BINONDO: Where the past walks in changing present

In a city composed of glass towers and trend-driven modernity, Binondo stands defiantly textured against erasure. It is not just the world’s oldest Chinatown–it is a living record of a mix of eras, cultures, and evolving food histories. In its narrow streets, brimmed with Chinese traders, colonial buildings share space with sari-sari stores and tea houses.

Yet too often, Binondo is just a place reduced to a weekend food crawl, a TikTok backdrop, or an aesthetic “dating” place. What people miss from this experience is its subtle defiance–a district that does not solely preserve history, but also performs it. 

Prevailing notion: “It’s just an old aesthetic part of Manila.”

Founded in 1594 by Governor-General Luis Pérez Dasmariñas, Binondo stands as the oldest Chinatown in the world and a testament to Manila’s layered history. Born from colonial ambitions, it has evolved into a dynamic community where centuries of Spanish, Chinese, American, and Filipino influences intertwine, making it a place of enduring multiculturalism and resilience. It is more than just an old aesthetic part of Manila, it is a historical survivor. 

Time in Binondo doesn’t pass–it pools in corners, spills across streets, and lingers in every distance. Evidence is seen throughout the district. From Binondo Church, which has been rebuilt after fire and war. Along Escolta, where pre-war art deco buildings stand still beside rising banks and mall facades, while Ongpin Street threads past herban stores, gold shops, and tea houses.

Binondo doesn’t erase the eras of the past – it weaves them together with the present, making it a place where both past eras and the present coexist creatively, like the centuries-old Binondo Church, weathered by centuries yet steadfast – stands in graceful dialogue with the lively storefronts and busy streets around it.

Prevailing notion: “It’s a Chinatown, of course, it’s just a place for Chinese culture.”

Binondo is more than just Chinese culture–it is where Chinese roots and Filipino cultures move in harmony. Families still burn incense at Kuang Kong Temple, then move just across the street to light candles in Binondo Church–though not as common as before, it still is a practice that quietly endures amid modern changes. Hokkien phrases blended with Tagalog softly.

At Ying Ying Tea House, siomai sits beside sinangag like it always belonged, akin to how both Chinese and Filipino cultures, once separated, can come together at the same plate, merging to form something beautiful. Both cultures do not clash but meet, creating something greater than the sum of their parts–like a gentle form of culinary diplomacy, where belonging is tasted rather than declared. And beneath the Chinese-Filipino Friendship Arch, people walk together, fluent in both memory and reinvention.

Binondo isn’t just something from one culture, it is something that lets different cultures live side by side. It offers a room for differences to coexist, for traditions to overlap, and for a shared story to unfold.

Prevailing notion: “There is nothing special about the foods in Binondo.”

In Binondo, cuisine is more than just the flavors–it is a living archive. Mami was first served by a Chinese migrant, Ma Mon Luk, in 1918, feeding laborers too poor for full meals. It became a hit, and in 1930, he established a noodle parlor that is now known as “Masuki” in Binondo. Today, while many may not know the story behind the bowl, they enjoy mami for many reasons: its hearty taste, the comfort it brings on tired days, the warmth it offers with each sip, or simply the familiarity it holds in a fast-paced city.

At Sincerity Cafe and Restaurant, fried chicken, created out of pork scarcity, became an icon of ingenuity. Stalls serve oyster cake beside pancit canton, each bite seasoned with a mixture of both Chinese and Filipino ingredients. To eat in Binondo is to taste how both sides and communities endured changes, and adapted, fusing both Chinese and Filipino ingredients into something warm.

These foods aren’t just meals, they are special memories plated and passed down from generation to generation, in which all tell a story of survival and a shared becoming.

Binondo is often romanticized for its aesthetics and how it serves as a “cutesy” dating place. But nostalgia, while comforting, can quietly flatten what still lives. To truly understand Binondo, we must ask ourselves: how can we, as individuals and shared communities, protect these living cultures built in Binondo – not by limiting them to change forcefully, but by allowing them to grow and thrive amid changes?

Because Binondo is more than just a backdrop–more than just a dating spot. Despite being a symbol of the changing eras, mixed culture, and food history, Binondo is at stake, where cafes replace traditional sari-sari stores and stalls, and rent climbs higher than the roofs that once sheltered generations. Still, amid these changes, quiet acts of preservation and defiance persist – families holding onto ancestral shops, locals adapting without losing their roots.

Binondo endures not by standing still, but by adapting, walking hand in hand with the changing present while never forgetting its past. Here, the past truly walks in the changing present – a reminder that preservation is not about standing still.