AFTERNOON IN SAN NICOLAS. For countless of times, I’ve joined walking tours around the world’s oldest Chinatown to see the same old structures, sigh in frustration to notice the neglected ones and retrace the configuration of those that were demolished only to be repurposed as theme park attractions in a heritage resort by the sea. At an unhurried pace, I enjoyed piecing together like shards of broken ceramics popular history with narratives about unwritten heritage that has been passed down through generations by its early settlers to its current inhabitants.
Every trip has a different personality depending on who to go with. A decade ago, I joined Ivan Dy‘s iconic Big Binondo Food Wok for a heritage and culinary tour of Chinatown’s touristy zone and this was followed by random walking tours in the area during regular weekdays, Chinese New Year and Ghost Month. A year before the series of lockdowns and travel restrictions, Stephen Pamorada showed me around his heritage neighborhood in the San Nicolas District. Now fresh from a traveling hiatus, I’m back in San Nicolas this time with heritage champions Stephen, Rache Go, Benjamin Canapi and artists Kenny Tai and Jodi Aguillon.
THE LAST PARIAN DE LOS CHINOS. Binondo’s history can be traced to the 9th century when early Chinese traders sailed to Manila from Cathay in vessels to drop loads of valuable merchandise like silk and pottery and returned to their mainland laden with sugarcane, hemp, coconuts, and other local products. But the mass migration of the Chinese to Manila began in the 16th century when Filipinas was already the colonial capital of Spain in Asia. Motivated by sinophobia caused by the Limahong invasion and the murder of Governor General Gomez Perez Dasmariñas, the Spanish colonial government restricted the Chinese immigrants into a ghetto just outside the walls of Intramuros known as the Parian de los Chinos. The parian was moved about 10 times until the settlement was established for the Chinese Christians in the island of Minondoc across the Pasig River and the adjoining land of Baybay . Within the next two centuries, the last parian in Binondo and San Nicolas became the riches towns in the colony.
That afternoon, we assembled near the Beaux Art fountain in Plaza Calderon de la Barca to outline our itinerary. As we approached San Nicolas District, we made a stopover right in front of the sad-looking structure that housed the Panceteria Macanista de Buen Gusto. At the San Nicolas landing of the Puente de San Fernando that crosses Estero de Binondo, Rache pointed out that early Chinese immigrants would be disinfected in quarantine stations before they were ferried to the foot of the bridge. The decrepit structures and its remaining portions provide a potent setting to Rache’s walking tour narratives as we continued making stops in random antique houses with asesorias or storefront ground floor, the street side shrine to the Santo Cristo de Longos, prewar Ides O’Racca Building, 19th century Elcano Bahay na Tisa, Casa Tribunal de Naturales, Antonio Luna birthplace before heading to our main stop, the Alciaceria de San Fernando.
18TH CENTURY SILK MARKET. P. Guevara Elementary School is the site of a large octagonal building known during the 18th century as the Real Alciacera de San Fernando. Like the modern day department store, it served as a one stop shop for the Chinese community. It was a wholesale warehouse mainly for silk, and at some point a custom and immigration house. It was also a residential space for transient Chinese. The structure was abandoned after it was razed by fire in 1850 until a school was built from its ancient foundation.
During the school’s recent renovation, the silk market’s original marker that details its dedication, policies, completion year in 1762 were unearthed along with other artifacts. The piedra china marker was declared as a National Cultural Treasure and is in the care of the National Museum of the Philippines.
SHARDS FROM THE LAST DYNASTY. Whoever said that where history ends archeology begins can relate to how a classroom in P. Guevara Elementary was converted into a temporary display area for the artifact recovered from the diggings. Most of the objects on display were ceramic shards from the last Chinese dynasty or Qing Empire that ruled China from 1644 to 1912.
Porcelain and ceramic ware from China upon its arrival in the country became a prized ceremonial and heirloom object especially in a crude pottery culture. Ifugaos used heirloom jars in ritual feasts. It became a status symbol among lowland principalia to use Oriental porcelain as tableware. The hunt for antique Oriental ceramics became so popular and plentiful in the 1970s in digging around Pila, Laguna, Calatagan, Batangas, Oton, Cebu and Butuan in Mindanao. 800 year old ceramic from the Sung and Yuan dynasties, celadon porcelain and Ming dynasty ceramic plates with blue freehand paintings are sought after in the antique trade. Most of the Chinese ceramics recovered from the diggings around the country were grave furniture since they were retrieved from ancient burial sites. The ones excavated from the alciaceria were used in wholesale trade.
UNEARTHED ARTIFACTS. More random objects were retrieved from the diggings in the ancient silk market, including parts from its former architecture. Clear and tinted glass bottles, some with embossed label from prewar Botica Boie in Escolta. There were clay bricks with engraving of it manufacturer’s name. Interesting display were charcoal and melted iron debris from the 1850 fire that decommissioned the alcaiceria.
An iron cast bell dated 1938 from a Japanese fishing boat was believed to have found its way to the alcaiceria when the Japanese Imperial Army used the site as garrison during the last world war.
WILVEN INFANTE. The diggings are ongoing along with the construction of new buildings for the school. Artifacts from the ancient silk market continue to surface. The job of gathering, documenting, protecting and putting together a museum dedicated to the archeological finds fell in the hands of grade school teacher, Wilven Infante.
With little or no help from the local government, our culture hero painstakingly together with a trustworthy team of construction workers who are untrained to handle archeological artifacts retrieve and carefully handle these heritage objects. For heritage champion Stephen Pamorada, ‘there is a need for a comprehensive archeological retrieval system in place to ensure the protection of all his finds.’ All of us present in the walking tour agreed to that Wilven is entitled to received recognition but also he must be fairly compensated for his efforts.
ILANG-ILANG RESTAURANT. It was my first time to be in San Nicolas at dusk when activities in the busy warehouses and storefront shops gradually slowed down. Our team found ourselves resting in a restaurant named after the narrow Ilang-Ilang Street. The street was named after the old time factories that extracted scented oils from the tropical flower used in the mixing of French perfumes.
Rache informed us that the restaurant have been in the catering business since 1910 and still thrives even during this pandemic season because of its reputation for serving time-honored recipes. She continued sharing about heirloom dish she learned while helping her grandmother prepare them without having to write down the ingredients and the process in cooking them. It’s a family culinary practice prescribed by her ancestors and both her paternal and maternal side have different ways of preparing the same dish. She laments how standardization of dishes would kill family culinary traditions.
EPILOGUE: ORIENTAL ROOTS. To cap our walking tour, the rest of us went to Cafe 1919 that is housed in a prewar building along Juan Luna Street for dessert and coffee.
This walking tour around San Nicolas District gave all of us the opportunity to become informal historians, archeologists, and anthropologists by putting together shards of discoveries, stories and insights gathered from this tour into an assemblage of our Oriental roots.
