Chinese Filipino

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<th style="background-color:#fee8ab;">Related ethnic groups</th>
<td style="background-color:#fff6d9;">Tornatras, Han Chinese, Filipino</td>

A Chinese Filipino (Mandarin Chinese: Feilubin Huaren (菲律賓華人), Hokkien: Hui li pin hua kiao, Cantonese: Fei leot ban waa kiu (菲律賓華僑), Tagalog: "Tsinoy" (pronounced ʧɪnɔj) derived from two words: "Tsino" (meaning "Chinese") and "Pinoy" (the slang word for "Filipino") is a person with Chinese blood born in the Philippines. Chinese Filipinos, make up one of the two most significant minority groups in the Philippines, the other being the Moros.

[edit] Terminology

Both the Chinese Filipinos and the Filipinos alike espouse different terminologies to refer to the former.

• Of pure Chinese descent: Chinese (Eng.), Tsino/Chino (Fil., Sp.), Intsik (Fil.), and Lan-lang (Chi.)
• Of mixed Chinese and Filipino descent: Filipino Chinese/Chinese Filipino (Eng.), Tsinoy/Chinoy (Fil., Sp.), Mistisong Intsik (Fil.), and Chhut-si-ia (Chi.) (The term Sangley was also used during the Spanish Colonial Period to refer to people of mixed Chinese and Filipino blood, but it is now out of date in terms of usage).
• Of mixed Chinese and Spanish descent: Tornatras (Eng., Fil., Sp.)

[edit] Overview

The Chinese in the Philippines have always been one of the largest minority groups, making up about 2% (1.5 million) of the country's total population. In comparison to other countries in Southeast Asia, this percentage is relatively small. However, the rate of intermarriage between Filipinos and Chinese is among the highest in the region, exceeded only by Thailand in this aspect. However, intermarriages happened mostly in the Spanish colonial eras because Chinese immigrants to the Philippines up to the 19th century were predominantly male. It was only in the 20th century that Chinese women and children came in comparable numbers. These Chinese mestizos, products of intermarriages in the Spanish colonial era, then often opted to marry other Chinese mestizos (as was the case with the ancestors of national hero Dr. Jose Rizal). Some studies have shown that at least 10% of the Filipino population has some Chinese ancestry - mostly comprising the Filipino social and political elite, and that 53% of Filipino genes are of Chinese origin. Generally, the term Chinese mestizo is reserved for those who have more recent Chinese ancestry; those who still retain, in full or in part, the surnames of their Chinese ancestors; or those who have "Chinese eyes" or fairer complexion compared to the general populace which can be attributed to their Chinese ancestry. By this definition, the Chinese Filipinos, along with the Chinese mestizos, number about 3 million.

[edit] Ethnicity

Most Chinese in the Philippines belong to either the Fujianese or Cantonese dialect groups of the Han nationality. 98.5% of all Chinese in the Philippines came from the province of Fujian in China and are thus called Fujianese, or Hoklo. They speak the Lan-nang (Philippine) variant of the Minnan language, which is further subdivided into several dialects. The most common Minnan (Southern Fujianese) dialect in the Philippines is the Amoy dialect, which is mutually intelligible with the Chuanchew dialect, another common dialect in the Philippines. The remaining 1.5% of the Chinese in the Philippines are mostly of Cantonese origin, with notably large circles of descendants from the Taishan city. They speak the Cantonese dialect group/language, although many are raised to speak only the Minnan dialect. Most are not as economically prosperous as their Fujianese cousins in Philippine society. Some ghettoes of the Cantonese people are found in Santa Mesa, Manila and in Tondo. Other non-resident Chinese in the Philippines, such as expatriates and envoys are of Mandarin, Shanghainese, and Hunanese origin.

[edit] Mestizos

See also: Mestizos in the Philippines.

Chinese mestizos are those in the Philippines of mixed Chinese and either Filipino or Spanish (or both) ancestry. They make up about 10% of the country's total population (those who are pure Chinese make up 2% of the population). A number of Chinese mestizos have surnames that reflect their heritage, mostly two or three syllables that have Chinese roots (e.g., the full name of a Chinese ancestor) with a Spanish phonetic spelling. The Chinese mestizos may also be known as Tsinoys (alternatively spelled as "Chinoy"), although this term may also refer to the full-blooded Chinese Filipinos; and/or Chinito, a term that largely denotes physical characteristics (referring to slanted eyes) rather than ethnic/cultural.

