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!