When a Pinoy met an ex-emperor of China

Renato D. Tayag loomed larger than life when I was a boy. I remember him vaguely, even today, as a tanned giant who wore eyeglasses and whose constant companion was his tennis racket. When I reconnected with him in Manila during my college days, I saw him addressed formally as “Attorney Tayag” or “Director Tayag” or plain “Mr. Tayag,” for he was a member of the Philippine bar, a survivor of World War II, and one of the board of directors of the Philippine National Bank. In contrast, in his hometown of Angeles in Pampanga, he was always addressed and referred to as “Katoks,” a nickname he used as a byline for the short conversational essays for which he is best remembered.

In 1984 Tayag gifted me with a boxed set of his books: “The Sinners of Angeles: For Whom Don Juan prays Daily” (1960); “Odyssey in Southeast Asia” (1963); “At Home and Abroad” (1966); and “China: The view from Peking and Taipeh through the eyes of a Filipino writer” (1971). His essays are an easy read and gave me an idea of his boyhood, his travels and the Cold War era that he lived in. Once upon a time Russia was enclosed by an imaginary “Iron Curtain,” Germany was divided between East and West by the Berlin Wall, and Taiwan was separated from “Red China” by an imaginary “Bamboo Curtain.” So polarized was the world in Tayag’s books that I am reminded of a friend recounting that when he was a boy growing up in Hong Kong, he and others were advised to hold their breath as they walked by the “Red China store” lest they be infected by “Maoism” or “communism.”

Tayag was one in a group of intrepid Filipino journalists who defied a travel ban in 1964, crossed the Bamboo Curtain, and lived to tell the tale. Rereading him recently, I regretted not asking him to tell me more about that historic trip and his meeting with Henry Pu Yi (1906-1967), the last emperor of China. Although I had seen the film on Pu Yi and read “Twilight in the Forbidden City,” it would have been more interesting to know what he was like in person.

The two met face to face when the former emperor lived a quiet life as a gardener in Mao’s China. Tayag provided this snippet in one of his books:

Tayag: “How do you feel now that you are no longer emperor?”

Pu Yi: “In a sense, I am still an emperor. Chairman Mao said that the 650,000,000 Chinese are all  Liao  Hsun—sons of Huang Ti of the ancient empire—and therefore all emperors.”

Tayag: “Are you happier now?”

Pu Yi: “Of course. Before, I served only myself and my family. I regarded my country and people as my property. But I was afraid, afraid of my own people. I was afraid of my relatives, the eunuchs, the servants. I was afraid of being assassinated or poisoned. Wherever I went, palace guards preceded me to search the area. I was careful about my food.”

Tayag: “Did you employ food-tasters?”

Pu Yi: “I did not because I could not trust even food-tasters. Before I ate anything, I found out myself what effect the food had on the silver. I feared everyone. I even had a secret escape into a big room just in case of sudden assailants.

Tayag: “How do you find life now?”

Pu Yi: “I am proud to belong to China, of the bright future for the country and the people. I am contented. I receive a monthly salary of 106 yuan; and my wife, a nurse, receives 60. It is more than enough for us. My life as a plain citizen is better.”

All of Tayag’s books are out of print except the last one, “Recollections and Digressions” (1985), that has been reprinted by the Kapampangan Studies Center of Holy Angel University to commemorate his birth centennial today. The “recollections” in the book include essays on: Angeles, the city of his birth; Pampanga, the province whose history and culture molded him; Bataan and the war that forged him like steel, turning a boy into a man; and “Red China.” The “digressions” cover the literary explorations that were spurred by the many books he read and enjoyed.

As a historian, I make a living breathing life back into events and personalities long gone by sifting and sleuthing through written documents. If I were to use the same method with Tayag and his writings, I will uncover two sides of the man: the journalist who signed himself Renato D. Tayag and published books about Angeles as well as reportage on Asia, and the town philosopher Katoks Tayag who looks back on a life well-lived and shares his insights with his readers.

I encountered Tayag in his old age, when he had many stories to tell, but I regret not asking him more about his law practice and his first partner, a classmate of his named Ferdinand E. Marcos. I sat in the background and jotted down notes as Tayag and his best friend, E. Aguilar Cruz, dined and reminisced about the past, showing me lives lived in history. What was endearing about Tayag was that he did not take himself too seriously. He even found humor in a typographical error that could have cost a bank clerk’s job or promotion: He threw me a wink and an impish smile as he handed me one of the calling cards that the PNB had printed for its officers. It read: “R. D. Bayag. Director.”

I have since lost that card but Katoks’ memory lives on in his books, and I can only hope that his family can find more unpublished essays to fill another volume.

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Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.