Tending to the dead’s needs can be as meticulous as tending to the living. Think of it, one has to confront the already appalling thought of someone’s death while also making sure that he gets a proper farewell through traditional funerals. Such observances seem to have the intention of making life out of what the dead have left behind. Memories gather into a newfound meaning that eventually fills the emptiness. At a funeral, visitors walk into the coffin and see for themselves who the dead is to them. A relative, close friend, the person they are indebted to (in some cases, the other way around), or even a stranger only known by now through other people’s recollection. I may have assumed the position of this stranger as I watched the 2003 comedy-drama film, Crying Ladies, where we find three working-class women of Manila at a Chinese funeral to, as per the title, cry for the departed.
Who then is the dead to its mourners?
Filipino-Chinese Funerals
Chinese families hire professional mourners in fear of a tearless funeral. Odd as the many beliefs and superstitions introduced by the Chinese to the Filipinos, there lies foretelling signs in this strange job. It is said that mourners are hired so that the gods may hear their cries and ease the deceased loved one’s journey to heaven. Another folk custom says that failing to shed enough tears for the dead is considered “unfilial behavior” in the eyes of villagers. This would mean that a family member, especially a son or a daughter, has not fulfilled his duty in assisting the dead in its rite of passage. In the most practical sense, some actors are paid to cry at funerals when the family is too busy to attend.
Alongside my fascination with the idea of death, burial, and souls, I was particularly drawn to the film’s unique take on the tradition because of a faint childhood memory. When my paternal grandmother passed away, I naively asked my brother, “Muhilak ka ig kalubong ni Amah?” He then answered that one doesn’t plan to cry for a burial; it just happens. Well, I guess it’s not always the case. That question must have come into mind because I wasn’t as close to Amah as my brother was, having lived in Cebu since I was born while he had spent his younger years in Cagayan de Oro, her hometown. Amah has a mix of Chinese descent from her paternal grandfather, which one might have guessed from what I call her. However, I see this as more of a mere coincidence rather than a deep-rooted explanation of my whims. It wasn’t a Chinese funeral after all, and there were genuine tears shed.
In the film, we witness the tedious task of arranging an actual Chinese funeral as we follow Wilson Chua (Eric Quizon) weaving his way through the bustling streets of Binondo, Manila’s Chinatown. He visits a funeral parlor to buy a two hundred fifty-thousand-peso coffin, informs his late father’s contacts about the news, and finally finds a potential mourner, Stella, a mother who has been recently released after serving time for estafa. She then reunites with her friends Aling Doray (Hilda Koronel), a former B-star actress, and Choleng (Angel Aquino), a pious woman who vows to avoid sinning after having repeated affairs with her friend’s husband Ipe. In search of money, the two ladies accompany Stella in crying for Wilson’s father, who they then realize was responsible for their friend’s imprisonment.
The film cites various references that speak of an experience specific to a Filipino-Chinese household. From birthday years to unshaven beards, it humors how they are so eager to draw away bad luck. This eagerness also mirrors the way Filipinos practice native superstitious beliefs or our own “pamahiin”. We take these signs of warning seriously albeit having no scientific basis. Moreover, Wilson’s halfhearted effort to speak Mandarin delves into the struggle of being the oldest son of a Chinese, when not even wanting to claim this identity in the first place. It needs to be acknowledged as well that this film is not at its best — if it had intended to — represent such a struggle. Squeezing drama into a comedy is quite risky if it seeks to put forward a fresh perspective on the Filipino-Chinese identity.
Such genre clash has seemingly been a staple among Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) films, however only a few manage to escape the sloppy storytelling trap. Crying Ladies does so by letting its dynamic characterization drive the film’s narrative forward. One could not have finished the film without liking its characters to their real life equivalent.
“The best part of watching this is knowing that I know women like these in real life. The hardworking mother, the repentant adulteress, and the delusional bit player… they’re all colorful characters of the streets of Manila,” Letterboxd user @kainoa says in their review
It maximizes the spaces where they traverse. For instance, in the shadow of the well-attended Chinese Funeral is the abandoned coffin in Stella’s neighborhood, guarded by an old man also in search of a bit of fortune. The places are used to deliver its humor, with the Our Father prayer scene and a lady mistaking Wilson’s father’s funeral venue as his deceased teacher friend. The film beautifully captures the pulse of the city not only by its cinematography but also by knowing what the places mean to the characters.
