
Yap-San Diego Ancestral House
Seventeenth-century coral-stone and hardwood residence, among the oldest Chinese houses built outside China, now a family museum.
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About this audio guide
This guide to the Yap-San Diego Ancestral House traces the coral-stone and hardwood residence a Chinese merchant, Don Juan Yap, built sometime between 1675 and 1700 inside the Parian, the walled quarter where Spanish colonial law confined every Chinese resident of Cebu. It follows the family line down through Yap's descendants, including the 1880s marriage that fused the Yap and Sandiego names over the door, to a great-great-grandson who was a choreographer and art collector. You'll notice the wooden beams overhead, original to the house and still bearing its weight.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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