|
Post by FayChee on Jan 15, 2013 23:40:39 GMT -5
Douglas, I agree with Ah Gin about making a book out of your postings from the very first trip in 2010 to now. I was going to make my own copy and use it as a travel guide for when I go to China.
Fay Chee
|
|
|
Post by douglaslam on Jan 16, 2013 7:16:18 GMT -5
Fay Chee and Ah Gin, I am fortunate to have the good company of my two village companions. They are very decent people. I certainly don't think what I wrote is worth 'bottling. ' Ma Gor also salvage the copper, brass or bronze coffin nails from the rotting timber. There is a demand for them, again as keepsake to ward off evil spirits or undesirables. This is a fringe benefit of the job. I've been away from China for too long to know the quaint customs. ========================== Both Ming and Ma Gor live all their lives in the village. They know the unsavoury characters, and how to avoid them. I think ours is easily the biggest village in Longdu, or Chungshan even. Ming had better schooling. He completed the equivalent of junior high school before Mao's Cultural Revolution took hold.. His Chinese is much better than mine. Ming told me he could not recall any of his ancestors going to the gold mountain. His family owned a traditional bakery. They were the master bakers of our village. His father and two brothers were bakers, and so was his grandfather. They were doing well enough for not wanting to leave the comfort of familiar surrounds and family for the gold mountain. Ming's house is next door to mine. I remember him better than anyone of similar age from the village. Ma Gor was a little younger, I can't remember playing with him when we were little. The four siblings; two boys and two girls, Ming is the oldest, Dai Gor, the Big Brother. He is now effectively the patriarch of the family. His opinion in family matters is respected. All his siblings escaped to Hong Kong at different times, one sister and her husband are working in Tokyo.. Ming made a conscious decision not to go with the flow because he could not leave both parents. By remaining in the village, and scoring a job with the electricity distribution board, he had job security for life. With it, the benefits of a government job, a pension equals to the position he held before retirement, 100% medical cover, and a large flat. It is the envy of many. Ming's mother passed away in early October, 2012. I was in time for the last ritual, that of the Last Seventh Day of remembrance. Such an event calls for a thank you dinner. His sister and brother came home for the formal rites. Somehow I forgot about attending the ceremony, which would include a Taoist, or Buddhist priest performing the ritual, and paper effigies and other offerings to burn. A few photos would make a good introduction to those who are not at all familiar with Chinese funerary practice. There was a dinner that night at a bigger restaurant. The menu of fare is more selective. Ming and his siblings planned the final choices. Though it was in memory of their mother, the mood of the dinner was anything but sombre. The food kept coming and the drinks flowing freely. It was boisterous like all Chinese dinner parties. The first dish was buns. This caught me by surprise. It is perhaps a custom. Seen here the unfinished buns are piled on the roasted suckling pig to make room. This is a more expensive dish of dried scallops, mushrooms, a hair-like fungus, and something else underneath ( Can't recall what it was.) . This is a steamed whole flounder, very smooth and delicious. ----------------------------------------- By contrast, the dinner party I gave earlier was rather plain. It was held at the usual venue, the same place that Ma Gor had his birthday gig. The food is pretty much the same as last year's or the year before. There is not much variety in a typical small village eatery. This is village food. Some of my guests; second from left is Ma Gor's wife. Fourth from left is the one I mentioned earlier who went on her first flight, to Bangkok. She was also the relief helper who cared for my mother when the regular one returned home to Guangxi. The one on the right is my grandmother's niece. She is a retired teacher. She has travelled to the U.S.A. and Ireland where her children are. She and her husband would not think of living abroad, they just could not adjust late in life. They never thought they could be jet-setting overseas.
|
|
|
Post by lachinatown on Jan 17, 2013 0:12:27 GMT -5
Outstanding Douglas Lam!
|
|
|
Post by Ah Gin on Jan 17, 2013 4:04:12 GMT -5
Douglas,
I encourage you to reconsider. Do bottle your travel tales and memories of the China as you and as your extended family remembered. I know over a glass of good drink, be that tea or something equally strong, the brain works best. And as you have the good fortune and goodwill to travel around China, I think it’s worth writing down what you saw, how life has changed and changing right before our eyes.
That said, I too need to get off my bottom and write more of these social events down, for my grandkids and others to come. My own journey is perhaps mundane and less colourful than yours.
All the same, picture this: I recall fondly my own experience. The last occasion I visited my ancestral village: walking home to my ancestral village from the rebuilt Gin Ancestral Hall (previously destroyed by you know who’s stirred up gang). The walk along a small concrete road (and yes, that’s a big deal – “foreign mud” road, funded by donations of many locals and overseas relatives) towards our village, observing the village life in the field, pass the modest Watch Tower, pass the “No People Village” – our neighbour village where quite a few fellow clan descendents are now in Gold Mountain. To walk to the exact house, which is still under my father’s name, the village square where grains were being dried, being sniffed by the village dog who instinctively sensed that I am not an intruder, but a family member on the way home. Knocked at my aunt’s front door, got no response and then realized the village was virtually empty. Whipped out my mobile phone, rang my cousin, who said, “Don’t move. We are at the restaurant. We will come and fetch you. My daughter getting married today. You must come and join us for the pre-wedding lunch of course”. The rest of the weekend became a dream event for me – to witness a wedding at one’s own village. Welcome of the bride and groom, old fashion tea ceremony, paying respects to one’s ancestors, dinner at the village square, wedding dinner at the restaurant in town (Kaiping of course). To be honoured as an uncle at the tea ceremony. The conversation with my late 80s aunt, while my cousins and many village helpers were involved in preparing the village-style wedding dinner held at the village square; tapping into the electrical network so that we can light up the square – all very casual. How memorable is that? Conversation with another near relative (we are all related, as after all it was a Gin Clan village) about his life as a Little Red Guard, who became disillusioned with the system. All these are memories I treasure.