Starting from the Spanish period, the mestizos have been afforded several opportunities that the full-blooded Chinese or the native Filipinos do not have access to. Historically, the mestizos have been economically more successful than the local population. Even to this day, a large percentage of land or plantation owners in the Philippines are the Chinese mestizos. Due to their fairer complexion, which is a coveted attribute among Filipinos even to this day; a large number of people in the film industry are mestizos.

[edit] Culture

[edit] Language

As many as 98.5% of the Chinese in the Philippines trace their ancestry to the southern part of Fujian province. The Lan-nang variant of Min Nan, also locally known as Fukien or Lán-lâng-oē ("our people's language"), is the lingua franca of the Chinese Filipino community. Most of the other 10% are descendants of migrants from Guangdong, Hong Kong, or Taiwan. The other Chinese "dialects" that can be heard in the Chinese Filipino communities are Mandarin (which is taught in Chinese schools in the Philippines and spoken in varying degrees of fluency by Chinese Filipinos), Taiwanese (which is mutually intelligible with the Chuanchew and Amoy dialects), and Cantonese.

The vast majority of the Chinese in the Philippines, however, are fluent in English as well as Tagalog, and for those residing outside of Metro Manila, the local language of the region.

Mandarin Chinese used to be the medium of instruction in Chinese schools prior to the Filipinization policy of Former President Ferdinand Marcos. Partly as a result of Marcos' measures, Tagalog and English are gradually supplanting Chinese (Minnan and Mandarin) as the preferred medium of communication among the younger generation.

[edit] Lifestyle

The Chinese in the Philippines are mostly business owners and their life centers mostly in the family business. These mostly small and medium enterprises play a significant role in the Philippine economy. A handful of these entrepreneurs run large companies and are respected as some of the most prominent business tycoons in the Philippines. Chinese Filipinos attribute their success in business to frugality and hard work, and entrepreneurship is highly valued and encouraged among the young.

Most Chinese Filipinos are urban dwellers. An estimated 60% of the Chinese Filipinos live within Metro Manila, with the rest in the other larger cities of the Philippines. In contrast with the Chinese mestizos, few Chinese are plantation owners. This is partly due to the fact that until recently when the Chinese Filipinos became Filipino citizens, the law prohibited the Chinese from owning land.

As with other Southeast Asian nations, the Chinese community in the Philippines has become a repository of traditional Chinese culture. Whereas in Mainland China many cultural traditions and customs have been suppressed by the Cultural Revolution or simply regarded as old-fashioned and obsolete, these traditions have remained largely untouched in the Philippines. Many new cultural twists have evolved within the Chinese community in the Philippines, distinguishing it from other overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. These cultural variations are highly evident during festivals such as Chinese New Year, Chap Goh Mei (pronounced as Tzap), and Ching Ming Festival. The Chinese Filipinos have developed unique funerary and wedding customs as well.

The Chinese mestizos, or Chinese-Filipinos and Chinese-Spaniards, live more like the Filipinos, and they are in the higher echelons of society.

[edit] Religion

The Chinese Filipinos are unique in Southeast Asia in being overwhelmingly Christian. Almost all Chinese Filipinos, including the Chinese Mestizo but excluding the recent immigrants, had or will have their marriages in a Christian church. This proves that the majority of Chinese Filipinos have been baptized in a Christian church, with Catholics forming the largest group.

However, many of Chinese Filipino Catholics still tend to practice the traditional Chinese religions side by side with Catholicism, although a small number of people practising solely traditional Chinese religions do exist as well. Mahayana Buddhism, Taoism and ancestor worship (including Confucianism) are the traditional Chinese beliefs that continue to have adherents among the Chinese Filipinos. Some may even have Jesus Christ as well as Buddha statues or Taoist gods in their altars. It is not unheard of to venerate the blessed Virgin Mary using joss sticks and Buddhist offerings, much as one would have done for Mazu. Buddhist-Taoist temples can be found where the Chinese live, especially in urban areas like Manila, and the Chinese have the tendency to go to pay respects to their ancestors at least once a year, either by going to the temple, or going to the Chinese burial grounds, often burning incense and bringing offerings like fruits and accessories made from paper. Some Chinese Filipino Catholics do have problems with this religious duality, but due to Christian proselytization, the elderly vastly outnumber the young in the Chinese temples in the Philippines.

A comparatively large number of Chinese Filipinos are also Protestants. One of the largest evangelical churches in the Philippines, the United Evangelical Church of the Philippines, are founded by Chinese Filipinos, and they form the majority of worshippers. In contrast to the Catholics, the Chinese Filipino Protestants are more mainstream and tend to eschew more frequently from non-Christian religions and practices.

