In Ongpin Stories, R. Kwan Laurel takes us to the Chinese-Filipino enclave that is Binondo to wander into the Chinaman's mishmash of merchandise-race, class, and the search for belonging.
Digging our chopsticks into these stories, we examine a teenage boy raised in a strict Chinese household struggling to pass his Mandarin lessons; a radical teacher whose pure motives yield to miscalculated actions; a policeman and his insane friend's search fo gold; a mathematical genius who dreams of leaving for Hong Kong; a Filipino sales clerk and his forbidden fondness for the eldest daughter of a Chinese businessman; a grandmother fighting an illness neither traditional medicine nor modern science can cure; a father's struggle to preserve his family's small business. Brilliantly observed, these stories of people finding their place in a new world while struggling to hold back the seeping influences of their adopted country linger long after we've savored the feast that is Ongpin.
"I hope you have pursued your Ongpin story as far as it can go. l know you are on track and need only to go on. Ongpin lives in these stories." -- NVM Gonzalez