How The Filipino Working-Class Cry
The three luckless mourners turned heads as their wails echoed at the chapel. Whether they were just horrible actors or faithful to the custom of crying out loud to the gods, their tears carry a value beyond comedic relief. This could speak of the unstable economic disposition that had forced them to take such an odd job. Stella, making up to her son after serving prison time, grapples to make ends meet in her current job in a bankrupt Chinese boutique. Desperate to earn a little closer to enough, she doubtingly accepts the offer to be a taga-iyak with a promise of five thousand a working day, even asking for advance pay. Her friend, Doray, working as a haunted lady and trying her daughter’s luck in modeling, takes the job despite seeming a downgrade gig from her break as a B-actress in Darna and the Giants, where she apparently receives the same amount of pay. Choleng, although having quite a different problem from the two mothers, repeatedly finds refuge among the Church lays amid her struggle with lust and guilt. With Doray and her acting 101, they channel determination to do their best at being ‘professional mourners,’ which turned out exaggerated for a show of sympathy. We see this same degree of hard work among our contractual workers who pour blood, sweat, and tears despite the insecure nature of their jobs.
Or, they may have really cried out loud for the gods to hear their plea. The funeral provides the three women a space to share each other’s grief over their own losses. For Stella, she has no choice but to leave her son under his father’s care in Cagayan de Oro. For Doray, she waxes nostalgia for her prime years as Rhoda Rivera. While for Choleng, she laments her lustful affair after having repeatedly vowed to be clean of it. Their mourning isn’t manifested in literal sorrows; they cry out laughter most of the time. It rather proves that humor always has its place in the ordinary Filipinos’ grief, which makes the comedic take apt in depicting the socioeconomic realities of the country. Having fun becomes a way of coping. We see it along the streets as workers make the most out of their short break to sing their lungs out in karaoke. What better way to lament hapless fate than to drown it with songs of laughter? This kind of grief carries a weight that we should be paying attention to.
Moreover, the film delves into the sorry state of the Philippine economy by juxtaposing the lower class and the Filipino-Chinese bourgeoisie’s lifestyles. Stella, deprived of opportunities as an ex-convict, has to work her way out of poverty by nailing an audition that’ll get her a regular job abroad. Aside from being a professional mourner, she also shoots her shot in a TV game show segment to grant her son’s material wish. She also succumbs to gambling, a sign that she might trap herself in a doomed cycle. In short, Stella’s life rests on luck. Wilson, on the other hand, only worries for a second about his lost shades that Stella apparently stole and sold. He could easily shell out cash from his wallet every time someone attempted to gain money from his father’s funeral. And by the end of the film, Stella gets a job because of Wilson’s connections. Although she is truly deserving, it solidifies the idea that connections surpass hard work in breaking the cycle of poverty. The rest of those who belong in her class could only fantasize of a long-lasting fortune.
“No matter what our ethnic fantasies are, we are still subject to the exploitative structure of global capitalism.”
— Laneria, 2013, Race, Ethnicity, and the Nation in Three Filipino Films
When Stella mimicked the labor activists’ cry on the bus, we know she has mastered the trick of surviving the economy. Faking tears for money is almost inevitable in the face of unequal rights and unfair labor conditions. I remember how this particular scene was shared widely in this year’s Labor’s Day as an honor to the country’s workers. Twitter user @missingcodec pointed out that it is a “PGMA (President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo) era caricature depicting labor rights activists as scammers.” They further commented on the thread: “Funny scene nonetheless. A bit on the nihilistic part too on how the lumpen proletariats take advantage of their fellow working classes just to get by. (then again, a nihilism more from the imagination of the petit bourgeois film creatives, which the political climate then promotes).” This discourse rather pushes the notion that the union’s fight for fair labor includes Stella and other victims of a society cursed with greater fraud. Funny how a few years later, Arroyo would appear on national television to address the 2004 electoral fraud, otherwise known as the ‘Hello Garci scandal.’ For a forgiving country, however, her often ridiculed I. AM. SORRY. could still allow her to bounce back in present-day Philippine Politics.
Other than having something to do with Stella’s estafa imprisonment, Washington “Tony” Chua, is nothing more than a stranger to the crying ladies. His death however allowed them to genuinely grieve behind vics-induced fake tears. Day after day, the working class repeats the cycle of trying their luck, lamenting and laughing at the sad reality before them. As the audience, we share their grief for a country that still faces the same struggle 21 years after its release.
And so, we wonder if the gods have ever heard the nation’s cry.
