A city of contrast, Manila, is a hodgepodge of cultures, merging together the influences of its many foreign visitors and colonizers over the years.
Manila is not the Philippines. Manila is now divided into Metropolitan Manila and Manila Environs.
Metropolitan Manila has powerful reminders of Philippine past, along with attractive parks, fine museums, exhilarating nightlife and rapidly developing business suburbs. After decades of colonization by the Spanish, the remains of the Spanish architecture are a common sight, and it causes the Filipinos in metro manila to be greatly influenced by the Spanish culture as well.
Metro Manila is also where Makati is situated. Makati features more than half of metro Manila’s top restaurants, 200 high-rise office buildings and condominiums, 300 banks, 50 embassies and consulates, 25 airline offices and 20 department stores. What Makati has today can be traced back to the development foresight of the Zobel de Ayalas, an old family of Spanish descent who came up with the idea to develop Makati to be the new residential and business capital of Philippines.
Metro manila is also where Manila’s Chinatown is situated in. Manila’s Chinatown is granted for perpetual use to the Chinese Christian in 1594. It is a common sight to see traditional Chinese apothecary selling dried seahorses and ginseng tea huddles close to a modern bank outfitted with automatic doors and shotgun-toting guards. Chinese restaurants exist next to Italian furniture shops while illegal Chinese immigrants hawk cheap wares on the street. In traditional Chinese style, certain streets are known for selling a particular item. For example, Ongpin Street is the kind of gold and jade jewellery while Nueva Street offers office supplies. At Chinatown, it is also a common sight to see people burnt offerings and horse-drawn calesa which is actually passed down by the Ilocana people.
Some of the Chinese stone lions placed near entrances are also used to repel bad luck.
However, many of the city slums are found in Tondo.
Manila by night is a swinging town with distinctive colour, flavour, style, from discos and ballroom to movies bars and casinos. Though Makati and Quezon City are good for their nightlife, Malate now shines brightest under the moonlight of Manila.
Transportation as a means of culture in Metropolitan Manila
Several forms of transportation are available such as, tricycles, motor-taxis, multicabs, busses and boats. However, Jeepneys are the most popular and authentic transportation in Manila.
Jeepneys are an important form of transportation in Philippines and manila as well. They are as essential and ubiquitous as the double-decker buses in London. The jeepney will get you everywhere you want to go.
The use of jeepney began as the sensible recycling of surplus US army jeeps after World War ll. But today, it has grown into an institution of folk and pop art on wheels. No self-respecting jeepney driver would allow his beloved vehicle to crawl naked through the streets of Manila. The chrome bodies are either buffed to a shine or painted in vibrant colours. Religions slogans and graffiti are also used to decorate the exterior.
The jeepneys are so popular that it became part of their culture.
Culture in Manila Environs
Manila Environs is pretty devastated after World War II, and it has come a long way ever since then. Ruined barracks, 100-year-old mortars and deep memories are things which are left for the island after the war.
San Jose Church in Las Pinas is where one can see the world’s only bamboo organ built in 1821 and refurbished in 1975. It is being reverberated during the February’s Bamboo Organ Festival.
In the Laguna province, the 400 year old marriage between the conquista and the insular malay settlement is still tangible in polite forms of address, sweets and neat window flower boxes.
Mt Banahaw in Laguna province is known for its high quality footwear though larger, western sizes are often unavailable. Mt Banahaw is also home to many sects and faith healers.
On the southern shores of Laguna de Bay is an old Spanish trading town which is Laguan’s first capital simply called Bay. This helps to explain the Spanish name ‘Laguna de Bay’ which simple means Lake of the settlement called Bay.
Quezon province now aims to become the food basket of southern Luzon, pushing agriculture to the forefront and increasing milkfish production. Southeast is Lucena, the provincial capital of Quezon then further north, is Lucban. It is a provincial border town where it feels like it was only yesterday when the Spanish came and left. The church bells still peal at four in the morning.
During the festival of Pahiyas, all homes are decorated with the summer’s rich harvest plus rainbow-coloured sheets of kiping which are leaf impressions made of rice flour.
Thursday, December 9, 2010, 10:36 PM
