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Confucian family values are alive and well in Panama

photos and story by Eric Jackson

April 5 was grave cleaning day --- Ching Min --- at Panama City's Chinese cemetery in El Chorrillo.

The graveyard was purchased in 1882 by the Sociedad Way On, and at the time that particular plot of land met all of the feng shui conditions for a good final resting place.

It was on a hillside --- Ancon Hill --- overlooking the Pacific Ocean, which then lay just beyond a mangrove swamp. (Later, during the construction of the Panama Canal, this ocean view was obstructed by the landfill upon which most of El Chorrillo is built.)

It was beside a stream of running water --- the brook from which El Chorrillo derives its name, that ran down from Ancon Hill. At the time the stream was the source of drinking water for most of Panama City, whose population was just a bit over 20,000 and concentrated in what are now the corregimientos of San Felipe, Santa Ana and Calidonia. (That stream has long been converted into an underground storm drain, and Panama City gets its water from other sources, most notably Gatun Lake.)

Panama's first Chinese immigrants came in the 1850s. Most of them were single men, and if they could afford it they went back to China to die, or at least had their remains sent back to rest with those of their ancestors. But as time went by the Chinese established strong roots here, and generations arose whose ancestors were Panamanian.

The graves of one's ancestors are a big deal in Chinese culture. Confucianism is a tradition that is not quite a religion in the western sense of the word --- which is why most Chinese here are Christians, with Buddhists and non-believers as well, yet among all these sectors the filial piety advocated but probably not begun by one K'ung Fu-tzu is still largely upheld. Confucians venerate their ancestors, maintain their graves, symbolically treat them with roast pork or chicken, liquor, tea, money, incense and firecrackers from time to time, and hope to find their own final resting places among their forebears.

English has long been a popular second, third or fourth language for members of Panama's Chinese community. In part that's because some Chinese came here indirectly via British colonies --- Hong Kong or the formerly British West Indies --- and in part it's because the Chinese have a scholarly tradition and in Panama are mostly merchants or professionals, factors which give them the desire and need to speak multiple languages. The most commonly spoken dialects of Chinese in Panama are Mandarin, Hakka and Cantonese, with most recent arrivals having been raised in Hakka-speaking homes but educated in Mandarin-speaking schools.

On a lower part of Ancon Hill, the graveyard is both a symbol of Panama's Chinese heritage

and was the object of a long civil rights struggle by the Chinese community, as part of it

was confiscated by the government in 1942 and only returned to the community a few years ago.

Rites in front of the Sociedad Fa Yen's communal ossuary.

Since emigration from mainland China resumed in 1976, the

town of Fa Yen, near Guangzhou (Canton) in southeastern

China's Guandong (Kwangtung) province, has been the main

source of  newcomers to Panama's Chinese community.

Reverence for the departed and remembrance of long struggles.