Book Review: ZAMBOANGA REMEMBERED

by: Mike Baños

March 21, 2008

Author: Cesar Lee Imago Press, 146 pages Publisher: Leila Joiner

"I've recently published a memoir entitled Zamboanga Remembered. The author, Cesar Lee, writes about his experiences as a child growing up in the Magay district of Zamboanga City during the 1930's and 1940's, a period that covers both the Depression and the Japanese invasion of WWII. This is a child's-eye view and covers much of the daily life of the area for that era."

With those words in an email message, a world in my past I thought I had all but forgotten, was once more opened, thanks to a wonderful lady named Leila Joiner and her Imago Press, which published Cesar Lee's memoirs of his childhood in the place of both our youths.

I came across Ñor Cesar's book when Ms. Joiner emailed me about it, having seen my name and email address in Zamboanga.com, the online resource for Zamboanga. She offered to send me a copy if I did a review of it, and would I? Wow, a chance to relive the Zamboanga of the childhood days of my father Rene and mom Nena! I told her I would be very happy to do it, thank you very much, though book reviews aren't really my forte.

The Zamboanga that Cesar Lee reminisces about, from 1932 when he was born, to his departure for Tucson, Arizona in 1951, is as far removed from the Zamboanga I knew as a child and adolescent, growing up there from 1958 to 1981 when I moved away for good to Cagayan de Oro.

Yet, having both spent our youth there, albeit two decades and a half apart, we still share many of the same memories growing up in this extraordinary place we both deep in our hearts shall forever know as home.

The places Ñor Cesar reminisces about, the Burleigh School (Central School to me), the pantalan (pier), Fort Pilar, Rio Hondo, Moret Field (as the old airport road, where we used to live and where I spent the greater part of my young life, used to be called) and especially his ancestral home in Magay street, I imagine were pretty much the way they were for my generation, though perhaps Magay would forever remind me of billiards, because that's where our high school gang would walk to (to save on the 25 centavo jeepney fare) from the Normal School (already renamed State College during our time) so we can have more mesadas, or games, of pool at the Olympic Billiard Hall.

Very much like Ñor Cesar, our family had Chinese blood on both sides of our family. Although my Lolo Pantaleon Baños, who was appointed deputy provincial governor of Basilan province shortly after the Liberation, was three-quarters Castellano (Spanish, his father Julian Baños was a surveyor for the Spanish Army from Seville, Spain while his mother Felipa Lorenzo was a mestiza), my Lola Maling's father Jose Espinosa, better known as Que Kiala of Isabela, Basilan was from Amoy, in present-day Fujian province in China. My Maternal Lolo Lorenzo Jr.'s father was also obviously Chinese (Maximino Lee Desembrana of Mauban, Quezon) while my Nanay Ester's Maternal Great Grandfather Quentin Hee Yong Ko (later hispanized to Jiongco) of Navotas, Rizal was also from Amoy).

What's the point of going through three quarters of my family tree? Hey, look inside any Zamboangueño (even those of us who are often mistaken for foreigners in our own country) and you will invariably find traces of our Chinese ancestry. Unlike Ñor Cesar's father Percy, our Lola Maling, Lolo Lorenzo and Nanay Ester had long ceased speaking Fukienese and preferred to converse in English and their dialect, Chavacano for Lola Maling and Tagalog for my mother Nena's parents.

But Chinese friends who still spoke the old dialect as well as Mandarin were in our neighborhood aplenty, and just across Barcelona street where we used to have our apartment lived the numerous siblings of the Bangayan clan and their neighbor the Wee's, one of whom was nicknamed Pating (Shark!). I should ask Fr. Buds Wee, S.J. about that nickname someday.

Even in school and the old main street of Guardia Nacional were dominated by Filipino-Chinese businessmen. I remember the ABC Bakery nearby and Wellington's Clothier and New Life Trading where we used to have our trousers sawn.

