Year of the Fire Horse

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It is now the Year of the Fire Horse and the Filipino-Chinese community appears, at least to my perception, to have hung more red lanterns, Chinese knots, red paper banners, as well as firecracker hangings this year — perhaps hoping for a better and more prosperous new year after the Year of the Wood Snake that disappointingly slithered away, plagued by corruption and a weak economy.

SM Malls, as soon as the Christian Christmas officially ended with the Feast of the Three Kings, started transforming its decor from its Nutcracker theme to a canopy of red lanterns throughout its numerous malls all over the country.

SM Malls, in fact, appears to have bolted out of the gate already in anticipation of the Year of the Horse with its spate of constructions, especially at Megamall and Mall of Asia.

EDSA, from Megamall, has been ablaze with hundreds of red lanterns, up to PGA Cars which also festooned its trees in front of its luxury car displays with red glowing lanterns, giving drivers a pleasant sight, especially at night, as they inch their way through traffic.

The Coyuito-led PGA Cars, I’m sure, wants to speed up its car sales this year.

With the Chinese New Year celebrations over, those lanterns will soon come down and it will be back to the long procession of cars and buses navigating the traffic-filled EDSA.

Early this month, fruit vendors were already stocking up on round fruits with new Chinese grown oranges offering a different taste compared to what we mostly know as American oranges, as well as several types of melons, Chinese and Korean pears — the expensive pomegranates that have not fully captured the taste of Filipinos — blueberries, grapes and apples.

Another way to attract wealth adopted by more Filipinos is eating the traditional Chinese tikoy, which now comes in a wider variety of flavors and is now easily available in  most shopping malls.

Preparations for the Chinese New Year celebration Monday night surprisingly resulted in light traffic in Makati and Taguig, with activity centered in Binondo where celebrations to welcome the Year of the Fire Horse were held.

Close to midnight, I could already hear some fireworks as I wrote my column for today. However, even in the annual New Year celebration, I normally stay indoors to avoid inhaling the smoke from firecrackers and fireworks due to my asthma. I normally watch the new year festivities in the safety of an air-conditioned room and watch televised fireworks displays while I munch away on my 12 lucky fruits.

I must admit that I have never and will not venture out to Binondo in the evening even to experience the now more colorful celebration of the Chinese-Filipino New Year.

The problem and hassle of going to Binondo is the lack of adequate and safe parking facilities.

To be honest, Filipinos have only recently started to make a big thing of the Chinese New Year, which in my younger years, was really observed more by the Chinese-Filipino families in the Binondo area.

My own memories of Chinese New Year are celebrating lauriat banquets with my Chinese relatives and receiving angpaos from my Angkong and Amah.

What I regret the most was that I never had a photo taken with my paternal Amah, who had small bound feet, that showed her unique feature. I have photos taken with her, but cropped just below her knees.

In the 1960s, my Amah had a small circle of friends and relatives who all had varying sizes of feet and at the time, it just seemed normal and did not have to be recorded for posterity. Who knew that history would be lost.

In recent years, more Filipinos now like to join the Chinese New Year celebration in Binondo, especially as more Chinese-Filipino families have become affluent and are now among the true shakers and movers of the Philippine economy, led by the family of the late Henry Sy, as well as the Gokongwei clan, Andrew Tan and Lucio Tan, to name just a few.

Nowadays, Filipinos have whole-heartedly embraced the practice of angpao or traditional red envelope giving — wink, wink!

With the Fire Horse expected to be a more dynamic year, local businesses are hoping that the economy will indeed gallop toward a more productive and prosperous path.

On the other hand, the Fire Horse could also symbolize another volatile year for the government, especially with President Marcos, whose Chinese zodiac symbol is the Rooster — who can have either a neutral or challenging, volatile and intense interaction with the Horse.

The symbolic danger, thus, this year lies in the fact that Vice President Sara Duterte’s Chinese zodiac symbol is the Horse — even more significantly, the Fire Horse appears to be the fitting imagery for the feisty VP.

Recent political maneuvers may come to a head this year and may end up hurting the economy again.

Recognizing this, there has been another move to hold another a Trillion Peso march to commemorate the Feb. 25 EDSA People Power Revolution that had previously toppled the father of our current president.

Unfortunately, there is a spectrum of political parties who want to exploit and push their own agenda. Hopefully, the Fire Horse will not symbolize a fiery clash or showdown.

But forgive my cheeky symbolism, Filipino horses which are not native to our country and were either brought to the country from Malaysia and surrounding countries — thus, the smaller “pony” size — do not really evoke the energy and strength of the much larger foreign horses.

In fact, when I still see some “kalesas” for hire in Intramuros and Binondo, I tend to pity the small over-burdened, skinny and obviously not well-cared horses/ponies.

I could say the same for our current political climate, I don’t see a thrilling horse fight in the offing — just a tired old beast of burden trying to plod on.