Last week, I wrote about the lunar new year and the proliferation of all kinds of Chinese charms which supposedly bring in good luck and fortune for the year ahead.
Over the weekend, I received a press release from EcoWaste Coalition announcing findings about some of these charms, which are not exactly auspicious for good health. EcoWaste found unacceptably high levels of toxic chemicals in several of these charms. Out of 30 tested samples, 14 products were found to contain toxic levels of arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead and mercury.
A dragon figurine topped the list of tainted products with arsenic, cadmium and lead. The lead content was 14,800 ppm (parts per million), far exceeding the permitted 90 ppm under the US Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.
The toxic metals affect different parts of the body but lead is probably the most problematic, with effects on the brain and reproductive system.
Samples found to be contaminated were all four dragon figurines, two of three baguas (pronounced pat kua in Hokkien Chinese, which means eight symbols, referring to an octagonal plate usually put over doors), a wu lo (a charm made in the form of a calabash gourd), a piggy bank and a Maneka cat (the ones that have a moving paw, popular among businesses to “invite” business).
Other items tested but not found to be contaminated included bracelets, a door signage, joss paper and sticks, kiat kiat (small oranges) money tree, red fish hanging décor and a rice urn.
I am familiar with most of these charms and I think the lead contamination may be mainly from the paint used on the products. In the US, various made-in-China toys have been withdrawn from the market several times because of lead contamination from paint.
The arsenic, cadmium and mercury contamination baffled me. I know some of the products are made from metallic alloys or mixtures so maybe that is where the toxic metals come in. I noted EcoWaste’s finding that bracelet samples didn’t yield toxic chemicals. I know these bracelets are usually made out of plastic or resin.
I suspect many Filipino households have the contaminated charms around the house and my advice is to keep them away from young children, who might end up putting them in their mouths, or chewing on them. The charms attract children because they are colorful, and because they look so different.
The fascination with the charms extends to all age groups, This takes us back to a point I made in my last column, about this Chinese new year becoming highly commercialized, a time to push sales of these charms.
Animism
Such charms capitalize on a strong tradition of animism that dates back to the precolonial era, animism being the belief that objects have magical powers that protect people. Just go to Quiapo in front of the church and you will find all kinds of local anting-anting (amulets), gayuma (love charms), kontra-kulam (anti-sorcery) and kontra-usog (against usog, a childhood folk illness).
Some of the local products can also pose hazards. I have always been suspicious of the gold paint on some of the anting-anting, and leave it to EcoWaste to do some tests. In addition, I am worried about the bracelets for children, especially the ones that supposedly ward off usog. Any bracelet with small beads should not be used by children because of the danger of accidental ingestion. Moreover, some of the beads sold in Quiapo are made from saga seeds. These are red or brown with a black dot. The seeds have serious toxic effects, mainly on the blood.
The Spaniards reinforced this animism with all kinds of powers attributed to santos (wood and stone images of the saints), stampitas or “holy pictures,” relics and other “holy” objects. Popular Catholicism integrated much of the pre-colonial religious culture with Spain’s Catholicism. For example, herbalists (and sorcerers or mangkukulam) go to the mountains on Good Friday to gather plants and other materials to be used in their trade, believing that the materials gathered would be more powerful, borrowing from Christ’s death.
The Chinese charms build on our pre-colonial animism, offering new forms of magic. Many of the charms, like the ba gua, relate to feng shui or geomancy, which proposes that there are good and bad positions of a house, and its rooms, windows and doors in relation to the environment (feng means wind and shui means water). Bad feng shui supposedly causes family discord and business failures. Short of renovating the whole house and rearranging furniture, various objects like the bagua and mirrors are used to “correct” the feng shui.
Again, in Quiapo, there are people who offer, in addition to fortune-telling through cards, something called “punsoy,” a Filipino reinvention of feng shui. These punsoy experts will often “prescribe” Chinese charms, now sold together with the more traditional anting-anting and gayuma.
Besides feng shui, the Chinese have all kinds of other beliefs around these charms, many playing on language. Thus, simply hanging the Chinese word for luck in the house is said to bring luck. For added measure, though, a sign with the word is actually inverted because the word for inverting is “to,” which can also mean “to arrive.” Get it? Invert luck and you make luck arrive!
Business sense
Why do we have so many Chinese practices and not, say, Hindu ones? The answer is simple: The Chinese have been coming to the Philippines for centuries, many staying on and intermarrying. And because many of the Chinese were here as merchants, they brought many of these good-luck practices. Business always involves risks, so it is not surprising that merchants are a superstitious lot, developing all kinds of strategies to deal with the risks, including placating both the supernatural (and the human) with offerings.
Since the Chinese seem so prosperous, it shouldn’t be surprising that many of their practices are borrowed by Filipinos. But my view here, speaking as an ethnic Chinese, is that the charms should be kept, well, as charming charms. The “secrets” to success aren’t the charms but older (and, sadly, disappearing) Chinese business norms of hard work and more hard work, frugality, of emphasizing small profits to create large sales volumes, of finding a market niche rather than joining the bandwagon and selling stuff everyone else is already selling. The market niche might even be a reinvention: a friend of mine is thinking of converting some of the Chinese charms (screened, presumably, for toxic metals) into fashion accessories and interior décor.
I should also mention that there is a powerful charm called, well, charm, the foundation of good customer service. It is the small courtesies—politeness, personal care, rounding out the cost (e.g., if something costs P220, the seller will say P200 is fine), bonus items and, sigh, lucky charms given with the new year which create networks of loyal suki, a word derived from the Chinese chu ke, or No. 1 client.