They call her the "City of Golden Friendship", a name that I was never comfortable with. There is really nothing wrong with that name but somehow it sounds contrived, like something that came out of a contest for naming the city. The thing is Cagayan de Oro is named after something golden as "Oro" is gold in Spanish. There is an obvious reference to gold as evidenced by the name but to make the jump to Golden Friendship seems to me unnatural and well, contrived. At the time when someone had the brilliant idea to dub Cagayan de Oro as "The City of Golden Friendship", there was no gold being mined anywhere near the city. There was an old GI named Barker who lived in a big house along Tomas Saco St. who did some mining but people simply dismissed him as being eccentric or somehow deluded with the fiction of Cagayan de Oro having gold. Little did they know that he really was mining the yellow stuff using techniques known only to American miners.

It may have been a bit embarassing for the leading men of Cagayan de Oro to try to explain away to visitors the reference of gold when no gold could be found in the city except for the gold in rings and watches and the occasional gold tooth of a wealthy Muslim trader. It appears to me that the name was eventually adopted after a radio campaign where the bright idea of locating gold in the hearts of Cagayanos and associating that with being friendly succeeded in cementing the name in the minds of Cagayanos and visitors alike. When the City finally adopted that name, a loyal Chinese businessman promptly adopted the name for his grocery store. I believe the name Golden Friendship is a name which is more fitting for a grocery than a city.

Cebu City and Iloilo City vie for the honor of being The Queen City of the South. Dumaguete has styled herself as The City of Gentle People which aptly describes the demeanor of Dumaguetnons as well as their style of speaking..The need to link the word gold to a name to describe Cagayan de Oro sounds sophomoric and well, contrived. It's a pity gold was not rediscovered until about thirty years later when the gold rush of Gango and environs brought out the adventurers from all over the country. What more can I say? The name "City of Golden Friendship" does not really say anything definitive about the people of Cagayan de Oro.

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More cool blogs in the Blog Park. Visit these pages:

• Dumaguete
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• Politics: divine right of kings and presidents
• Bethel Guest House (Dumguete Hotel)
• Maganda Travel and Tours (Dumaguete Travel)
• Rejoice Hardware and Electrical Suppply (Dumaguete Hardware)
  
• The Ordinary life
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• Underdogs World