Four Funerals and a Wedding: The Fourth Funeral (Part IV)

I love my father, I really do, but since he wasn't that much present in my life, I know I wouldn't feel much loss if he passes away. Still, I'm anxious about what the scenario will be if he dies considering his hostile other family. Would we be allowed to attend the wake? I take comfort at the thought that Ate Katyn would be there to assert me and my sister's birthright as papa's children.

My anxiety was renewed when unexpectedly and too soon, my Ate Katyn died.

She was still young, only in her forties, when she passed away. She didn't prevail against cancer but she fought bravely, never at once showing her family that she has become, and becoming more weak.

My mom and I with my Tita Pat went to Ate Katyn's wake as soon as her remains was brought to the chapel of Funeraria Paz in their Araneta Avenue branch, same as Uncle Tiong kim. There were only a few people inside the chapel when we arrived but papa was there and Tita Rosa was seated in the middle of a long bench with papa's Chinese wife seated beside her, to her right. As my mom and Tita Rosa were partners in crime, having become good friends and sisters-in-law, my mom went to kiss Tita Rosa and sat beside her on the other end of the bench. My dad, immediately becoming aware of the scene, couldn't take the heat and went out. Nothing exciting happened as my papa's wife shortly left her place.

A few days after, a ray of hope glimmered for me when Son-son, passing in front of me during the funeral mass for Ate Katyn, looked my way and nodded in acknowledgement. It was several years before when during Ama's funeral, Sabu returned a faint but sincere smile in response to my reluctant smile. Son-son's gesture made me realize that we are grown ups and no matter what, even if we don't become close, we ought to acknowledge that we are related, we are siblings and we should leave the past behind and at least be civil to each other. After all, we didn't have anything to do about our parent's respective pains. Though it crossed my mind I could be imagining things, I held on to that hope that my relationship with my only brother would be a bit better. In a few months time, I would be proven that it actually did.

Four Funerals and a Wedding: The Third Funeral (Part III)

My mother had reason to be angry with my father. In all sense of the word, my father had betrayed my mother. He fled China and abandoned his betrothed and their daughter Lima to find a better life for himself in Manila. He slipped to British territory Hong Kong and proceeded to fly to Manila. She was smitten as he persistently and fervently wooed her. He married her in church and integrated her into his family. All seemed fine except that No amount of persistence and assurances from Uncle Tiong kim that he prefers her as his sister-in-law can assuage my mom. It had been going on for sometime, he had been going home to two families. Before I was born, he and his Chinese wife already had a daughter, Argentina or Gina (she, thankfully, didn't use the surname Tan) after she arrived from China at the height of the Miss Universe brouhaha. My mom later on revealed that my dad wanted to name me Argentina, after the Argentinean ambassador to the Philippines who was with him on the same flight to Manila from Hong Kong. Thankfully, my mother refused and I was named "Mary Rose", being born in October, the month of the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Shortly, after I was born, my father's first and only male child, Henson or Son-son, was born. It was shortly after my sister was born when my father finally left the house and lived with the other family. He had two more children afterwards, Sabu and Angelina or Baby.

Not for anything else, my dad's Chinese wife had a few loose screws. First, though quite understandably she hated us as she probably blames us why her husband never returned for them, she would, according to my Tita Rosa and cousins, throw a fit whenever she hears the name 'Linda". Naturally, she taught all her children to hate us too. My sister hates them but I don't and I couldn't explain why. Second, she maltreats her youngest child, Baby and treats her differently from the others. By some stroke of luck, my former teacher in grade school who now teaches at this public school near our place became Baby's teacher. One day, she called on her mother to report to her an incident in school. Baby's mother, in disowning her child's misdeed told the teacher that Baby wasn't really her child and was in fact the child of someone who lives in a place which, by her description, exactly fits our house. The teacher, realizing that what was being referred to was my mother, told her that she is friends with the occupants of the described house. Upon hearing that, my dad's Chinese wife simply turned her back and left.

As I was growing up, and she getting older, I sensed that my encounters would her were not as threatening to me as before. Probably because I knew I could already take on her (as in sabunutan) if she dare say anything bad about me, my sister or my mom. No such confrontation has ever happened. Truth is, somehow, through the passing of time, their acrimony towards us had ebbed, the same way that ours did too. When Uncle Tiong kim died, it was another occasion to meet (but not greet) each other. Again, my dad and uncle still had an existing feud when my uncle died and it was only then did papa reconciled with Kuya Henry, first born and new patriarch of the family. Incidentally, unlike my father's poor taste in picking names, my uncle had sense to name all his children after royalty or Greek gods: Elizabeth or Beth, Athena or Annie, Enrico or Henry, Katherine or Katyn and Richard. Ate Beth, Ate Annie and Kuya Richard are now all living in Florida.

