#ThrowbackThursdays: "Chinoy Ghost Story" of the Xinyong Guanxi from Chinese Siansis

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It's the Chinese Ghost Month, which starts on the first day of the seventh Lunar Month. This year, Ghost Month started on August 13, 2026, and it will end on September 10, 2026. Today is called the peak of the Ghost Month. For the sake of a post, I want to write about this Chinoy Ghost Story that I remember from the 1990s. This was when our Grade 2 Chinese siansi (I don't know where she is anymore, but I remember her as being very strict, and the next year, Grade 3, was even stricter) would use the statement that she said, "If you can't speak Chinese, you will have a hard time finding a job." She even mentioned a peer who baliwala (took for granted) his Chinese studies and ended up as a motorcycle driver in their community. However, I often suspect that white lie was made out of desperation because grades mattered that much.  

The threat, however, proved ineffective because the students were in Cebu City. Chances are, several huan-a students (a word used to refer to non-Chinese in the Philippines, though the word is also said in Malaysia and Indonesia) had parents who were employed and couldn't even speak lannang-ue. Lannang-ue is a word that often meant Filipino Hokkien, but these days, I just use it to refer to the Chinese language in general. In fact, I even call ethnic Chinese establishments lannang-tiam (Chinese stores) such as Xiaomi or Huawei. It was like I told the Chinese siansi (teacher) that I bought my milk tea at a lannang-tiam in IT Park. The Chinese siansi guessed it was Chatime.

Learning about the old Xinyong network and why it's not profitable to maintain

The word Xinyong means trust, and Guanxi means connections. This Rappler article also features what the Xinyong concept actually meant:

There’s another word used in the Rodrigos’ book on Chinabank that has the same meaning: xinyong. 

I found the best definition of this word in an article in The Conversation on China’s social credit system in 2018.

“The word ‘credit’ in Chinese – xinyong (信用) – is a core tenet of traditional Confucian ethics, which can be traced back to the late fourth century BC. In its original context, xinyong is a moral concept that indicates one’s honesty and trustworthiness. In the past few decades, its meaning has been extended to include financial creditworthiness,” the article reads. 

Gilbert Dee, son of one of the early Chinabank leaders, George Dee Se Kiat, explained the word in the China Bank story book: “My father believed in xinyong. Xinyong is all about trust. The older generation—when deals were made, it was just a handshake, a purely verbal agreement. That was enough. No need for a receipt, no more documents—just your word. Your word is your honor. Of course, after so many generations, things are not the same any more. But during my father’s time, that was normal. That’s how things were done before, when it came to getting credit. What mattered [to my father] was if you were trustworthy or not. He wanted to know people well, to know if they had a good family background.”

This is probably where the ghost stories the siansis got their stories from. Most of the siansis are in their 70s now. Some of them have even died of sickness or old age. I was thinking about looking into the old insular community of Chinese until the mass naturalization in the 1970s. In fact, there was also the 1954 law passed by Ramon Magsaysay during his presidency, which was probably a knee-jerk reaction to the Old Xinyong Network. The Inquirer gives this detail:

In a workshop, a third-generation scion, 25, asked about RA 1180.  His father told him that at first, it adversely affected their family’s retail business. But eventually, it became a blessing in disguise, motivating the elders to branch out into finance.

Known as the 1954 Retail Trade Nationalization Law, RA 1180 took effect during the administration of President Ramon Magsaysay.  The first sentence says it all: “No person who is not a citizen of the Philippines, and no association, partnership, or corporation the capital of which is not wholly owned by citizens of the Philippines, shall engage directly or indirectly in the retail business.”

Thus, many retailers became full-fledged Filipino citizens.  Others diversified, as described by Atty. Jim V. Lopez in his book “Family Business Law Declassified”: “When the law banned aliens from engaging in [the] retail trade, a group of enterprising businessmen who lost their investments…met in Binondo and other parts of the country to discuss a strategic plan to pool their financial resources.  They decided to move their funds from retailing and funnel them to more lucrative investment areas in the Philippine economy, such as real estate development, banking, finance, malls, aviation, gaming, tourism, telecommunications, power generation and distribution, food processing and others.”

I heard how often the Chinese clannish communities acted in such a way. The way I hear it is often like what I remember watching in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, starring Jason Scott Lee. The Chinese community in America was living with the mindset that Bruce shouldn't teach martial arts to "outsiders". The same went for Chinese-Filipinos during the old era, before the mass nationalization under the rule of Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. I still think about how Bruce in that movie discovered not all non-Chinese are bad and not all Chinese are good.

I heard that Chinese businesses often operated under the Xinyong of word, rather than Xinyong of contract. Many of the Chinese migrants who didn't descend from the Sangleys (where the likes of Jose Rizal, the Cojuangcos, Aquinos, etc. came from) probably thought of the Philippines as temporal home. They probably thought that one day, we'd just go back to China. What happened was that while the business may have served locals, hiring became ridiculously rigid. In fact, I even heard that the boundary was this:

1. Sure, the old Xinyong businesses hired Filipino huan-as but only to do menial jobs. I guess this is where siani's threat of "If you don't know Chinese, you'll just drive the motorcycle."
2. However, they also had that crazy rule where the old-generation Chinoys would require anyone from their clan to read and write in Chinese, and speak proper lannang-ue to become part of the "nobility". Even Lannangs in the Philippines, who baliwala their Chinese, eventually end up joining the huan-a workers in the ridiculous Chinese shadow economy.

Going from the old Xinyong/Guanxi to the new model

Of course, such practices of not hiring anyone into the office for not speaking Hokkien today is detrimental. But that's how it operated. Such a practice would've driven the whole Chinoy economy down. In fact, when we think of it, many Filipino businesses are owned by Chinoys. The concept of Xinyong was upgraded.

