It is an inauspicious start for the Year of the Rat. Taal volcano, the world’s smallest but one of the Philippines’ most active, has been spewing forth its fury since Jan. 12, and as of Tulay deadline, there is no end in sight. More than 100,000 evacuees are crowded in evacuation centers. The sight of […]
The earth shook violently. The wind howled, blowing away anything in its path. Rain inundated the land, washing away what had withstood the wind. Calamities wrought by earthquakes and storms continue to hit the Philippines mercilessly. Mindanao residents have not yet recovered from the devastation arising from the series of earthquakes (averaging 6.5 in magnitude) […]
Balut is a popular delicacy among Filipinos. The late food critique, renowned Doreen Fernandez, considers balut as the Philippines’ national street food. But what are the origins of this delicious and nutritious street food in the Philippines? Margaret Magat, who did extensive research on balut for her master’s thesis, wrote: “Balut was introduced to the […]
Sun Yat-sen, after resigning as provisional president of the Republic of China, went to various parts of China in April 1912 in his capacity as national railway supervisor to propagate the importance of building railroads. One day, passing by Jiu Jiang (九江) of Jiangxi province, Sun Yat-sen saw a lot of advertising boards of foreign […]
After the devastation wrought by earthquakes in Mindanao in October and November came the equally destructive typhoon “Tisoy” (Kammuri) that slammed the Bicol and Visayas regions. We were lucky to have left Calbayog, Samar the night before Tisoy made landfall. It was windy and raining intermittently the whole day we were there. Our Calbayog contacts […]
General Feng Yuxiang (馮玉祥) gained fame when he defected from the Qing imperial army and clique of warlords to join the revolutionaries led by Sun Yat-sen in 1911. Years later, he toppled the Zhi (直) warlord faction in Hebei province, which enabled Sun Yat-sen to reach the capital Beijing. Feng was also dubbed the “Christian […]
Silver played a big role in the Galleon Trade between Manila and Acapulco, Mexico that lasted 250 years, from 1565 to 1815. The silver from Mexico and Peru not only sustained the Philippines’ economy through the Galleon Trade, but encouraged the trading of Chinese goods, mainly silk and porcelain. Silver was in great demand during […]
“Ninja cops” currently hog the headlines, but they are not new creatures in a dysfunctional police force. I first heard about them in the mid-1990s. Members of the Manila Police Department would kidnap Tsinoys and bring them to police stations, which they described as “safe houses,” to demand ransom from the victims’ families. One victim […]
Lin Lan Ying (林蘭英) was born in 1918 in Pu Tian (莆田) City, Fujian province. She was in the United States pursuing a Ph.D. in mathematics at Dickenson University in 1949 when news of the birth of New China reached her. Lin was eager to return to China to help build the nation but decided […]
China was brought to its knees by the imperial powers more than a century ago. But slowly, it has restored and restructured social order, reconstructed and rebuilt infrastructure, reinvigorated and redirected the national spirit to achieve swift and unprecedented growth and development. Thus, China has great reasons to celebrate, and it did. On Oct. 1, […]