March L Fianza
For the Chinese, 2011 is the Year of the Rabbit, the fourth animal in the 12-year cycle of the Chinese Zodiac. But before we talk about that, this space reprint parts of commentaries by Dr. Teresita Cheng Yu, about two books written by his uncle Engr. Richard L. Cheng of Trancoville,Baguio City and Nevada, USA.
Dr. Yu is the Medical Director of West Valley Center for Asian Medicine and Acupuncure and Snow Lotus Herbal Center.
Engr. Cheng, the author of Valley of Peace and The Day the Crickets Stopped Singing is the brother of Dr. Charles L. Cheng, Medical Director of the Baguio Filipino-Chinese General Hospital, M. Roxas St., Baguio City, Philippines and the author of Pesticides and Hazardous Effects on the Benguet Vegetable Farmers, 1993.
I asked permission from Engr. Cheng to use Dr. Yu’s statements about his books, parts of which I edited. Here goes:
“His first book, Valley of Peace, is a simple and easy book to read. Some may say, it is a children’s book belonging to the genre of folktales and fables. So be it. To me, it is much, much more.
The stories echo the voices of our forefathers. They teach us the lessons of humanity. They bring to life the sceneries of old. The ‘Ancients’ I think will give this book a grin and an encouraging nod. I myself, upon reading this book, was reminded of my grandfather Kungkung.
The Day the Crickets Stopped Singing, Uncle Richard’s second book, belongs to a different genre altogether. It is the story of a family – our family.
Reading the book transported me to a different time and place, a generation before we were born. It is a book with many voices, young and old, in a time of great turmoil and change. It is a story of survival, of love, of dreams, of togetherness and individual responsibility.
I hear the voices of my grandparents, my young mother, my aunts and uncles telling of their experiences of growing up in Baguio amidst the tragedy of war and the hope for peace.
What a wonderful surprise to find PoPo’s recipes! Just as I thought they were lost to our generation, lo and behold, this book resurrected them. I do remember grandma’s nine-layered cake. So that’s how you make it! And my Mom’s favorite taro root cake, what a delight.
Just for my grandma’s recipes, this book is a gem. What’s more, there are stories within the stories as told by my grandparents. I can hear their voices and realize how much I miss them. I am indeed so grateful that their legacy will forever live in this book.
I fancy myself an extensive reader, inspired by my mother. I began reading epic novels in the fifth grade and have not stopped since. Indeed, in each book, I always learned something new.
In my readings, I have yet to come across a book that uses so much symbolism as this one. I learned the symbolism of fruits! Thanks to this book, I will not eat a peach the same way again. Nor will I drink the sixth cup of tea at the office without thinking that I am now drinking with the immortals!
In my heart, I have always known that my family is special, that I am special. So it’s true, I come from a long line of great ancestry, from Admiral Zheng He to General Cheng Xing Kung. My name is Teresita Cheng Yu. I am the second daughter of Ah San in the book. I belong to the 26th generation of the Cheng clan.
I give my uncle Richard three bows – one for each book and the third to thank him for this great endeavor.”
I have read Valley of Peace. It is a collection of short stories based on old Chinese tales that are suited for children as a reading material in the classroom, and for adult readers because it leaves lessons that only mature readers may recognize. It also includes original stories by Engr. Cheng.
I met Richard Cheng more than a year ago when he came home to launch Valley of Peace. My uncle, the late Joseph L. Fianza was his school mate and playmate in Trancoville.
***
Now we talk about the rabbit. The rabbit years are 1915, 1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999 and 2011. My first encounter with the rabbit was when I was a young boy, when I used to buy the white rabbit candy at one centavo per piece.
Then I saw my first rabbit when my father bought a pair. So first, it was a candy, then the real animal… now we have rabbit persons.
Famous people born in the Year of the Rabbit were Albert Einstein, Frank Sinatra, Pope Benedict the XVI, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Tiger Woods, Sting, Whitney Houston, Harry Belafonte, Bob Hope, Roger Moore, Tatum O'Neal, Jane Seymour, among a thousand others.
Rabbits make model diplomats or politicians, according to Atty. Cristeta Leung who introduced the Rabbit to the media in a presscon at the Hotel Supreme of Peter and Ivy Ng.
According to Chinese astrologers, what makes the rabbit unique is its nature in doing things, including sex. What I knew was that rabbits have a lot of sex. In fact they hump on anything they encounter, including chickens.
And so, North Korea decided to take advantage of this scientific fact and is encouraging its people to breed rabbits for food because of that. In one news item in a Korean paper, it said that rabbit farms have been built to increase parent rabbits that have very high or unusually high fertility rate and grow fast and produce much meat with less feed.
When asked if rabbit meat is good to eat, Dr. Cheng said that aside from the fur that fashion designers get, the government once upon a time during the Marcos era, made rabbit meat a supplementary diet as this is highest in protein.
I remember in the 70s, there was this restaurant-bakery in Burnham, Baguio called Bussurca (I forgot what the acronym stood for) that served rabbit burgers.
According to Chinese astrologers, rabbit persons, like the animal, are graceful and get on well with others. They are reserved ‘creatures’ and are happy when they are involved in intellectual works. The ‘rabbit’ stresses the significance of small details and pay attention to color and design, food taste and everything but live a conservative lifestyle.
‘Rabbits’ are easily moved by problems of others and they cry easily too. This makes them sentimental and compassionate. So that salesmen have much better luck with rabbit people as customers who will definitely buy their products.
By the way, Baguio is the only city in the Philippines that officially celebrates the Chinese Spring Festival (Chinese New Year). Hence, Malacanang is studying the possibility of declaring it a national event. That is a development worth following up.
But whatever the astrologers foretell, do not put full trust on the personality of the rabbit because the person, whether born in the year of the Rabbit or not, controls his own fate. And the astrologers’ predictions are effectively for amusement and are not meant to replace your natural talent on decision-making. – marchfianza777@yahoo.com
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