THESE are tenuous times in our relationship with the mainland Chinese.
My social-media feed has rants against Chinese tourists, Chinese workers, and their seemingly unpleasant behavior, disagreeable manners and loud speaking voices.
The diatribes against China are not isolated to just social media. Even the talk among the common folk is rife with tirades against the Chinese workers who have allegedly come to take our jobs. Mang Poldo, a taxi driver who ferried me recently to my destination in Manila, wondered how the Chinese workers on a bridge project could live in a condominium.
I said, he might be mistaken, and these were workers perhaps in an online gaming company who, our sources said, may number close to 300,000 for the entire industry. (The Bureau of Immigration and the Department of Labor and Employment recently disclosed issuing some 84,000 special work permits and about 55,000 alien employment permits to Chinese citizens. Many of these Chinese workers come in as tourists, and then become workers.)
“Ay hindi ho, ma’am. Mga trabahador ho sila. Ang dudumi nga at gusgusin, ayoko sana isakay. Tapos nagpahatid sa condo dyan [points toward a building in Pasay]. Paano kaya nila nababayaran ’yan kung P500 kada araw lang sweldo nila?”
Mang Poldo has a conspiracy theory: He thinks all these Chinese workers are sleeper soldiers and when the time comes, they will take over the country. “Parang nung panahon ng Hapon! Di po ba ang dami ding Hapon nun, tapos nung giyera na, mga koronel at mga sundalo pala sila. Ganyan din ’yang mga Intsik. Patay! Mag-takeover na sila.”
(It’s probably a stretch, but under this administration, anything and everything has become possible. So who knows really?)
It’s just disheartening that it has to come to this. In our frustration over our government’s inaction toward Chinese intrusions, whether it be territorial or in our economy, our usually welcoming and hospitable nature toward foreigners has turned to hostility, tinged with—dare I say it?—racism.
(It’s shameful, I know. Even I sometimes become filled with slight rage when hearing a group of Chinese tourists boisterously chattering in the mall or in a dining spot. During these times, I always try to remind myself how loud we Filipinos sometimes are when we are also overseas. And because foreigners don’t understand our language, some just think we’re a bunch of noisy brats and throw us looks of contempt.)
On Facebook alone, there are photos, for instance, about Chinese tourists letting their kids or infants poop in the middle of Mall of Asia, or in the white sands of Boracay. There is an anecdote about a bossy Chinese ordering people in an elevator to push the button to his floor in a building. (No one does, and the guy remains in the lift after everyone else had reached their respective floors.) There is a post about a Chinese restaurant in Las Piñas shooing away Filipino customers. And in Boracay, there are complaints about Chinese restaurants mushrooming like shiitakes, with their signs and menus all in some Chinese language.
Unfortunately, I can’t offer solutions on how to address our own behavior toward the Chinese. I am struggling myself, trying not to lump all of them in the “unruly” category, because intellectually I know they do not all behave the same way. I have met a lot of courteous and pleasant Chinese citizens. There was a time in Beijing I got confused in the subway and didn’t know what train to take to my destination, and I approached a woman, and she drew everything on paper as she couldn’t speak English well. I was ever so grateful to her!
But we do need to rein in some of our contempt because I think it’s become unhealthy. For us to live harmoniously with other citizens of the world, we have to be more understanding and more compassionate toward others. It is the very basic foundation of Christian living.
It’s difficult, but perhaps being aware of our seemingly xenophobic bent will make us strive harder to think first, instead of letting our emotions rule any unwelcome situation with Chinese citizens, or with other races or nationalities for that matter. (Not all of us have welcoming attitudes toward Koreans and African-Americans either.) Part of the problem is also because they don’t speak English, and so perhaps, what could appear as hostility, may only just be them trying to make themselves be understood to us who don’t speak their language.
But in the other aspects, such as local employment, the government does have to act immediately to keep more Filipinos on the payroll. Our unemployment rate is 5.2 percent, while the underemployment rate is a staggering 15.6 percent; the latter means there are many of us working less than 40 hours a week. Those numbers will expectedly rise in April and May as young people graduate and try to join the work force.
Perhaps a review of the visa procedures for Chinese tourists are in order, and work permits should only be issued to those who are going for jobs that cannot be certifiably fulfilled by locals. Such a system is followed in the US, the UK, and other countries. There is wisdom in patterning our own work visa procedures after them.
Needless to say, when they have broken laws or violated regulations, the authorities must hold them accountable.