Learning Culture through a Cool Tour... our Manila Chinatown trip

 Bayanihan Republic :

Manila Chinatown is really not a new place to me. In my college days, we always passed that route going to some of our classmates’ houses. When I worked in First Metro, where its Binondo branch is just beside the San Lorenzo Ruiz basilica, I also managed to frequent the place when I need to fix our company’s web content or attend meetings. And ironically, though I had many opportunities in the past, I never took the chance of knowing the famous place by heart. And I even got to explore offshore Chinese spots first (HK, Shenzhen, Sanya City and Shanghai) before knowing our very own Chinese heritage right at the heart of Manila.  Well, nothing’s too late in exploring. Thanks to the Manila Chinatown trip organized by our Confucius class, I had the chance to know the place, and the Chinese characters, better. =)

 Our first stop is lunch at Golden Fortune Seafood Restaurant.  We felt so bloated after eating steamed lapu-lapu, shrimp, Mandarin chicken, spinach, dimsum, hot and sour soup and yang chow fried rice!

Omar Laoshi was our official tour guide and Lin Na, being the class valedictorian, was able to read Chinese characters easily.  Right photo shows Lin Na reading the name of a Kung Fu school.

Then, we found out Mang Inasal has Chinese version! =)

A newspaper stand which we normally see in HK / China.  Meron din pala nito sa Binondo!  =)

After the long walk, we stopped at DVD and book shops.

 We just can't stop Romel Yisheng from buying Mandarin books at the Xinhua Bookstore! Go go Yisheng!

Yisheng and Ni Ca enjoying a Mandarin book for first graders. =)

Maobi equals blessing or suffering?

 Bayanihan Republic :

After hours of nosebleed at our Mandarin class, we slowed down a bit with Omar Laoshi (teacher in Mandarin) introducing the use of maobi (paintbrush) to write Chinese characters. Oh my, we thought it’s really stress-free, but it’s not! Aside from the fact that there’s a proper but uncomfortable technique on how to hold the paintbrush (which may lead to carpal tunnel syndrome hehe!), we felt disappointed seeing that our Laoshi’s work looks like a real calligraphy while our creations may have a hard time to be differentiated from vandalism! Haha =D Our Laoshi said, it just takes lots of practice. Oh well, I hope we’ll have the time to perfect not just our writing, but our speaking and listening skills as well or we’ll end up being anemic at the end of the term! =)