I was over at my grandparents house tonight for dinner, as is my weekly ritual, when I thought out loud: "Ama is like a cute hamster." Ama is what I call my grandma, so I was basically saying that I thought my grandma looked like a hamster. When I thought of why I said this, and why I would even make a comparison between my grandma and a hamster, I realized that I do this a lot when I'm tired.

I guess the next time I compare you to a hamster you should take it as a compliment, since hamsters are basically the embodiment of the word cute itself to me. I used to have a lot of hamsters, but they kept on dying, so I swore to never own a hamster ever again and bought a rabbit instead.

Anyway, so since I'm taking a Chinese Culture and Society class for the summer, I've taken it up on myself to investigate my origins. I interviewed my grandparents tonight and asked them a ton of questions they didn't know how to answer, but I was just mainly curious about how my great grandparents decided to move to the Philippines.

A few posts ago, I mentioned that I didn't know where my grandma was born. Turns out, she was born in Philippines and that my great-grandparents moved there when the Communist Party begun their regime. According to my grandparents, at that time a lot of people from China moved to other countries for the same reason, such as Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, and as in the case of my one friend, Pakistan. I'm guessing they just chose the Philippines as some random luck of the draw.

In Philippines though, like Manila where I was born, they teach you Mandarin in school but most of the Chinese people speak Fukien so I'm curious as how this happened. Is it just because most of the people who migrated to the Philippines were from the same province? I would think so but Wikipedia is not giving me awesome answers.

I'm encouraging my grandparents to write down everything they know and make a mini autobiography. Or maybe I can write it for them. I just want to collect everyone's last names and see if I can trace it back to relatives I might possibly have in China. (Like my great-grandparents last names are Ko, Lim, Dy/Go Seng and Chua.)

Admittedly, this Chinese Cultural and Society class is a bit depressing at times just because the path China took to where it is now is depressing (or maybe I'm just reading all the wrong stories).

Two pictures: