Chinoy Tourists in Europe

Budapest is now teeming with tourists!  This afternoon, at the West End Mall at Nyugati, there was a strong presence of Chinese tourists.  We were sitting across a bunch of them as my wife and I were feeding our baby in a coffee shop (and slurping on caramel gelato).  And then, a question: "Mga Pinoy ba kayo?"  The most senior of the bunch directed his question at us.  It turns out they were Chinese-Filipinos.  They are here on a package tour of Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria and Hungary.

"Opo. Akala namin Chinese kayo. Chinese from China. Pinoy pala kayo."

"Chinese-Filipino," he further clarified.

My wife volunteered the information that I too was of Chinese ancestry, but I had to clarify that I did not speak Chinese.  As intended, the result was he didn't have to ask about my ancestry as my lack of Chinese language competence meant I was not really one of them.

Being the ever sociable person that she was, my wife proceeded to ask about the circumstances of their tour and that's how we found out that they spent USD 3,000 per head on this two-week tour; that they were staying in a five-star hotel in the Castle District; that this tour was a graduation gift for the eldest daughter; that like the daughter, the father and uncle were Ateneo alumni; and that there were sixty of them who were on the same tour, all of them Chinoys!

I made a quick computation in my head: USD 3,000 times 6 (Daddy, Mommy, Uncle, three children) = USD 18,000.  My golly!

Chocolate Buddha

I know I might offend some religious Buddhists by posting this photo.  But that is not my intent.  My intent is to expose, and incite reflection.

My wife and I received this box of chocolates as a gift from a visiting friend who lives in Belgium. (She bought them from a well-known chocolatier in Bruges.)  The chocolate on the photo is the last piece.  Yes, it's a Buddha figure!  When we saw this piece of chocolate, the first thing that entered my mind was: the controversial Danish cartoon of Muhammad depicted as a terrorist.  My wife thought of the Spanish chocolate-covered white biscuit called "Filipinos" (brown outside, white inside) which caused such a brouhaha in the Philippines not unlike the recent reaction to Chip Tsao's article.

Is this offensive?  Well, I can just imagine if, say, an enterprising Chinese had manufactured Jesus Christ chocolates (or Jesus Christ hopia!) and sold them in Hong Kong!  Will you buy them?  Will you eat them?

My wife said maybe the Buddha chocolate idea might be a better sell than the Jesus Christ one. Well Buddha looks so jolly and plump, eating him almost evokes a happy thought.  But eating Jesus Christ? Don't we need to do confession first?

P.S.

Well what do you know?  After I wrote this blog, I goggled "chocolate Jesus" and found this news article "Chocolate Jesus exhibit canceled" by the Associated Press (March 30, 2007).  Read on. Or better yet, watch this debate.

There's more apparently: a song entitled Chocolate Jesus. "Well its got to be a chocolate jesus/

Make me feel good inside/ Got to be a chocolate jesus/ Keep me satisfied"

And there's a chocolate Mary too!

And yes, chocolate Hindu deities! “In the case of [Krishna and Ganesh], Hindus asked me to make them … and many of the folks who buy them are Hindus”