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By Go Bon Juan
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.
Four years ago, the Department of Modern
Languages, School of Humanities of Ateneo de Manila University
released the English translation of a rare book, Cuentos Filipinos,
published in 1876. All the 4,000 copies printed were sold out.
Cuentos Filipinos is a collection of Montero y
Vidal’s nine short stories, including two about the Chinese in the
Philippines in the 19th century.
“The Pirate Li-Ma-Hoing” is a romanticized
fiction culled from Li-Ma-Hong’s invasion of the Philippines in
1574.
Li-Ma-Hong wanted to escape from the
mandarin’s wrath first over making compliments to the official’s
favorite lady and then over his piracy and pillage.
His deputy, Sioco, on the other hand, wanted
revenge on an unfaithful fiancee who sailed to Luzon with her new
lover. And so, the two adventurers ended up defeated by the fierce
Spaniards.
More interesting is “Chang-Chuy’s
Umbrella,” a romantic story about a Chinese in the Philippines in
the 19th century.
Chang-Chuy, a new immigrant from China, won in a
lottery but could not find his ticket, which he placed inside the
hollow handle of his umbrella. The short story tells of arranged
marriages, faithless unions, desperate immigrants and ends with
Chang-Chuy finding the lottery ticket and being reunited with his
own first true love who he left behind in China.
“Chang-Chuy’s Umbrella” vividly mirrors
the different aspects of life among the Chinese in the Philippines
of that era, making it a very precious material about the Chinese in
the Philippines. “Chang-Chuy’s Umbrella” also might be
considered as the earliest short story about the Chinese in the
Philippines.
Born in Cadiz, Spain, Montero y Vidal was a
writer belonging to the last third quarter of the 19th century who
specialized in affairs pertinent to the Philippine Islands,
according to the Encyclopedia Universal Ilustrada Europea-Americana
(vol. 36). He was a contributor to the Real Academia de la Historica.
He wrote three volumes of Historia General de Filipinas desde el
Descubrimiento de Dichas Isles hasta Nuestros Dias, published
successively in 1887, 1894, and 1895.
The academic background and knowledge and
familiarity of Montero y Vidal about the Philippines, its culture
and manifold manifestations—customs, fashion, cuisine, even
personal hygiene—make his short stories really valuable.
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