In a country like the Philippines, nothing can be kept secret. At least not for long. Thus, it was imperative for President Duterte to stem rampant speculation about his state of health. Recently, he finally admitted to undergoing colonoscopy and endoscopy in Davao last month and a biopsy at the Cardinal Santos Medical Center on […]
The past decade witnessed a massive influx of Chinese nationals to the Philippines, coinciding with the phenomenal rise of China as a global economic power. The Bureau of Immigration reported that from January 2016 to May 2018, some 3.12 million Chinese citizens came to the Philippines. More than 70 percent – or 2.4 million – […]
What do you do with 660,000 cigarettes so you don’t get emphysema? What does really mean? Do ghosts put up a Great Wall in your path? Chinese contemporary artist Xu Bing (徐冰) turns these conundrums, and more, into art works. His works can be seen at the UCCA (previously known as the Ullens Center for […]
On an early Friday morning, 16 delegates from various parts of the Visayas gathered in Mactan-Cebu International Airport. We were all excited as we waited for our flight for China. Still unfamiliar with each other, we passed the time glancing at our phones every now and then. Who knew that we would soon embark on […]
On Dec. 12, 2017, Congress approved the Philippine Mental Health Act after a tedious review of its Senate (SB 1354) and House of Representatives (HB 6452) versions. President Rodrigo Duterte signed Republic Act 11036 or Philippine Mental Health Law last June 20. The Philippines is among the last 30 percent in the world without a […]
The founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty (1363-1644), Zhu Yuan Zhang (朱元璋), followed the tradition of previous dynasties to set up the deng wen drum (登聞鼓) at the capital. The drum was for common people, government officials and employees to beat when they needed to bring to the imperial court’s attention grievances that had not […]
China has intensified its crackdown against online gambling in the past months. Reported extensively only in Chinese media, China conducted several big raids and arrests of gambling operators with ties to the Philippines. Apparently, after illegal online gambling operators in the Philippines were arrested, the reports say, the Chinese government was able to gather data and […]
On a recent family trip to Hong Kong, we saw a woman asking her granddaughter to pose for a photo. The girl, probably 7 or 8 years old, was obviously not happy about it and smacked her grandmother’s hand so hard, the mobile phone flew a few meters away. My mother could not help herself […]
In Spain, there are officially around 200,000 Chinese residents, spread out all over the country but primarily in the main cities and the most vibrant regions. There are 28,800 in Andalucía in the south while out of the 54,432 in Cataluña region, 45,636 are in Barcelona and 54,512 live in Madrid. Despite the serious economic […]
The 16th century Chinese adventurer 林鳳 is known throughout the English-speaking world as Limahong or Limahon, but also, and especially more recently, as Lin Feng. Which is right? Lin Feng is the pinyin romanization of 林鳳, but that is not what he would have called himself. He was from Teochew, and his full name, 林阿鳳, […]