A Business Graduate's Random Blog on History and Gossip

I could recall Asian history to be a fascinating and frustrating subject. Chinese history would have the names be that easy to memorize though I never knew pinyin at that time. What was often taught in Philippine-Chinese schools was still the zhuyin, not the pinyin. It was common to mispronounce names in Chinese. Yet, memorizing the names like Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai Shek would be easier than memorizing certain Asian names and surnames that can be very hard to pronounce. A good example would be Indian history. Try going to a Buddhist temple and ask if any person there could pronounce the names of their gods or saints in the Indian language. Sure, it would be very easy to pronounce Gayatri and Manjushri but can one pronounce names such as Avalokitesvara, Ksitigharba, and Samantabhadra. If asked for the history of Siddharta Gautama, they might even have a hard time pronouncing the names Mahamaya, Prajapati, and Sudhodhana. I could remember some Indian kings had names like Chandragupta

  Studying Philippine history, it's often said that Filipinos are a mixture of mostly Malaysians and Indonesians. There's also the Out of Taiwan theory. I'm inclined to believe that the Taiwanese aborigine tribes are basically from Malaysian and Indonesian settlers. Maybe, some of the Malaysians and Indonesians who were in Taiwan decided to settle in the Philippines.  Most Filipinos would identify themselves as Malay . The Hokkien word  huan na  shouldn't be limited to Filipinos alone but also to most Southeast Asians of  non-Chinese descent.  Maybe, I will call Taiwanese indigenous people  huan na  as well. The  International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA)  also spells out these names that would sound  very similar  to Filipino tribes : The Orang Asli, the Orang Ulu and the Anak Negeri peoples As of 2017, the Indigenous Peoples of Malaysia were estimated to account for around 13.8% of the 31,660,700 million national population. They are collectively known as

Taiwan Insight  I wrote about Ifugao OFWs in Taiwan . Another article I wrote was about  linking Taiwan aborigines and Filipino aborigines . I visited the Taiwan Insight website and found an interesting article about revitalizing indigenous weaving . This would be an interesting thing when Ifugaos are now going to Taiwan to find new ways of indigenous weaving: Seeking Alternatives through Overseas Experience Through weaving revitalisation, traditional textiles become part of the cultural identity of these Indigenous peoples. More young Indigenous people appreciate their weaving culture and want to learn weaving techniques. However, it is strenuous to weave consistently as a weaver. Weaving is considered to be a highly labour-intensive task. Traditional weaving tools cause health problems, including backache, tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, and impaired eyesight. In addition, it is hard to find a tutor to teach weaving due to the declining number of weavers and the continuous loss o

In my random informal study of indigenous tribes, I want to further learn more about the different indigenous tribes of Taiwan  where I seek to trace them to the Philippines . Another tribe is known as the Taroko tribe in Taiwan. There's the Taroko National Park which may remind Filipinos of places like the Mountain Province in Nueva Ecija. There's the Out-of-Taiwan theory which says many of the Filipino natives came from Taiwan. The travels of the Austronesians aren't so easy to trace. The song in the video is called 太魯閣之戀 (Tài lǔ gé zhī liàn) meaning Love of Taroko in English. The song mixes Mandarin and the Taroko language.  I find the song to be rather enchanting. The beats would feel similar to Filipino indigenous dances. A post I wrote compared Filipino aborigine songs with Taiwanese aborigine songs . The song uses some very indigenous language like li mei su la yo. I think la yo here is spelled as layo. Layo is also a word that appears in several Filipino languages.

I could remember writing about the seven words that all mean Mandarin . There was confusion about what Mandarin was in Chinese. The Chinese language subject is often referred to as 华语 (huá yǔ) which was referred to as hua gu in Hokkien. Hokkien Chinese may have used the word lan nang to literally mean "our people". Today, the ethnic Chinese not in China are 华人 (huá rén) or hua lang in Hokkien. Personally, I want to refer to myself as a hua lang than a lan nang. Now, the meaning of Mandarin does have a European origin. As languages evolve and get accepted, it's no surprise that the word Mandarin isn't of Chinese origin. Instead, The Atlantic offers this insight into the origin of the word Mandarin: This one word encapsulates an entire colonial history. In the 16th century, Portuguese explorers were among the first Europeans to reach China. Traders and missionaries followed, settling into Macau on land leased from China’s Ming dynasty rulers. The Portuguese called the

  May 5, 1999, was when Cebu City's trial of the decade supposedly ended. There was massive panic when two days after the Chiong sisters, Jacqueline and Marijoy went missing,; a body was found in the ravine of Carcar. Some doubt that the body was really the late Marijoy Jimenea Chiong. In my opinion, the body was hers since nobody has claimed the body. I would like to blog on what I'd call the mistrial of the decade in Cebu City. Although the late Judge Martin Ocampo may be gone, what he did was definitely highlighted in the documentary Give Up Tomorrow . After writing a review of Give Up Tomorrow --I feel the story is far from over as the seven wrongfully tagged suspects continue to remain in the guilty status. It's hard to believe that  Francisco Juan Gonzalez Larrañaga aka Paco  was innocent. I could remember dropping my jaw, doing some Internet research,  and finding the documentary Give Up Tomorrow . The judge himself was described by Mrs. Mimi Larrañaga-Syjuco as a ve

Did you know Buddhism came from India instead of China? Notice the names in Buddhism such as Avalokitesvara, Samantabhadra, Ksitigarbha, and Manjushri, and the founder's name is Siddhartha Gautama. Those are obviously very Indian names, aren't they? Yet, it seems that Buddhism has left Indian culture behind in India. In Hinduism, Gautama Buddha is considered one of Vishnu's ten avatars. A TV series known as Buddha by ZEE TV was created. The cast met with the 14th Dalai Lama, Gyalwa Rinpoche, who is often nicknamed the Buddhist Pope. The TV series was also dubbed in Mandarin. Yet, what amazes me is that Buddhists tend to abandon Indian culture behind.  The very evidence can be with how Buddhist temples are designed by Chinese Buddhists. Rather than designing them like Hindu temples--they're designed to look like Taoist temples. I find it not surprising how many Taoist temples in Cebu are mistakenly labeled as Buddhist temples. Some tend to think that Buddhism and Taoism