Wishing lanterns

This year’s declaration of Chinese New Year as a holiday provides an example of ongoing cultural change, especially around Chinese and Filipino culture.

Many Chinese practices, such as the use of firecrackers and the display of round fruits, have long been incorporated into Filipino new year celebrations, but newer practices still seem to be making their way into local culture, this time through the Chinese New Year.

This additional holiday is highly commercial, a way of jump-starting sales for the new year, but it is fascinating watching how things Chinese that were sold only in Chinatown have now entered the mainstream of Filipino culture.  Supermarkets sell tikoy, the sweet glutinous cakes that are supposed to make friendships and families more cohesive and sticky. But that’s not all. I just visited our local supermarket and found lots of good luck charms, including dried kumquats made into garlands and all kinds of pendants showing other objects that are supposed to bring in good luck and prosperity.

Dragons are also in vogue, this being a dragon year.  A hint here: if someone tells you he or she was born in a dragon year, that means the person is turning 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 84 or 96 this year, the animals coming in 12-year cycles.

Garlic and ‘sili’

What amazes me is how with each Chinese new year, new kinds of good luck charms come into vogue.  I brought my kids to old Chinatown, meaning the Binondo area, last month and they were all dazzled by the stores brimming with colorful calendars and charms. I thought I knew all the charms but this time around found two new items: well-made hard resin versions of garlic and sili or red pepper.

I asked the Chinese shop owner what those were supposed to do and she said the garlic was to drive away evil spirits. Wow, I thought, here’s something that’s doubly potent, working against Chinese evil spirits as well as our local aswang.

I hesitated with the sili. Its bright crimson color was attractive but I thought, would that induce more heat, more exchanges of maanghang (hot) words? But the Chinese shop owner gave a completely different view. Invoking Chinese feng shui principles, she said the red pepper’s pungent heat actually has a cooling effect, so it promotes harmony rather than discord.

Perhaps the best example of cultural exchange is the way Filipinos have started to use the greeting “kung hei fat choy,” not knowing that it’s actually a Cantonese greeting which means “wishing you prosperity.” Most ethnic Chinese in the Philippines are Hokkien, and an elderly aunt many years ago told me, in a huff, that the “kung hei fat choy” greeting came from Hong Kong Chinese and that it reflected the way Cantonese are more business-oriented . . . and materialistic.

I never forgot that observation and find myself slightly irritated when people greet me “kung hei fat choy,” preferring the Hokkien “giong hi sin ni,” which gives a more generic “best wishes” for the new year, presumably to include good health, good company and, sure, some material comfort.

I’m going to give one more example of the twists and turns around cultural exchange but I want to remind readers of the historical context to culture change.

Only 50 years ago, local ethnic Chinese could not be too open about displaying our cultural heritage because of strong anti-Chinese sentiment. There was a fear of our huge and mysterious neighbor, referred to alternately as “Red China” and the “Yellow Peril.” The late mayor of Manila, Arsenio Lacson, banned the use of Chinese signs, even in Chinatown, and the celebration of Chinese new year was unthinkable.

We did not have diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China, and Filipinos could not travel there. So our knowledge of China was limited to Taiwan and Hong Kong, ties which were more for business than for cultural learning and exchange.

It didn’t help that in the late 1960s, local communists reestablished a party, together with a New People’s Army, proclaiming itself as being guided by Marxist-Leninist-Mao Tsetung Thought (later Mao Zedong Thought). Red China seemed even more red, and threatening.

Yet in the 1970s, China began to bring down its Bamboo Curtain. A pragmatic Ferdinand Marcos sent Imelda to China and newspaper front pages showed her shaking hands with a doddering Mao Tsetung. Diplomatic ties were resumed and it became fashionable to join tours to Red China.

Today we have full ties with the People’s Republic and Chinese culture finds its way into the Philippines, even through businesses. It isn’t just 168 but the SM chain and other business retail outlets that end up marketing not just DVD players and appliances but also feng shui mirrors and the potpourri of charms. And there seems to be a ready market from among the non-Chinese, who probably are thinking, well, if the Chinese do so well in business maybe it’s because they have all these magical items.

One newer Chinese item which I think will catch on this year are “wishing lanterns,” which are being sold in many tiangges (try Centris this weekend). I saw some of them floating in the sky during UP’s lantern parade, and more during New Year’s eve, and I expect to see a few more this Chinese new year.

These are made out of light paper and come with a piece of wax which you light. The warm air lifts the lanterns and they float into the sky. Some smart entrepreneur in China packaged them with the Chinese characters “wishing lanterns” and instructions to users, including reminders to wish something before releasing the lanterns.

Thai? Chinese? Filipino?

I found the lanterns surprising because I never encountered them, or heard of them, in China. My first encounter with these beautiful lanterns was in Thailand, where around November they have something called Loy Krathong, which means “floating lanterns,” where small boats with lights are sent down rivers. In some parts of Thailand they also send off sky lanterns, which have become a major attraction for the Thais and for tourists, the skies lighting up with thousands of these lanterns.

I did some research and found that in Taiwan they also have a sky lantern festival, and that the Chinese did make such lanterns several centuries back. Perhaps the lanterns made their way to Thailand, or perhaps the Thais innovated on their own. But today, we have Chinese lanterns, now pushed as “wishing lanterns” in the Philippines.

The first time I saw these lanterns in Thailand I thought, why not produce them in the Philippines? The lanterns are quite safe, the candles extinguishing themselves up in the sky so the lanterns return to earth; the paper does mean some littering but at least it’s not plastic. I don’t think they’ll displace firecrackers, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more of them in future new year celebrations, whether in December or—using the Chinese lunar calendar—around January or February. Maybe, the lanterns will be made in the Philippines, with our own designs.

* * *

Email: mtan@inquirer.com.ph