at the time, the room didn’t really creep me out. but now, the pictures do. especially the cradle. i don’t know if it’s just me but there is something about cradles that, under a certain light, cast an eery aura around it. or it could just be me.
the four-poster bed was actually an eduardo ah tay bed. i didn’t know that. just as i didn’t know who eduardo ah tay was until i read here that he was actually a very famous binondo furniture maker in the 19th century. a status symbol for the elite.
and then there were the other stuff inside the room. the contents there now are probably a far cry from the glamorous things the original inhabitants had before. (although i am more interested as to how this particular room looked like when it was turned into a night club in the 1950s.)
i said it before and i will say it again: i have this fascination for old windows! the ones accented with capiz shells, most especially, but for this window, i’m loving the subtle polka dot effect of the sheer curtains where the soft afternoon light hits it.
on the right is the foyer, with its wooden staircase and its typical balustrade whose design is something commonly seen in filipino houses until now.
right by the entrance is a mini garden, if you can call it that. what would have been an extensive garden is blocked by the modern-day nuances of a firewall.
i forgot to mention. museo parian is also known as “the jesuit house” because once upon a time, while it may have been a night club, it was also a house occupied by the jesuit priests who prayed for the souls of every member of the villa family for the duration of their tenure. (remember that little story?) which is why you’ll find a scaled-down replica of st. ignatius of loyola displayed in the middle of the first floor that is the sugbo gallery.
it’s also where you will find various artifacts dug from the ground that stare at you behind glass casings with their own versions of the past long gone. fragmented as they may be, each little broken piece has a story to tell — of the warm smooth aristocratic hands that touched the delicate china hand-painted with the most intricate design; of the necks and wrists sprayed by the perfume bottles made of clear shiny glass; as well as of the rough callused hands that wiped the porcelain clean and dry at the end of every fine meal.
every broken piece, a clue.
just because the chinas are broken doesn’t exactly reduce them to the value of clay. and just because the stories are gone doesn’t mean that they are no longer there.
because they will always be there. their very presence is story enough.
the pauses between 
This is in Calle Zulueta. I visited this place during my work assignment there. I like what the hardware owners (Ateneans I heard) did here. Kudos to them. What treasure we have in our midst. Not sure why its called Parian museum, I think calling it the Jesuit house, historically, makes more sense. There’s only a handful Parian houses that survived WWII.
i applaud the owners for sharing a vital piece of history with the rest of the cebuanos, and the filipinos for that matter by turning the house/warehouse into a museum. i understand they hardly get any profit from it (with the upkeep and all) but more than the money is the essence of instilling education and appreciation for our past.
have you been to yap-sandiego ancestral house? it’s also in parian. it’s my favorite.
Yes, i saw to it that i do an ocular of every historical place of interest in cebu 🙂 I lived there for a year. There’s a lot of centuries old church that needs to be save in the province, not from the natural elements, but from men who do them harm by recklessly renovating them. BTW, the Jesuit House had a portion of the house made a chapel, I climbed the ceiling and saw the marks and evidence that mass was once held inside. This chapel was later removed, by the Jesuits or who ever took over after them.
really? that’s interesting. i don’t remember the guide mentioning anything about a chapel.
as to reckless renovations, i am with you on that aspect. i believe that renovations should stay true to the original architecture of building or churches of historical interest. talisay church is an example of that. it saddens me whenever i see the cemented walls where they were once coral stones. i don’t get it.