Now, we must also think about this definition by Investopedia for Guanxi:

What Is Guanxi? 

Guanxi, pronounced gwan' CHē, is a Chinese term for relationships. It commonly refers to the networks or connections used in business to open doors for new business and facilitate deals.

The term refers not only to the existence of relationships but also their nature, involving trust and obligations, often including favors. A person who has a great deal of guanxi will be better positioned to generate business than someone who lacks it.

Guanxi is linked to Confucian philosophy, which views the self as extending to family, friends, and society for harmony. It implies an obligation that one has to another.

 The belief in China is that the wheels of business are lubricated with guanxi.

Potential risks include cronyism and corruption if guanxi is misused.

Merely saying that guanxi connects to Confucian philosophy doesn't complete the explanation of the term. Confucian thought dates back more than 2,000 years, and it continues to be highly influential in China.

 Given the importance of Confucian thought, its focus on relationships and duty is reflected in guanxi in Chinese business.

In Western business, personal matters usually follow business. In guanxi, these are closely linked. The original Chinese symbols suggest a gateway to relationships, which aptly describes guanxi. The exercise of guanxi leads to the connections through which business can happen.

Over time, Guanxi goes from "who you know now" to "getting to know more people". As Guanxi literally means connections. Can a Chinese business really thrive on simply using Hokkien as the gatekeeper? The old rules had to die away (but sadly, the Chinese school system remained stubborn for some time) if businesses were to build Xinyong and Guanxi. Xinyong meant developing trust with anyone, even if the person didn't speak fluent Hokkien. Guanxi goes beyond merely staying connected to the Chinese community to building connections everywhere. 

Chinoy businesses like Jollibee Foods Corporation, Universal Robina (Robinson's), SM Investments Corporation, LT Group, Alliance Global Group, Mercury Drug, Eng Bee Tin, Gaisano Group Inc., General Milling Corporation (which also owns Ding Qua Qua), and many more remained in that mindset. Instead, think about how the ghost threat of the Chinese saying that, "If you don't know Chinese, you'll just drive a motorcycle," dies right there and then. It's because if these businesses practiced that, here are some observable high risks of keeping the old Xinyong network style:

1. These businesses become elitist, snobbish places that end up having high turnover, if no huan-a worker ever has the chance to get into the office because, "Dili kahibalo mu-Chinese", meaning, "Doesn't know how to speak Chinese." If the huan-a who is capable is stuck below the menial work, when he knows he can manage, and sees only lannangs climb up the ladder without working, that discourages employment, and the chances of resigning are extremely high. The huan-a might give a good suggestion but gets overturned because they can't speak lannang-ue. 
2. Hiring only among lannangs who speak lannang-ue means that you might end up hiring a bad lannang who speaks the language rather than a good huan-a into the office. In my case, I would rather hire someone with good etiquette who can't speak Hokkien than someone who can speak Hokkien but would rob me dry. One of my worst experiences was being conned by a fellow lannang back in 2012, and I never got the money back! Maybe some people need to realize that the late Jose Maria Sison was also of Chinese descent.
3. Dealing with Guanxi and Xinyong based on a handshake alone is dangerous. That's why we have written documents. That's why we always have the need for documentation. It's because memory is one of the least reliable tools known to mankind. Written contracts and documents help establish better Guanxi and Xinyong, because a breach of terms can mean, "The Xinyong ends here, the Guanxi ends here," when the terms and conditions are broken, like not paying back a debt. In fact, credit contracts are often ignored, but they're actually safer.

Businesses that refuse to evolve end up becoming the ghost stories. In fact, over time, the same siansi that once talked about "you'll end up driving a motorcycle" slowly transitioned to stating the plain fact that "Mandarin Chinese has over a billion speakers."

The remedy is to get rid of si-thak and learn Mandarin practically to create better Xinyong and Guanxi

Si-thak is often a nightmare. Children often end up uttering words they never understood. Some people pass, and others fail but end up in the never-learned-anything dumpster. I mean, Grade 2 was very strict, and Grade 3 was actually even stricter. Grade 6 was often said to be the strictest siansi. The reality of the situation was that people memorized and memorized without understanding. The Chinese siansis wanted us to learn, but even if a person got honors, skipped a level, etc., the issue was that you were only rewarded based on how well you memorized. In fact, the old si-thak system required people to learn Chinese first, then enter the classroom to learn Chinese.

Mandarin has over a billion speakers in the world. This becomes an opportunity to develop better Xinyong and Guanxi in the world market. After all, we have Mainland Chinese businesses and Taiwanese businesses in the Philippines. Sure, they don't shut the doors to people who can't speak Mandarin. However, it cannot be denied that businesses like Gong Cha (although its owner is now South Korean), Huawei, Xiaomi, Chatime, CoCo Milk Tea, Yang Hero, and the Alibaba Group (through Lazada, where its owner Jack Ma is a critic of the Chinese Communist Party) are owned by Mandarin speakers. If one learns Mandarin, one might go from getting a promotion within the Philippines to seeing a wider scope of the world. Siansi was right about that fact but she was forced to use the wrong tools, more often than not.

Right now, the approach goes from "closed house approach" to "open house approach". Bruce revealed that traditional Chinese kata would lose in a street fight. The si-thak way of learning things was performative suffering. Learning Jeet Kune Do was productive suffering. Bruce taught and learned several arts that would inspire the whole world ot learn martial arts. Jet Kune Do may have kung fu elements, but it also incorporates western boxing. The same goes when Mandarin Chinese is no longer taught in an enclave but an open house, where learning Hokkien isn't necessary in exchange for a direct learn Mandarin as a second language.