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(Editor’s Note: The Sixth Dr. Jose P. Rizal
Awards for Excellence awarding ceremony will be held on June 14,
2008, 7 p.m., at the Kaisa-Angelo King Heritage Center on Anda and
Cabildo Streets, Intramuros, Manila.)
By Go Bon Juan
Experts on ancient
China-Philippine relations, especially Chinese researchers, have
been looking for a tombstone of a Chinese in Maasin, Leyte,
mentioned years ago by famous historian Gregorio Zaide. In fact, two
researchers from China who visited Manila to gather historical
materials for the overseas Chinese Museum in Quanzhou, were eager to
go to Maasin to look at the tomsbtone.
Why is this tombstone
significant?
According to Zaide, the
two-and-a-half-by-one-foot tombstone excavated in 1946 belongs to a
Chinese in the Tang dynasty (661 A.D.) If that is true, then it
means that as early as 661 A.D., there were already Chinese who
lived in Maasin.
Unfortunately, we never had a
chance to see and locate this tombstone, although we had
communicated several times with the local government, including the
governor of Leyte and the mayor of Maasin, to verify this
information.
In History of China-Philippines
Relations (published in Chinese language in 1964), local Chinese
historian Liu Zi Tian cited Zaide about the tombstone. He translated
to Chinese Zaide’s English text, which was supposedly translated
from the original Chinese text on that tombstone.
Liu based his translation on the
pronunciation of Zaide’s English translation. This means Liu
himself didn’t see the tombstone and his translation of the
Chinese name of the tombstone dweller is only a guess since there
are many Chinese characters that are pronounced alike.
In the three-line Chinese
inscription on the tombstone, the first line states the place of
origin of the dead: gentry from 28th district of Da Sa Zhou. The
second line is the name of the dead: tomb of Chen Guo Shi. The last
line has the word Tang and the year the tombstone was erected: Xin
You Year. What confused people was the Chinese character Tang, which
led people to believe that this tombstone dated to Tang dynasty (618
to 907).
Unfortunately, Zaide and the one
he consulted for the translation of the Chinese inscription on the
tombstone seemed to not know that the Chinese character Tang can
also mean China or Chinese, which is a common reference to the
Chinese in Southeast Asia.
Based on our own study, we are
inclined to believe that this tombstone was erected in 1921, not
661. The practice of indicating the districts is a modern one in
China, happening only after the establishment of the Republic of
China in 1911. In Imperial China (pre-1911), when a year is
mentioned, especially on tombstones, the name and year of the
Emperor at the time were used. Since no name of the Chinese emperor
appears on that tombstone, it is safe to conclude that this
tombstone was built after 1911.
The two characters indicating the
year when the tombstone was erected are Xin You. It is a traditional
Chinese way of counting and indicating year using two sets of
Chinese characters. The first set with two characters called tian
gan, the second 12 characters called di zi which has a 60-year
cycle. A check with the Chinese calendar indicates that the most
likely year for the Xin You Year should be 1921. The previous Xin
You Year was 1801, the sixth year of emperor Jia Qing of Qing
Dynasty (1644 to 1911), a possibility we have already ruled out. The
next Xin You Year after 1921 would have been 1981, which is too
recent.
So it is safe to conclude that
the Maasin tombstone does not date to the Tang dynasty but before
the Second World War, or 1921 to be exact.
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