1940 Ozamiz City, Philippines

Ramon Lim
Born in 1933
Ozamiz City, Philippines
Interviewed on February 2, 2022
by Megan He

I grew up in a small city in the Philippines, called Ozamiz City, and spent most of my childhood there. In retrospect, life there was good. My earliest experiences of going to the movies happened when I was five years old—I am not exactly sure which movie was first, but I do remember seeing Tarzan, King Kong, The Lone Ranger, and Flash Gordon in the 1930s. However, the better memory I have is when I grew a bit older and saw a Chinese movie; I must have been around seven years old. The film was called Fēngyún Érnǚ (风云儿女), or Sons and Daughters in Turbulent Times. You can speak Chinese, right? The first two Chinese characters in the title, “Fēngyún”, are the wind and clouds, respectively, which can be roughly translated to mean a storm or turbulence (note: this film has also been translated to Children of Troubled Times, Scenes of City Life, and Children of the Storm).

Fēngyún Érnǚ was a very patriotic film that I remember seeing before the outbreak of World War II. The story followed the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and showed how the people of China resisted. I really don’t remember the details of the plot because it was such an old film, but I know it did depict the brutality of the Japanese invasion. The actors were actually not great by our current standards (laughs), but they were considered good performances back then. Fēngyún Érnǚ had a very low budget and it was primitively made. Everything was in black-and-white; there was no color back then. Although it was not necessarily a good movie, the music was the highlight and particularly moving. “March of the Volunteers,” which was the theme song of this movie, is now the national anthem of China. Every Chinese person, from the schoolchildren to the elderly, liked the song. No wonder it was adopted as the national anthem!

Even though it was a war film, it was still appropriate enough and understandable for me to watch. I must have gone to see it with my parents because I was so young—I did not have money to buy the tickets. I had no choice but to watch it! I think my parents enjoyed the movie and its patriotism. The theater, called Top, was right across the street from where I lived, so it was very easy and convenient to walk over. It is probably not there anymore. There were no concessions in the theater and we did not bring any snacks ourselves either; I guess my parents and I were just not interested in eating anything while watching movies in general. But now, everyone eats popcorn, which had not been invented at that time. The theater was fairly decent and clean, with about 200 comfortable seats. The screen was big but not huge—nothing like the wide screens we have now. I also remember that the theater was crowded. Since there was no television back then, there were often many people at the theater, because movies served as the major source of entertainment for people. Going to the theater was considered a fun family event.

I lived in Ozamiz until I was about nine years old and WWII began. When Japan invaded Southeast Asia, my family hid in the mountains until the war ended to avoid the invading soldiers. During WWII, I was too small to think about the details of the story of Fēngyún Érnǚ, but the song was deeply ingrained in me, like every Chinese person at the time, as it was very popular and we sang it almost every week in school. It aroused a strong sentiment in every Chinese person in the resistance against the Japanese invasion. I remember very little of the story of the movie, but the song is patriotic and has no communist ideology in it.

After the war, my family and I moved back to Ozamiz City, and then moved around the Philippines for my high school and college. I came to America after graduating and have been here for more than 60 years! I can count on my fingers the number of times I have gone to the theater in America. It was a very rare occurrence. For example, when I lived in Chicago, I only went to the theater twice in 12 years. I would really only go to accompany my son back when he was a young child, on his insistence (Star Wars was his favorite). Even in America we didn’t really buy snacks in the theater either. So I guess some things don’t change!