But we digress from Zamboanga. Like Ñor Cesar, I wasn't only a boy scout, but a cub scout as well. And being one in the Normal School meant that because of our relatively small classes, we received a more intensive training in the skills and knowledge of being one, even to getting to Dapitan, some 500 kms. away, when I was only around nine, to earn a merit badge for the Dapitan Trek. Camping at the Pasonanca (spelled today with a c instead of a ck) Park was almost a weekly affair, and I learned the finer points of not only knot tying but pioneering as well (setting up monkey bridges, towers and other structures with bamboo and abaca rope). Our Scout Master, the late Mr. Estipona, originally came from the Chong Hua Chinese School, was an excellent teacher, as were his students. Alas, for all the camping and trekking I did as a Boy Scout, I never did scale Mt. Pulumbato (we stand corrected, thanks to our former Mindanao Today news editor Bing Puno, who now calls Texas home) .

And yes, like the youngsters of his youth, our gang in Moret Field, Baliwasan also indulged in tiempos like biking, smoking (we tried all sorts of home-made cigarettes like those made from dried leaves of the Lomboy or papaya trees), kite flying with fighting charanggolas, trompos (spinning tops) and biben (yoyos), pitikan (slingshots), peashooters, hiringga during San Jan, movies, fighting cocks and of course food!

Alto magirada! I recalled always pronouncing it as marigada instead of magirada! Probably just one of the reasons by our Castellano padres were mortified with the way their noble tongue was barbarized, thence the reason why they looked down on Chavacano (or Chabacano, if our compoblano Antonio Enriquez had his way) as a bastardized form of Spanish, when in fact it was not, but is a living language of its own, its 70% Spanish content notwithstanding, with other contributions from Fukien and other dialects which at one time or another were in vogue in Zamboanga, including Ingles, Japon, Bisaya, Illongo and many more.

Christmas in Zamboanga as a child remains vivid to me as it was to Ñor Cesar, with the setting up of the Christmas tree and lights as welcome an event as it was to him. Not only did we have Chinese for neighbors, but our next door neighbors in the apartment were from Bombay, being the Parmanand family of the Calcutta Bazaar. I can't forget even 'till today the way Mr. Pama used to set up in the middle of the street full of exploding firecrackers on New Year's Eve, to set up his kwitis (baby rocket) in a coke bottle and light it.

I let out a particularly loud guffaw when I came to the section about unwanted carolers or pastores, as we called them. I didn't realize there were already too many of them even during the 1930's, and if anything, the problem has even multiplied in scale! But the good memories always outweigh the bad, and I had particularly fond memories of the cumbancheros, unlicensed carolers who usually were older folks who came by later at night with their harmonicas and drums made of bamboo tubes with one end tied with rubber tube "skins" and specialized in "instrumental" Christmas carols.

Besides Ñor Cesar's book, I was also curious about Imago Press, his publisher, which was started in 2002 by Leila Joiner, when she was taking a creative writing class, and the teacher wanted the people in his class to publish a book of their work. The class was sponsored by The OASIS Institute, a national non-profit organization devoted to ongoing education for people over 50.

"OASIS has centers in 26 US cities. The book was a success, and the following year we went national with it (the first issue was local to Tucson AZ). Thus the OASIS Journal was born, which rapidly grew from a modest 100 pages to over 350 pages annually of short fiction, short non-fiction, and poetry by writers over 50," Ms. Joiner said.

"I'm 71, and have been writing on and off myself since I was a child, so I know how difficult it is for older people to get published, especially if they've never been published before. So it just seemed natural to focus on older writers. I chose the name of the press with that in mind: "imago" is the adult form of an insect, like a butterfly, for example. Hence my logo, a butterfly inside the AZ state outline," she added.

Well, bless your heart Leila Joiner! Even just for Cesar Lee's Zamboanga Remembered, you'd provided us migrants to other places a reason to remember and perhaps visit Zamboanga again, one of these days. Muchas gracias, Ñor Cesar y Ñora Leila! Dios te bendiga!

recuerdos de ayer...

Back Row: Ricardo, Francisco, Luciano
Front Row: Cesar, Carmen, Sofia, Teresa
 

Standing (left to right):
Teresa (Teresing), Luciano, Cesar, Ricardo
Seated: Sofia (Pia), Yon (Percy), Concha, Carmen
(Taken in the Philippines around 1946)
 

Yon (Percy) and Concha