The Chinese in the eyes
of a Frenchman

THE F4 fever still persists, and this explains why Jerry Yan is still endorsing Bench and Pepsi in billboards all over Manila. I look at their photographs and wonder why they are so popular since they don't look any different from many of today's affluent gym-toned Chinese-Filipino college students. One must admit that there must have been an improvement in the genes somewhere because when you look at postcards and photographs of Chinese and Chinese-Filipinos at the turn of the 20th century, you will agree that people today do look better.

Reading the impressions of the Frenchman Jean Mallat, who visited the Philippines in the 19th century, I was surprised that he actually wrote:

"In general, the Chinese settled in the Philippines are of average height, although in China itself there are many good-looking men... The Chinese inhabiting Manila who have come for the most part from Macao, Chancheo, Nyngo and Canton are very ugly, and this is explained partly by their social position, for these are generally coulis (porters) and domestics who come to the Philippines to do business and who send their savings every year to their families. Like all the Chinese of Macao, they speak a little Spanish or Tagal[og]. Their costume is similar to that of coulis of Macao and Canton; this is a kind of overcoat in the form of a blouse, a shirt called bisia and wide pants made of white cloth, with very low seat, fastened by a string; sometimes these pants are black or blue."

Times have changed indeed as modern Filipinos are the ones abroad sending their earnings back home. The descendants of the Chinese described by Mallat are probably prosperous merchants today -- maybe even tycoons -- who have within the last century intermarried and borne good-looking "mestizo" [mixed-blood] children.

The Chinese mix has led to some very stunning racial combinations, but in the 19th century Mallat said: "Chinese mestizos, that is to say children of Chinese men and Indio women, are often uglier than the Chinese themselves... they have yellowish skin, wide faces, their noses are flat, though less so than the Indios; their eyes are slanted outwards and the transversal diameters form an obtuse angle on the nose; they are lymphatic and beardless..."

Mallat seems to have noticed all the racial mixes possible in the Philippines and goes on in great detail. At one point, he gives the term "tornatra" for children born of Spanish mestizos and a Chinese mestiza, and even notes that the mestizo mix with Negroes and Sepoys from India inhabit a certain street in Pasig. Mallat was not impressed with the looks of Chinese mestizos but had this to say of their industry: "Their character is remarkably active; they enrich themselves through business like the Chinese. Economical to the point of avarice, they hardly pay their servants, give them little to eat, and punish them severely even if often these servants are members of their own family. When they go out, they are richly clothed and wear on their shirt brooches of pearls and diamonds, often worth a "talega" (5,000 francs). In "saya" [native gowns] and "tapis" [native wraparounds], their wives display no less luxury in their dress than their husbands. In their hands they hold a rosary, and there are many of them who have renounced the Indio costume and dress in European style; they are all Catholics and are found in great numbers in the provinces of Cebu, Iloilo and Samar. Almost all business is in their hands and this is not too much to the liking of the mayor. The Indios have such a great notion of the wealth of mestizos that they like to be taken for them, in order to be considered opulent."

Jose Rizal had Chinese blood, but for some reason or another did not want to be associated with Chinese or be mistaken for one. In Spain, he was often called a Chino, which made him and some expatriate friends describe themselves as the Inchics shortly before they referred to themselves as the Indios Bravos.

One way to tell Chinese men in those days was from the hair, and Rizal actually has a drawing of this in one of his notebooks. Mallat said Chinese "shaved their heads, leaving only a braided tail and wear a small black cap topped with a red knot. Their shoes are black, rounded at the tip, with thick soles made of paper; they get them ready-made from their country."

The cap and shoes look like the trendy things we get from Shanghai Tang or at best the shoes are what we call "kung fu" shoes today.

While reading a 19th-century author, one has to try to imagine what is being described, leaving me puzzled as to the extra services of Chinese barbers -- these being eye, ear and nose cleaning we do not get from fancy salons and beauty parlors today. I try to imagine the eye cleaning that has the barber moving a small brush over the eyelids and eyeballs to produce a tickling sensation. There is a long fascinating discussion on chopsticks or "sipit" [tongs], describing its use and concluding that "these little sticks were invented as a hygienic measure to prevent them from eating too greedily and to force them to take only a small quantity of food at one time."

So much personal bias and (mis)information abound in the primary sources, making a critical reading basic for understanding a work of the past in the present. This is what makes reading history challenging and interesting.

Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu