Enduring fears: the monstrosity of Chinese Filipinos in Chito Roño’s Feng Shui (2004)

ABSTRACT

This paper examines enduring fears and anxieties about ‘Chineseness’ that widely and persistently circulate in the Philippine cultural imaginary. Chinese Filipinos have historically been implicated in a prejudicial politics of recognition within the Philippine postcolonial state, which has attempted to forge a national identity through problematic notions of ethnic and cultural purity. To undermine what Franz Fanon calls the pitfalls of national consciousness, scholars have often turned to concepts such as syncretism and hybridity, which celebrates heterogeneity and diversity as it opposes essentialism and purity. The agenda of this paper, however, is to examine the forces that generate obstacles to an affirmative politics of cultural assimilation and belonging. Toward that goal, we offer a symptomatic reading of the film Feng Shui (2004), which we suggest condenses anxieties about Chineseness that circulate in the Philippine cultural imaginary, anxieties that amplify difference and potentially undermine the reparative force of hybridity.

KEYWORDS:

• Chinese Filipino
• ethnic Chinese
• Southeast Asia
• haunting
• Philippine nationalism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. For example, Hau’s The Chinese Question, closely interrogates the issue of being Chinese in the Philippines.

2. Drichel, “The Time of Hybridity,” 587.

3. Kuortti and Nyman, “Hybridity Today,” 3.

4. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 5.

5. Collins, “Time Bubbles of Nationalism,” 386.

6. Uytanlet, “The Hybrid Tsinoys,” 100.

7. Baytan, “Sexuality, Ethnicity, and Language,” 396.

8. Hau, “The Chinese Question,” 134.

9. Dervin, Interculturality in Education, 46.

10. Cense, “Sanggalea,” 107.

11. Uytanlet, “Pride and Prejudice,” 58.

12. Santiago, “At The End of the Rainbow,” 81.

13. Weightman, “Changing Patters of Internal and External Migration,” 84.

14. Velasco, “The Contingencies of Chinese Diasporic Identities,” 341.

15. Chu, “Strong(er) Women and Effete Men,” 369.

16. Ibid., 372.

17. Ibid.

18. Mydans, “Kidnapping of Ethnic Chinese Rises,” 3.

19. Chu, “Strong(er) Women and Effete Men,” 372–3.

20. See, “Images of Chinese in the Philippines,” 124.

21. Hau, “Who Will Save Us from the Law,” 136.

22. See, “Dimensions of Economic Success,” 137.

23. Capistrano and Bernardo, “Mother Knows Best,” 224.

24. Hau, “Conditions of Visibility,” 492.

25. Chu, “Strong(er) Women and Effete Men,” 366.

26. Hau, “Conditions of Visibility,” 499.

27. Sanchez, “Kris Aquino and/as a Philippine Horror Genre,” 135.

28. Ibid., 134.

29. Bumgärtel, “Asian Ghost Film vs. Horror Movie,” 8.

30. The prominent juxtaposition of Christian religious symbols and iconographies with Chinese imageries highlights the distinctly hybridized aspect of Chinese Filipinos. Chee Kiong Tong illumines that the Chinese in the Philippines ‘exhibit characteristics that are different when compared to the Chinese in other Southeast Asian countries.’ For some Chinese Filipinos, religion is a hybridized affair with an ‘intermixing of traditional Chinese Taoist and Buddhist practices with Christian beliefs and rituals.’

31. Pratt, “Arts of the Contact Zone,” 40.

32. See and See, “The Rise of China, New Immigrants and Changing Policies,” 281.

33. Ibid., 281.

34. See, “Images of the Chinese in the Philippines,” 138.

35. Jose, “Can we still Trust America?”

36. Pimentel, “Why F. Sionil Jose is Wrong on Chinese Filipinos.”

37. Hau, “On F. Sionil Jose’s Antiquated Racial Nationalism.”

38. Claudio, ”‘Filipino’ is Not a Race.”

39. Lagahid and Puyo, “‘Sugboanon’ Taras,” 74.

40. Sanchez, “Kris Aquino and the/as Philippine Horror Genre,” 136.

41. Black, “Monsters, Midgets, Politicians, and Superheroes,” 78.

42. Ibid., 134.

43. Ibid., 136.

44. Juranovsky, “Trauma Reenactment in the Gothic Loop.”

45. Ancuta, “Communal After-Living,” 174.

46. Byron, “Where Meaning Collapses,” 33.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joseph Ching Velasco

Joseph Ching Velasco, Ph.D. is a faculty member of the Department of Political Science and Interim Editor-in-Chief of the Asia-Pacific Social Science Review based in De La Salle University, Manila. He is currently pursuing further studies in international relations and public policy at the University of Macau. His works have appeared in journals such as Kritika Kultura and Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities. His research interest includes Chinese Filipinos, Sino-Philippine Relations, Work Ethic, and Burnout.

Jeremy De Chavez

Jeremy De Chavez, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Macau. His work has found print in journals such as Critical Arts, JMMLA, ANQ, Kritika Kultura, Kemanusiaan, and Food, Culture, & Society. While his research and teaching areas are primarily in Postcolonial Studies, Global Anglophone Literature, and Critical/Cultural Theory, he is committed to being a strategic generalist with wide-ranging interests across literary periods, genres, and cultural forms.