Our special Chinese New Year Edition will begin at 8am on the dot from the Binondo church on the edge of Chinatown. We reach the purple fire truck at 8:02am but can’t see a tour group anywhere ~ they weren’t joking about’ on the dot!’ While I make a couple of quick calls, my two teenage companions discover a basket full of fluffy chicks, dyed a multitude of bright colours. There are even some tiny, finger-nail-sized quail chicks ~ the Chinese version of Easter eggs. Luckily I track down our tour guide before I find myself having to rescue fifty psychedelic chicks, and we dash down the road to find our guide, Ivan Man Dy, and our tour begins…
Tour numbers can vary from six to twenty six. We are a monster-sized group of forty five for this special edition and I wonder how Ivan can possibly navigate the bustling New Year’s crowds without losing anyone. But Ivan is a pro.To quote his website: ‘conceptualized, manufactured, bred and educated in the city of Manila, Ivan is the feet behind Old Manila Walks.’
Our first gathering place is the New Po Heng Lumpia, a pink, al fresco restaurant hidden at the end of a wide corridor beside the HSBC Bank. Here we are served a little local history with our lumpia or spring rolls that originated in the northern Chinese province of Fujian or Hokkien. Lumpia are quite different from the bite-sized, deep fried spring rolls popular in most Asian restaurants. Made with pork, shrimp, lettuce, dried seaweed and crushed peanuts, this fresh spring roll are typically bigger and more savoury than its smaller, better known cousins, and is wrapped in a light rice flour wrapper that must be eaten straight away, after dipping it in a combination of vinegar, hot chilli sauce and a thick, warm, sweet sauce. Lumpia are made to celebrate the Spring Festival (we know it as Chinese New Year), hence the name ‘spring roll’.
Chinatown is just over the Pasig River from Intramuros, on the edge of Divisoria. Our tour meanders through its crowded, narrow streets with their distinct flavour of the Orient. On this, the first day of the Chinese New Year, red dominates, and miniature pineapples hanging in the centre of kiat-kiat wreaths are strung across the alleyways as symbols of wealth and prosperity. Street kids are also on the look-out for wealth and prosperity, but they are not at all insistent, pausing only to tap and nudge and hold out their hands pleadingly. Firecrackers burst our eardrums at regular intervals, and it is wise to be wary as they spit and smoke with unexpected vigour.
Our guide leads us skillfully through the New Year revelers to a narrow, rather dingy little side street where a small gem of a restaurant is tucked away in a quiet back corner. Dong Bei Dumpling can seat twenty people at four laminate tables with plastic chairs. Forty five keen foodies squeeze into every available nook and cranny. Popular with bloggers, the best thing about this tiny restaurant is being able to watch the dumplings made from scratch, or as our guide tells us, ‘lovingly crafted within these four walls by hands.’ The cooks perch precariously around a small table in the window, jostled by the crowd, rolling out circles of dough, and delving into 3 mounds of filling for this northern style dim sum. Two bowls of sauce are brought to each table with a glass full of what looks like metal knitting needles. Very soon, plates of freshly poached dumplings arrive and are quickly gobbled up – at least as quickly as I can manage. Trying to catch a slippery dumpling with knitting needles is no easy task, especially when we are wedged in so tightly. Finally someone loses patience with my fumbling attempts, and tells me firmly to ‘stab it!’
Chinese dragon
Our next stop is at a rather roomier restaurant on the first floor, with a great view over the street. Below us the crossroads is buzzing with excited crowds and Chinese dragon dancers, shaggy-headed Chinese lions gamboling amongst the onlookers and lady-boy dancers strutting their stuff. Staff serve us a simple soup of fish balls and cabbage and a bowl of Hokkien style fried rice that can be added to the soup… or the soup added to the rice… I am still not quite sure which way round it goes. Two lions come dancing up the stairs accompanied by a loud drum beat. Each animal is operated by two dancers like a pantomime horse. Their huge mouths drop open for donations that will ensure the giver a year of good luck and prosperity.
Starting to feel very full, we brave the smoke from a bonfire of used firecrackers, and head down Ongpin Street to a tiny stall making traditional Chinese merienda, that Filipino in-between meal like our afternoon tea. Here we are handed siopao (pronounced shiow pow): sweet warm buns reminiscent of jam donuts that are surprisingly not full of jam, but a succulent pork filling.
Finally ending the tour where we began, we are presented with individually wrapped pieces of tikoy or nian gao: a popular Chinese New Year’s Cake made from glutinous rice coloured green, purple or white, and surprisingly morish. It is eaten widely in the Philippines at this time of year, as yet another symbol of wealth and prosperity.
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It is well worth taking a break from Makati shopping malls to explore Old Manila with Ivan Man Dy. However, I would highly recommend organizing a private tour – or at least joining a smaller group. While it was great fun to be out on the streets for Chinese New Year, the noise of the crowds, the firecrackers and the size of the group made hearing our guide somewhat problematic, and I am sad to think I missed lots of interesting tidbits. Oh well, we’ll just have to go again…