Uncle Tiong kim would have been proud had he known I became a lawyer. In fact, I was already a lawyer before he died but I was never allowed to visit him when he was already sick. I simply dismissed it as something Chinese-the refusal to let others see you so sick and weak when you used to be respected and looked up to. When we were young, we gifted Papa a portrait of him when he was still young and with mama. He didn't seem so pleased when he received it and he explained to me that in Chinese, only those who are very old or successful are entitled to have portraits. Looking back, I realized my father didn't have much sense of humor and took himself too seriously. If he only knew how my being portraitphiliac, he would have realized how very un-Chinese I am.

Four Funerals and a Wedding: The Second Funeral (Part II)

As I wasn’t enrolled in a Chinese school, and didn’t have anyone to speak Chinese with, I was no Chinese, save for my surname. Though I completed Chinese 10 and 11 in college as language elective, my first initiation at being Chinese was at my Ama’s funeral, the second funeral.

Ama, who stayed with her eldest son, Uncle Tiong Kim, never got to learn to speak Tagalog or English. Anybody who saw Kris Aquino’s movie “Feng Shui� and saw how “Lotus Feet� walked would have an idea how I visualize my Ama, coming out of her room to greet me during me and my sister’s Christmas visits to her. She would give me some money, but most often fruits and would touch my face and hold my hands before telling me about my character. She never fails to say to me “ya-sui� which supposedly means “beautiful�, always accompanied by her loving face. Tita Rosa would interpret what my Ama would say in Fookien but not all, as she conveniently left out the details about Ama’s bashing of my dad’s Chinese wife in my presence. Nonetheless, it always seemed to me that she was comparing us with the “other� daughter-in-law and “other� grandchildren.

Ama died having a grudge against the “other� family. To think that my dad’s Chinese wife was a niece of my Ama. Her death came shortly after a neighborhood spectacle of a melee when my hostile elder half-sister Lima accused Kuya Henry and his sister Ate Katyn of “stealing� her customers. Boy, was that a shouting match. During Ama’s funeral, feuding or not, my papa and Uncle Tiong kim performed their duties to their mother by accomplishing all that has to be done, and performing all ceremonies that had to be performed. Upon Ate Katyn’s prodding and heeding her argument that I am an “apo� therefore I should be where all the “apos� are, I joined my cousins and half-sisters and half-brother in bowing to my Ama’s coffin and to the other ancestors, to the posing for the camera beside the coffin, wearing a red sash as a sign that I was immediate family and walking a few meters from Funeraria Paz in Misericordia to a nearby corner before boarding the vehicle to Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina where Ama is to be buried beside my Angkong. It felt good and it felt right. After all, I never had any doubt in my heart that Ama loved me and even when she was sick and blind, I was able to visit her a few days before she died and she touched my face, smiled and recognized me, and held my hand for a long, long time.

Angkong’s wife allowed Ama to be buried beside Angkong in the space which was meant for her. As few years after Ama’s death, Liwayway was buried alongside Angkong and Ama.

It was only upon her death when I found out that my grandmother’s name was Diu Ti li.

Four Funerals and a Wedding: The First Funeral (Part I)

I was a happy child, and even if I’ve seen gray clouds, I had a happy, well-provided for childhood. I was well adjusted and could deal with much of what came my way when I was young, so much so that probably, to my classmates then, it never really seemed that I was lacking something. Truth is, my parents separated when I was probably a little over one year old and certainly barely able to remember how it was to have a father in the house. Of course, precocious classmates noticed that my father never showed up in school, which was obvious since the school’s population was quite small and each grade level had only two sections with a little less than 30 students each.

So, when precocious classmates started asking where my father was, I threw the ball at my mom, who wittingly came up with an answer. She told me to tell them this:

“Nasa Hong Kong,
kasama si King Kong,
nagtatanim ng kangkong.�

And so, equally precocious little May, in pigtails and all started blaring to the world the “would pass as a limerick� answer.

As I vaguely remember much, I was told that I used to ask where my father was. My mom would tell me he’s in heaven and I would go on to ask for his phone number. When I was seven, I met my father not in heaven but several meters above ground, on the top deck of my uncle’s building.

