Chinese New Year starts with the New Moon on the first day of the New Year and ends on the full moon 15 days later. The 15th day of the New Year is called the Lantern Festival, which is celebrated at night with lantern displays and children carrying lanterns in a parade. The Chinese calendar is based on a combination of lunar and solar movements. The lunar cycle is about 29.5 days. In order to "catch up" with the solar calendar the Chinese insert an extra month once every few years (seven years out of a 19-yearcycle). This is the same as adding an extra day on leap year. This is why, according to the solar calendar, the Chinese New Year falls on a different date each year. New Year's Eve and New Year's Day are celebrated as a family affair, a time of reunion and thanksgiving. The celebration was traditionally highlighted with a religious ceremony given in honor of Heaven and Earth, the gods of the household and the family ancestors. The sacrifice to the ancestors, the most vital of all the rituals, united the living members with those who had passed away. Departed relatives are remembered with great respect because they were responsible for laying the foundations for the fortune and glory of the family.
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| The Manila Chinatown |
Year 2011 is the Year of the Rabbit by the Chinese calendar. This was the first time I experienced celebrating Chinese New Year when I was invited by a Chinese friend named Jack to spend the Chinese New Year with our friends Bryan, Oneal and Robin in Chinatown, Manila. We had a tour around Ongpin in Binondo. Observed how Filipino-Chinese celebrated the occasion.
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| Binondo Church FTW! |
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| Ongpin St., Binondo, Manila |
Binondo remains the authentic Chinese enclave of Manila and Ongpin Street, running centrally through it, is the showcase for all things Chinese and traditional. Winding along for ten jam-packed city blocks, Ongpin is glitz and glitter, traditional and exotic and an assault on the eardrums.This happy Chinaman’s mishmash offers up everything you never thought you needed but could not find in shopping malls: jewelry shops selling nothing but high-carat gold, Chinese fast food cheek-by-jowl with restaurants that consider a twelve-course “lauriat” lunch frugal, aquaria of live fish and crustaceans you can dig your chopsticks into a scant quarter-hour later, modern hardware shops alongside traditional herbal drug stores, Chinese fireworks, CD’s of Chinese movies, and bakeries. The history of Ongpin Street dates back in the 1890’s. It is named after Don Roman Ongpin, a Chinese businessman who gained fame for his financial support of the “katipunero” rebels during the successful uprising of 1896 against Spain.
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| Tryin' a Chinese ritual. |
To Filipinos from anywhere in the metropolis, a Chinese feast is enough reason to return to Ongpin Street despite the turtle-paced traffic and scarce parking downtown. There may be a handful of Chinese restaurants scattered around the city that are faithful to regional cooking back on the mainland but the best and most authentic remain those in Ongpin. Every eatery is an excellent choice for whatever budget you may have. The dumpling wrappers have just the right translucent thickness when cooked, the fillings delicious and every hakao has a good-sized shrimp embellishing it. The steamed buns (local term: “siopao”) are superb. Don’t forget to try fried siopao and fresh juice from sugar cane!
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| With Bryan, Robin and Oneal. |
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| A glass of green tea at Cafe Mezzanine. |
After a tiring walk along Ongpin, we found a cozy resto were we rested while we were watching local news coverage of the Chinese New Year with ABS-CBN’s Jeff Canoy and Nina Corpuz. Cafe Mezzanine is a cozy coffee shop which is being maintained by an official of the East Binondo Volunteer Firemen Association. This explains why the firemen often dine here and you can even see a few of their helmets hanging on the walls. We ordered their flavored green tea here while prepping ourselves up for the next walking tour ahead.
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