My Manila: Binondo

 (Manila's China Town).

 

Every year I go to Binondo for the Chinese New Year’s celebrations. This year I wasn’t after the dragons and the lions. For that I recommend to visit my 2007 series here and my 2010 series here.

 
This time I just took the opportunity to walk around and do some street photography. We might encounter an occasional dragon but it was not the purpose of my walk to capture them. Did I mention already that it was a fun walk? 

It will be a photo essay in black and white which is quite unusual for me.

I love Binondo as it is one of the last authentic neighbourhoods of Manila. Alas the area is fast changing with high rise buildings mushrooming everywhere. I fear Binondo might lose its soul to modernity.Enjoy the walk.

 

Binondo is an enclave in Manila primarily populated by ethnic Chinese living in the Philippines. It is the oldest Chinatown in the world, established in 1594. Historically, this was where the Spanish permitted converted sangleys, their indigenous Filipino wives, and their mixed-race descendants, the mestizos de sangley or Chinese mestizos, to reside. Similarly, Parían, an area near Intramuros, was where the Spanish first restricted unconverted Chinese immigrants. They allowed sangley settlement at Parían because it was within the range of Intramuros' cannons, and they felt they could control any uprising from the labourers.

Located across the Pasig River from Intramuros, Binondo has typified a small Chinese town, and is referred to as the local "China Town". The district is the centre of commerce and trade for all types of businesses run by Filipino-Chinese merchants. Given the historic reach of Chinese trading in the Pacific, Binondo was already a hub of Chinese commerce before the first Spanish colonisers arrived in 1521.