Whenever Chinatown in Manila is mentioned, what comes to the mind of people nowadays would be Ongpin Street in Binondo, which became the symbol of Chinatown in Manila since 1923. Formerly Sacristia Street, Ongpin Street was named in honor of Roman Ongpin. Before that, was there a Chinatown in Manila? Where was it, if ever? […]
Most people, including historians, think that there were no female Chinese immigrants in early Philippine history. Data from 1870 show there were only 193 female and 22,807 male Chinese in the Philippines. Early Chinese immigrants in the Philippines seem, logically, to be generally made up of Chinese males who went overseas to seek better livelihood […]
With a family tree that has stretched over 3,100 years, it is no wonder that the Chinese surname 王 (Ong in Hokkien, Wang in Mandarin) is the second most populous surname in China. More than 50 million people in China bear this surname. Furthermore, the migration of the Wang family to Fujian in the early […]
First published in Tulay Fortnightly, Chinese-Filipino Digest 25, no. 4 (July 24-August 13, 2012): 8-10. Editor’s Note: The paperback edition of the author’s book, Chinese and Chinese Mestizos of Manila – Family, Identity, and Culture, 1860s-1930s, was launched at Ateneo de Manila University, Quezon City. The author is Tsinoy who now lives and teaches at […]
First published in Tulay Fortnightly, Chinese-Filipino Digest 25, no. 4 (July 24-August 13, 2012): 9. Dr. Jose Rizal, Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, Anna Dominique Coseteng, Mariano Limjap, Claudio Teehankee are familiar names. They have one thing in common, all of them have Chinese forebears. For centuries, Chinese have intermarried with Filipinos. During the Spanish colonial regime […]
First published in Tulay Fortnightly, Chinese-Filipino Digest 25, no. 4 (July 24-August 13, 2012): 10. It has been said that knowing the past may give one a vision of the future. Perhaps this explains the buzz over the recent launch of the paperback version of Chinese and Chinese Mestizos of Manila, Family, Identity and Culture, […]
In the Philippines, the 17th-18th century was marked by massacres and mass expulsions of the Chinese by Spanish colonial authorities. In the 19th century, anti-Chinese agitations and discrimination continued to mark the Spanish rule in the form of imposed taxes higher than other foreigners and locals. Likewise, restrictive travel passes required all Chinese to obtain […]
We are fond of collecting and looking into books on Philippine local history. Almost without exception, we find materials or information on the ethnic Chinese in these books, whether they are about history, description of localities in a province, a city or municipality. Moreover, those materials or information about the Chinese in local history are […]
Ed’s note: Condensed and revised from the original paper presented at the 2015 Regional Conference organized by International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas, with the theme “East Asia and the Chinese Overseas.” The full academic paper will appear in the upcoming issue of TCEA Journal. Like the Chinese in the Philippines, the Chinese […]
Do you know how many Chinese in the Philippines lost their lives and properties during the three years of Japanese occupation? The “Summary of Overseas Chinese Affairs Statistics of 1946” report published by the Taiwan Overseas Affairs Office reveals that 12,000 of the 117,463 Chinese in the Philippines died during the Japanese occupation. This accounts […]