Blood is thicker than water

I am the eldest in our family. I have three younger sisters and three younger brothers. As you can see from the names below, all the boys have "bon" 文 as the second character of our name and all the girls have "ca" 佳. The second character in all the boys are based on the generation poem that I mentioned in the introduction. Similar middle character means we belong to the same generation.

曾文明 Benjamin
曾佳琳 Ester
曾文順 Edison
曾文萬 Ivan
曾文聰 Milo
曾佳琪 Rizalynn
曾佳玲 Victorine

Many Chinoy likes to add a "na" after our name or nicknames when they call us. I was called Ben-na by my parents, siblings and cousins. My friends call me Benjie. When I came to America, people call me Ben.

I do not really know whether it is my father or my mother who came up with our names but he or she did a great job. The last character of Edison's Chinese name is pronounced "soon" in Hokkien which rhymes with his name. The last character of Ivan's Chinese name is pronounced "ban" in Hokkian which rhymes with his name.

The last two sisters has more interesting story to their name. Rizalynn was born on June 19 which is the birthday of our national hero Dr. Jose Rizal, thus Rizalynn. Victorine was born on October 10th, which is the Independence Day of Republic of China, thus Victorine, as in victory. That's quite patriotic, isn't it?

Speaking of patriotism, that's how I name my son and daughter. The initials of their names are R. O. C. which is short for Republic of China. My son is Ryan Oliver Chan. My daughter is Rana Olivia Chan. It was fun for us to name them that way at that time, but I heard that they do not like their names.

The Old House

I was born in Manila on December 19, 1961. I heard that we lived briefly in Chinatown. The apartment burned down and we had to move to this complex.

For me, that is the house that I remember. The house that contains many of my childhood dreams, fears and tears. I stayed in that house until I left the country in 1989 at the age of 28.

The house is located west of University of Santo Tomas, a well known and oldest Catholic university in the Philippines. The street was originally called Requisin, later changed to the present name of Eriberto Remigio Street.

It is a three story building. Facing the building, on the far left is the stairway leading to the third floor where the owners live. Interestingly, in all those years, I never seen them. Ours is the middle unit. In the photo, green store front with the blue metal frame in the second floor. To the left was a pharmacy and to the right was a printing press.

The area is mostly populated by Filipinos. I remember there was only two other Chinese families around us. There was Mr. Ong who married a Filipina and opened a store at the corner. I believe I see him from time to time but did not get to talk to him. There was a Chinese couple behind our house who adopted two boys. I already forgot their names. We had some interactions but still I do not know them other than the husband has a Mercedes Benz.

I did not really have many playmates in the neighborhood. Most of my friends are from the Chinese school that I attended. I do remember one incident when I was standing in the sidewalk, a couple of Filipino kids were making fun of me, calling me "Intsik", then proceed to say, "A chi nga cho nga..." A very bad imitation of the Chinese language. I do remember that I was clenching my fist very tightly.

My father was in the trading business. Our business is called Benjamin Chan Trading. I remember that father would show me the invoice and say, "The name is Benjamin Chan Trading, but it is not yours." Then he would point at the next line and say, "See, it says Francisco Chan, Proprietor!"

Because of his business, the first floor of our apartment became his warehouse. After you walk through the door, there is an aisle with boxes on both sides. Then on the right, a small wooden rectangular table with the old black rotary phone. Above it is the altar with the statue of Santo Nino and the Chinese Guardian of the soil.

On the left, there is the round dining table. Above it was the picture of my grandfather. We call him "Angkong". When it is the first and the fifteen in the lunar calendar, there will be offerings given to him. Chinese believe that after death, we still need to offer food and paper money to our ancestors. I remember folding those paper money and burning them in a big tin can by the door.

Who am I?

In one of the thread of discussion, there was a lot of discussion about who we are? Are we Chinese? Are we Filipino? When asked "Who are you?", what would you answer?

That morning I was standing in the kitchen. I saw a picture of our trip to Grand Cayman island. The beach was beautiful. The ocean was gorgeous. An image came to mind and I wrote the following poem in English.

Chinoy

I stood in the sand
and wet my feet
I spotted a shell and froze in time
until it moved by itself
with legs on its sides

I picked it up
and asked
Who are you?

It answered back
WE ARE
CHILDREN
OF THE MOTHER SEA

I later translate it into Chinese and Tagalog

 

Many years ago, when I had a Filipino passport, I thought: by citizenship, I am Filipino; by ethnicity, I am Chinese; by culture, I am a mestizo.

Introduction

I joined a new group in Facebook recently. It is called Binondo Heritage Group.

It was a lot of fun for me to connect with people who have the same heritage as I do.  Most of us were born and raised in Manila, Philippines. Some were born in other places but grew up in Manila or other parts of the country.

We called ourselves Chinoy, as in Chinese Pinoy. When I was growing up in Manila, we used the term Fil-Chi. Chinoy makes more sense as that was the term in our countries like Chinese American.

I moved to America in 1991. My wife is from Taiwan so we mostly speak Mandarin at home. The kids can understand Mandarin but conversation is limited, so we use English. As a physician, I mainly use English. Occasionally, I will have a Filipino patient and I get to practice my Tagalog. As far as my mother tongue Hokkien or Fookien, I hardly get to use it. I realize that it is not only speaking the language, part of it is bringing out that part of me which was shaped in childhood.

As I mingle with the group online, a part of me is very happy. It is as if I met some long lost friends. Before long, we were sharing jokes and experiences from our common place of origin.

Speaking of origin, my grandfather was from Fujian, China. He left the country in the early 1900s, went to the Philippines to look for jobs like many of his countrymen during that time. My parents were born in the Philippines, and then I was born in the Philippines. In 2003, I brought my parents to Fujian, China. We landed in Xiamen, and then went to explore the hometowns of both my paternal and maternal grandfather. It was a quick sightseeing trip. I took some pictures, came home and forgot about the whole thing.

It was a fun coincidence when Michael Chan Gotaco mentioned his grandfather’s name. My grandfather has the same middle character. That means that they are definitely from the same village. Then Eduardo de la Cruz added me to another group called Zeng. It has members from all over the world whose last name is Chan. In that group, I found a poem (see above) which was used to name the future generations. I found my grandfather’s group and also my group. As I went over the poem, I noticed that there were 40 characters. If one character is for one generation and each generation takes 20-30 years, then we are talking about 1,200 years! I was speechless! My ancestor who wrote the poem had a vision for the next 1,200 years!