Connected By Stomachs: How Food Promotes Civilizational Exchange, Cross‑Cultural Understanding, And People‑To‑People Ties Between The Chinese And Filipinos – OpEd
Food connects the Chinese and Filipinos. Every shared meal is more than a nourishment for their body. It is also a bridge between their complimentary cultures and a road of many centuries of shared culinary civilizations.
At least 500 years before the advent of Spanish colonialism in the 16th century, Chinese traders and settlers brought noodles, dumplings, soy sauce, and tea to various ancient kingdoms of the Philippine archipelago. As early as the 9th century, Filipinos warmly embraced Chinese flavors, blending them eventually with local ingredients to create delicious and palatable dishes like what Filipinos now call adobo (pork with sauce), pancit (rice noodles), siopao (bun), siomai (dumpling), and lumpia (spring roll) among many others. American and Japanese colonial rules failed to remove sumptuous Chinese tastes from Filipino palates.
Chinese foods and delicacies that all Filipinos love are now part of their everyday cuisines, enjoyed at birthdays, fiestas, family gatherings, and many celebrations. Each bite tells a beautiful story of social exchange, cultural adaptation, personal friendship and peaceful coexistence of the Chinese and Filipino people.
Because China and the Philippines share culinary familiarity, they can also cooperate in the area of food security as an innovative pathway to peace. The 1995 World Food Summit defines food security as a situation “when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” The World Bank urges all nations to cooperate in the area of food security.
Food security cooperation shows us that even when nations face many challenges, differences and difficulties, the dining table can be a common place to achieve peace. When we cook together, eat together, and celebrate together, we discover shared heritage, common values, and collective aspirations. They are, indeed, comfort foods for the Chinese and Filipinos.
Culinary exchange, therefore, not only becomes an act to feed hungry stomachs. It becomes a common language of understanding, empathy and benevolence. Food reminds the Chinese and Filipinos that what unites the two nations is stronger than what divides them.
Common history between the Chinese and Filipinos demonstrates that when two cultures share meals, they also share not only the taste but also the empathy and understanding with one another. Food is not only a tangible symbol of friendship but a vivid expression of interpersonal relationship. Food blends Chinese and Filipino cultures so beautifully that it can also calm not only our hungry stomachs but also our existing disputes.
Eating together not only opens our mouths, but it also opens doors for talks. Dining together also open windows of opportunities for dialogues in order to manage and overcome existing differences. If the Chinese and Filipinos can cook side by side through joint culinary festivals and eat face to face through food celebrations, they can rebuild confidence, promote mutual trust, and embrace mutual respect so that the two great nations can be best friends forever (BFF).
- Opening statement during the Panel Discussion at the Chibog Chow Festival held at Robinsons Place Manila, Midtown Atrium on February 21, 2026
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