in Chinese schools where kids learn how to read and write thousands of Chinese words. Get a whiff of the incense from temples, and the "ngohiong" (five spices) from Chinese restaurants. And plug your ears as firecrackers go off and dragon dancers prance along the streets during Chinese festivals.

For a coffee-table book, this one is actually quite text-heavy, with essays contributed by Ellen H. Palanca (who was also the general editor), Clinton Palanca (who was responsible for the main text of the book), Teresita Ang-See, George Siy, Lisa Y. Gokongwei, Benito O. Lim, Jonathan Chua, Aristotle Dy, Francisco Navarro, Doreen Yu, Doreen G. Fernandez, Queena Lee Chua, Caroline S. Hau, John Burtkenley Ong, Go Bon Juan, and an Inquirer columnist surnamed Tan.

My mother observed that the essays, including the one I wrote, tended to be rather ponderous and heavy, which led me to wonder if the book reflects the point we've reached in the evolving Chinoy experience, where a younger generation has in fact become more introspective, curious about the past even as we look to the future.

I was thrilled, for example, to see photographs from the province of Fujian, from which more than 80 percent of Chinese immigrants came. Yet I was slightly disappointed to find most of the photographs were of Xiamen, the largest city. The fact is that most Chinoy trace their lao jia to dirt-poor rural areas. It is important that younger Chinoys, especially the more affluent ones, are reminded that it was poverty that pushed our grandparents and great-grandparents to leave Fujian, fighting great odds to carve out a new life.

I also felt the book has too little of the experiences of the Chinoy outside of Metro Manila. Recently while in Legazpi City I stayed at Jennifer's Garden Hotel and was pleasantly surprised to find out that the owner, Johnny Rocha, was the son of a Chinese migrant surnamed Go. The Chinoy are in fact quite widely dispersed, from Cagayan province up north down to Davao province (where my paternal grandfather settled down) and to the southernmost provinces of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

Of course, it is unrealistic to expect one book to cover the entire Chinoy experience. I'm sure there will be some readers who will ask why, besides the two in this book, there aren't more recipes. I found myself wanting more information on language, on religion, on the Chinoy in politics, and on issues not covered in the book, such as the "chut-si-ya" (Chinese mestizo and mestiza) experience.

That hankering for more does reflect how effective the book is as a kind of appetizer. I'm hoping that non-Chinoy, after reading the book, will ask Chinoy friends for more information. And I'm hoping, too, that we will see more books about the Chinoy, perhaps taking up a challenge from Caroline Hau's essay: "No one can claim integration without being forced to question the mainstream into which we are supposed to be integrating," wisely warning us, especially in these troubled times, that "integration is no guarantee that stereotyping and scapegoating will end."

I draw some hope from the book. It is, on one hand, an assertion of the varieties of Chinese-ness in the Chinoy. Yet at the same time, it is a book that is thoroughly Filipino, its linguistic style, its photographs, its layout, all bearing a Filipino cachet. The description of the blending of the "Chi" and the "noy" becomes the book's most important message: that no one is really born Filipino, that regardless of our ethnicity, whether Ilokano or Tagalog or "Intsik," we must all struggle to become Filipino.

Ready to get "Hua Fei"? In Metro Manila, the book's available at Xavier School in Manila's San Juan suburb, Ateneo de Manila's Jesuit Communications office at the Loyola campus, Kaisa Heritage Center in Manila's Intramuros area, the Solidaridad bookshop in Manila's Ermita district, and the Jescom kiosks on SM Megamall's fifth level and at SM North Edsa (lower ground floor).

Outside of Metro Manila, you can get the book at Sacred Heart School-Jesuit in Cebu City and the Santa Maria Parish in Iloilo City. If you still can't find the book, call this Manila number: +632 4265971.

"Chinese Filipinos" comes at a non-profit price of 2,200 pesos, quite a bargain for a quality coffee-table book. You won't even have to gift-wrap the book since its cover comes in crimson red, with "Hua Fei" emblazoned in gold, making it look like a giant "ang-pao," those red paper envelopes with cash, given out by the Chinese on special occasions. Like the ang-pao, this is a book that will endear, but unlike the red cash envelopes, this is a gift that will endure.