[edit] History

Presence of peoples from the Chinese mainland in the Philippines have been evident since during the Ice Age, when a land bridge enabled many people from southern China to settle in the Philippines. But they are not to be confused for the later Sinitic-speaking peoples (ethnic Chinese) who came long after the land bridge subsided. These ethnic Chinese sailed down and frequently interacted with the local natives, and this is evidenced by a collection of priceless Chinese artifacts found in the Philippines, dating back right up to the 10th century.

The arrival of the Spaniards to the Philippines attracted many male Chinese traders from China, and maritime trade flourished during the Spanish occupation. The Spanish era restricted the activities of the Chinese. With low chances of employment and prohibited from owning land, most of them engage in trading and other businesses. Intermarriage with the Spaniards and Filipinos, however, created more opportunities. Unions between Spanish-Filipinos and Chinese are called Tornatras.

[edit] Future

Most of the Chinese Filipinos are descendants of Chinese who migrated three or four generations ago. In the cases of some Chinese mestizos, this can be as far back as five, six, or up to eight generations ago. Unlike in Malaysia and Indonesia where intermarriage is uncommon and people can generally be classified ethnically just by physical appearance, the Philippine definition of who is Chinese Filipino and who is Chinese mestizo can be based on one's cultural beliefs. A full-blooded Chinese who can no longer speak Chinese and no longer practice Chinese culture or beliefs is more often than not identified as a Chinese mestizo. By the same token, a Chinese mestizo who still speaks fluent Chinese and practices Chinese culture might be reintegrated into the Chinese Filipino culture. As "mestizo" often evokes a person of higher social strata, there is also a tendency to not identify those in the lower class as "mestizo" even if they are in fact of mixed descent.

As of the present day, due to rapid Westernization in the Philippines, there has been a marked tendency to acculturate to Western values. The younger Chinese Filipinos are gradually shifting to English as their preferred language, thus identifying more to the Chinese mestizo culture. Some Chinese mestizos tend also to reintegrate into the Filipino or sometimes Chinese societies. Although at a slower pace than Thailand, assimilation is gradually taking place in the Philippines but integration without losing Chinese culture is advantageous for the Philippines and for the ethnic Chinese minority.

The Chinese in the Philippines cannot be simplistically classified. But generally, some observers claim they can be classified into three types, based on when their ancestors first migrated. Most of the Chinese mestizos, especially the landed gentry trace their ancestry to the Spanish era. They are the "First Chinese," whose descendants nowadays are mostly either the Chinese mestizos or have integrated into the local population. The largest group of Chinese Filipinos in the Philippines are the "Second Chinese," who are descendants of migrants in the first half of the 20th century, between the Manchu revolution in China and the Chinese Civil War. This group accounts for most of the "full-blooded" Chinese. The "Third Chinese" are the recent immigrants from mainland China, after the Chinese economic reform of the 1980s. Generally, the "Third Chinese" are the most entrepreneurial and had not totally lost their Chinese cultural heritage in its purest form and therefore are paradoxically misunderstood or feared by the "Second Chinese" and "First Chinese," most of whom have lost their entrepreneurial drive and have adopted much of the laid-back Spanish cultural values of Philippine society.

