"Urbanidad"

A makeshift "karihan" using a low table called "dulang". Photographed in Manila 1908




Did the so-called Spanish "urbanidad" plus this onslaught of Americanization end our old Tagalog tradition of dining on low tables called dulang? The Japanese had their low tables called "chabudai" and the Koreans, their "soban", which incidentally are still featured in many of their traditional homes. But I don't see the dulang now even in old Filipino homes, I also wonder if we have this old culture of making one. I guess there was none.
Antonio Pigafetta gave us some commentaries on the table manners of the early Cebuanos-- That dining tradition of seating on cane mats crossed legs, obviously with food spread on big native mats or low tables. He did mention that they had such a good meal.

Eating in a karihan (detail) by Jose Honorato Lozano (1815-1885)



So since time immemorial, early inhabitants of our archipelago were never into high dining tables -- If I may be allowed to say this.
In the 1950s there were still households in Pasig using the "dulang" but it will be amazing to find families nowadays who still keep their old dulang as souvenirs of the past.
Going back to urbanidad, there was a time that eating with your hands was somehow seen as lowly. (What more if you are left-handed) When did the native Filipinos start to use utensils- coverings of tables or the "cubiertos" that sparked the term "de numero"? As if telling us, eating is an art like ballet, with the practitioner counting silently the moves to highlight human elegance in eating.
Excuse me but I am hungry, just dig in, use your hands, remove those pretensions..and let's eat!
Pasig City November 2021

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