Enduring fears

The monstrosity of Chinese Filipinos in Chito Roño’s Feng Shui (2004)

Bibliographic Data

ID6039251
AuthorsJoseph Ching Velasco (0000-0002-7098-8216, De La Salle University, corresponding author), Jeremy De Chavez (0000-0003-0320-372X, University of Macau)
Year2023
Volume24
Issue1
Pages541-553
Publication date2023-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAsian Ethnicity (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1463-1369 • E-ISSN: 1469-2953
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14631369.2021.1941754
OpenAlexW3174823183
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited16

This paper examines enduring fears and anxieties about ‘Chineseness’ that widely and persistently circulate in the Philippine cultural imaginary. Chinese Filipinos have historically been implicated in a prejudicial politics of recognition within the Philippine postcolonial state, which has attempted to forge a national identity through problematic notions of ethnic and cultural purity. To undermine what Franz Fanon calls the pitfalls of national consciousness, scholars have often turned to concepts such as syncretism and hybridity, which celebrates heterogeneity and diversity as it opposes essentialism and purity. The agenda of this paper, however, is to examine the forces that generate obstacles to an affirmative politics of cultural assimilation and belonging. Toward that goal, we offer a symptomatic reading of the film Feng Shui (2004), which we suggest condenses anxieties about Chineseness that circulate in the Philippine cultural imaginary, anxieties that amplify difference and potentially undermine the reparative force of hybridity

Aesthetics · Consciousness · Diversity (politics · Epistemology · Essentialism · Ethnic group · Hybridity · Identity (music · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · The Imaginary · Anthropology · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Gender Studies · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Philippine History and Culture · Philosophy

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