[edit] List of Filipinos with Chinese ancestry

• José Rizal (Fujianese-Tagalog)---Philippine national hero from the Cua clan of Fujian, his immigrant forebear was Domingo Lamco (Chinese name "Cua Yi Lam") of Siongque (Zhangguo) Village in Jinjiang, Fujian province, China.
• Emilio Aguinaldo (Fujianese-Tagalog)---First President of the First Republic and revolutionary leader against Spain and the United States
• General Ignacio Paua (pure Fujianase) --- pure-blooded Chinese general (from the village of Lao-Na) who supported the Katipuneros in the fight against the Spaniards and later joined Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo’s army in the short-lived war against the Americans. When Aguinaldo proclaimed Philippine independence in Kawit, Cavite and raised the Philippine flag for the first time, Paua cut off his queue (braid). When Garcia and the other comrades teased him about it, Paua said: “Now that you are free from your foreign master, I am also freed from my queue.” [The queue was a sign of subjugation of the Chinese race because it was imposed by the Manchu rulers of the Qing dynasty. The Chinese revolutionaries in China cut off their queues only in 1911 when the uprising which toppled the Manchu government succeeded.] Gen. Paua retired in and was elected mayor of, Manito, Albay.
• Corazón Cojuangco Aquino (Fujianese-Kapampangan)---President in 1986 and moral leader of the People Power uprising against the Marcos authoritarian regime, her ancestral roots are in Hong Chiam Village in Tung-An county near Xiamen City of Fujian province, China
• Kris Aquino (Fujianese-Kapampangan-Tagalog) --- Popular TV talk show host and daughter of President Aquino
• Jose Mari Chan (pure Fujianese)---singer and songwriter, son of Chinese immigrant sugar tycoon Antonio Chan from Fujian, China
• Amy Chua (pure Fujianese), John M. Duff, Jr. Professor of Law at Yale Law School. Writer on 'market dominant minorities'.
• Claudio Teehankee (Fujianese-Tagalog) -- Retired Chief Justice
• Albino SyCip (Pure Fujianese) -- Known as the "Dean of Philippine Banking". A lawyer by profession, he earned his law degree from the University of Michigan School of Law in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He co-founded Chinabank and set up branches in Xiamen and Shanghai, China. Father of Washington and Alexander SyCip.
• Washington SyCip (pure Fujianese) --- Founder of SyCip Gorres & Verayo -- one of the largest accounting firms in Asia.
• Alexander SyCip (pure Fujianese) --- Founder of SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan -- largest and leading law firm in the Philippines.
• Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco Jr. (Fujianese-Kapampangan-American)---tycoon and politician, boss of San Miguel Corporation and leader of Nationalist People's Coalition
• Mikee Cojuangco (Fujianese-Tagalog)---former actress
• John Gokongwei (pure Fujianese)---self-made tycoon, founder of JG Summit Holdings
• Andrew Gotianun (pure Fujianese)---real estate tycoon
• Ferdinand Marcos (Fujianese-Japanese-Ilocano)---President from mid-1960s to 1986
• Imee Marcos (Fujianese-Japanese-Ilocano-Waray-Spanish)---Congresswoman of Ilocos Norte
• Román Ongpin (pure Fujianese)---patron of artists and revolutionaries against Spanish rule
• St. Lorenzo Ruiz (Fujianese-Tagalog)---first Filipino saint, said to be surnamed Li
• Jaime Cardinal Sin (Fujianese-Tagalog)---powerful Philippine Catholic leader
• Sergio Osmeña (Fujianese-Cebuano-Spanish)---former President of the Philippines
• Henry Sy (pure Fujianese)---Shopping mall tycoon
• Lucio Tan (pure Fujianese)---billionaire and patron of Chinese language education

+ Jose Yao Campos --- founder of United Laboratories.

• Bobby Ongpin (pure Fujianese)---former Trade and Industry Minister in martial law
• Tony Tan Caktiong (pure Fujianese)---fast food chain tycoon
• George Ty (pure Fujianese)---banking tycoon
• Alfonso Yuchengco (pure Fujianese)---insurance tycoon with roots in Nan-An, Fujian and founder of controversial Pacific Plans
• Howard Q. Dee (pure Fujianese)---former Philippine Ambassador to the Vatican and Malta, government negotiator with Communist rebels, past President of top pharmaceuticals firm United Laboratories, head of various civic organizations and a great-grandnephew of 19th century lumber pioneer Dy Han Kia.
• Tan Yu ---real-estate tycoon and owner of Fuga island in Babuyan group of islands, Cagayan.
• Alfredo Lim (Fujianese-Tagalog) ---former Manila mayor and current senator of the Philippines
• Enrique T. Yuchengco (Fujianese-Tagalog) ---Insurance tycoon and father of controversial Pacific Plans, Inc. founder Alfonso Yuchengco.
• Arthur Yap (pure Fujianese) --- Secretary of Department of Agriculture
• Emilio Yap (pure Fujianese) --- Manila Bulletin, Manila Hotel and Euro-Phil Laboratories owner
• Lim Eng Beng (pure Fujianese) --- Professional basketball player
• Fortunano "Atoy" Co (pure Fujianese) --- Professional basketball player

[edit] See also

• Overseas Chinese
• Chinese Filipinos who migrated to Mexico during the Galleon trade
• Tornatras
• Sangley
• IMSCF Syndrome

[edit] External links

• Bahay Tsinoy Museum of the Chinese in Philippine Life
• Kaisa Heritage Center
• Article on Kaisa experience in the Philippines
• Kaisa Para Kaunlaran Inc.
• Tulay Fortnightly, Chinese-Filipino Digest
• Chinese Commercial News
• World News (Chinese newspaper)
• Chinese Mestizo surnames
• Tsinoy.com (Filipino Chinese website)
• FilipinoChinese.com (Filipino Chinese website)