I’ve always known my father is Chinese, which makes me a tsinoy. Even if he wasn’t around I knew my paternal grandparents (see Shoe Blues blog below), my father’s brother, his wife and my first cousins, and I must say I was well-loved by them. My Angkong’s love for me must have been so powerful that it was conveyed to me, without words, when he slipped on my feet the first piece of those little red shoes. I remember myself admiring those shoes as they stand slanted inside my shoe cabinet.

I vaguely remember his funeral.

Perhaps it was inevitable that I would eventually long for a father. I could understand but couldn’t accept why me and my sister could visit him in his upholstery store and show him our medals from school but he couldn’t do anything much. He wasn’t in the house, he didn’t call, and didn’t speak to our mother. And then, there was a woman, about ten years older than me and my sister who loathed us, spat at us, when we passed by in front of her furniture store. She said, “pwe, ang papangit!�, a remark which froze me as that was the first time, in all ten years of my life, that someone showed such anger and spite towards me. My sister, feistier than me, retorted, “mas pangit ka!� and I couldn’t agree more. That incident drove my mom to call my dad on the phone, angrier than I’ve seen her angriest and bewailing how we were treated. My Tita Rosa, my Uncle Tiong Kim’s wife and their daughter, Ate Katyn rushed to my mom’s side, and expressed anger over what happened. It was that incident and several others which eventually led me to find out where my dad was all along when I thought he was *really* in Hong Kong.

Angkong and Ama were originally from Fookien (Amoy), China. It was where my papa, Chua Tiong Kong and his elder brother Chua Tiong Kim and youngest brother Chua Tiong Te-a were born. While they were still young and after the fall of the Nationalists led by Chiang-Kai Chek, Angkong went to Manila and established a business in Marikina. He adopted the surname “Magante�, married a Filipina, whose name I forget, and became one of Marikina’s prosperous owners of shoe factories. Meanwhile, Ama and her children were still poor and also dreamed of setting foot in the Philippines. Ama, as evidenced with her very tiny feet, bound by cloth since infancy, was from a wealthy family but everything was taken away by the communists. Soon enough, in the 1950s, Tiong Kim set sail to Manila, learned to speak very fluent English (though still with the Mr. Shoo-li accent) and fraternized with affluent people. Shortly, Tiong Kong or Kong-a, Tiong Te-a or Te-a, along with their mama were also in Manila. It was never unknown to them that Angkong was already the patriarch of the Magante family, and apparently, all of them embraced their predicament, if only to stay longer and hopefully find a better life waiting for them in Fei-lu-bin guo. While the Magantes stayed in Marikina, the Chuas struggled in Binondo, Juan Luna and in Sampalucan, Caloocan, then a bustling furniture making district, who has among its pioneers, a self-made businessman and former farmer from Pandi, Bulacan, Leoncio Sandel.

Leoncio, at that time was one of the most, if not the most successful businessmen in Sampalucan. His factory was biggest and had the most number of people in his employ. He was married to the very industrious and frugal Basilia who complements the jovial and amiable character of Lucio. They had three daughter, Patricia, Lourdes and Erlinda, my mother, who was the only one who married among the three. Lucio and Basilia had one fault – they failed to foresee, or most likely, refused to acknowledge their mortality. They didn’t want their daughters to marry. They kept their daughters atop a then considered “high rise� three storey building, secluded and protected from any unworthy suitor. But no fortification can deter Kong-a, who upon laying his eyes on my mother, persistently pursued her, ligaw intsik, climbling over fences and roofs just to see her.

And so they were married. My father even had to be christened at our parish before the wedding cause he was Buddhist. I do not know why or how he became Teodoro Tan but that was his name that appears on my birth certificate. Tsinoys would know why and how he was “transformed from Chua or Choi to Tan or Chen.

My mother’s fairy tale ended just as Ms. Spain, Amparo Muñoz’ fairy tale as Miss Universe 1974 started. Taking advantage of the influx of tourists due to the Philippines’ hosting of the Miss Universe pageant, mother and daughter tandem, abandoned by my father at her daughter’s birth to escape his fixed marriage to his cousin, slipped into Manila and rained on Rapunzel a.k.a. my mom’s parade.

To make the long story short, my mom wouldn’t hear of any Magante-like arrangements and refused to take part in what she perceived to be a harem.

And so I found out that, all along “Hong Kong�, where my father supposedly was, was even less than a kilometer away.