I was editing pics and came across this lead up celebration for Chinese New Year from early January. I'm a little late, but a belated greeting to all who celebrate the holiday.
This was taken in Quiapo, in front of my fave veggie lumpia sariwa [fresh, as in non-fried, springroll] place. Heads up veggies, the Phils ain't the best place for you kids, but this place almost makes up for it.
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A Tangent:
When picking up my pics for todays mini-exhibition at an Amnesty event the Chinese owners of the photolab asked me if I was Chinese myself (pretty much all east-southeast asians think I'm a countryman--pretty handy sometimes). We got to talking about the Chinese in the Philippines.
The Chinese were trading in the Philippines since before the white colonisers came.
This conversation got me thinking about something I read about pre-Spanish Philippines.
The Philippines was already a pretty cosmopolitan place in those days. One only has to read the old Spanish histories to see that whereever they went they could communicate with the locals.
Ever wonder why?
Was Magellan just really lucky?
Actually, the reality is pretty straight forward: there were Filipinos, and Philippine residents, that could speak Spanish.
Europe and Asia had already been trading for a long time (even in Roman and Greek times there was trade with Asia), so language and people had been flowing back and forth. Moreover the Muslims had just been defeated in Spain and many were forced to relocate--and much of the Malay territories (including the Phils) was Muslim.
Any Filipinos out there interested in their pre-history should check out: "Looking for the Prehispanic Filipino by William Henry Scott." There's a fascinating chapter in it that outlines Magellan's Mediterranean connection in "discovering" the Philippines.