I bet you have much more tales worth telling. So do reconsider.
Regards, Ah Gin
|
|
|
Post by douglaslam on Jan 17, 2013 7:13:21 GMT -5
Thanks lachinatown and Ah Gin. I am grateful for the space granted me by the web master to air my traveller's tales on China. It has some appeal to like-minded members of this Forum. It would be presumptuous of me to even think of bottling it as I call it.
Any number of my fellow members can do a better job in presenting his or her take on China. It is just that I am a little long-winded, I go back more often, and I do have my childhood memories to go back to.
Ah Gin, your account of your visit would make compelling reading if you had accompanying images. You neglected taking photos as I did in the past. I re-discovered the value of photos in enhancing a story, harking back to the days of Life and Post magazines.
My Nov. / Dec. trip has yet to run it's course. I next want to present my own village and home. It seems I had forgotten to give my own humble village its due. There is a lot of photos to sort out.
Regards, Douglas
|
|
|
Post by Ah Gin on Jan 18, 2013 4:53:54 GMT -5
Douglas, I agree with you -- inclusion of photos will help in painting the pictures of our visits to our ancestral home. As a sample, see a few photos of the wedding I referred to ginsunhall.org/dong_num_sing.htmAlso, regarding the "No People Village", see ginsunhall.org/no_people_village.htmI took quite a few photos during my trips home. Where appropriate, I have included them on our Clan Homepage. The others, I have printed them and have them in a private collection. Regarding talking to the old folks, I too enjoyed my conversations with any old folks from home, as their recall of an era gone, is so valuable. Regards, Ah Gin
|
|
|
Post by douglaslam on Jan 18, 2013 5:50:11 GMT -5
Ah Gin, I envy your village which still retains the rustic character. Mine is gone beyond help. It is too heavily urbanised.
I really like the village wedding shots. It is so, so traditional, or close to what it used to be. The food is what you'd expect, not a great deal in difference from village to village. BTW was it a communal effort in food preparation, or was it a caterer who came to you?
My village can never be a "no people village." It is far too big and developed. But there are plenty of "no people houses."
Douglas
|
|
|
Post by Doug 周 on Jan 18, 2013 8:25:36 GMT -5
DL,
One way to 'bottle' your photos is to do like Ah Gin, organize and post them onto a website where you have more control.
Either purchase server space with your own site, or use a third party free site like Flickr or Tumblr, or Picassa. Something which you can also download and archive to your workstation storage. Your captions to the photos are most treasurable. All your work assembling and commenting will be available to you for a longer period.
I hope our administrator will never have to relinquish this site. However, see what happened when Henry moved and discontinued his Verizon account. WE lost all those maps and images he referred to in his posting.
DJ
|
|
|
Post by Doug 周 on Jan 18, 2013 11:03:05 GMT -5
DL,
I noticed you use photobucket to archive your photos.
Consider pasting your captions into the photobucket photos, and organizing them as public albums.
Then you can in-lieu of pasting them into the Genealogy Forum, provide a link to your public album. This allows you to edit and add and parse your album as you see fit.
I do not use photobucket, so I don't know the commands and techniques. I am sure your daughter can help you.
If she is far away, consider getting a Google account and use Google Hangout. Then your daughter can look at your screen while you two have a verbal dialog and she can contemporaneously help you modify and adjust your settings on your photobucket.
DJ
|
|
|
Post by Henry on Jan 18, 2013 21:50:40 GMT -5
Dear Friends,
None of the couple hundred maps that I posted on this Forum were lost.
I still have them. But, I no longer have a website to store them. If the administrator of this Forum wants these maps, I would be happy to send him a DVD with all the maps and then he would have to change the link in my posting to the new location on the SiYi Genealogy website.
Henry
|
|
|
Post by douglaslam on Jan 19, 2013 3:52:10 GMT -5
DJ, my captions may make sense in the context of the Forum. Transplanting it to Photobucket would make them sound gibberish, or nonsensicle. As long as I get a few members supporting it, I would be happy to carry on. DL
|
|
|
Post by Ah Gin on Jan 19, 2013 4:04:47 GMT -5
Douglas,
Thanks for your generous comments. I agree with you that we are fortunate – our ancestral village is just outside the city of Kaiping, perhaps 15 minues or so by car or even faster by motor bike taxi. Yet it is still so rural. It is within walking distance from our Clan Ancestral Hall dedicated to our progenitor, and of course, at our village, we have our very own ancestral hall, in honour of our direct ancestor who first settled in the village.
Regarding the wedding: I was lucky to walk into a family wedding and had the opportunity of witnessing the entire event. It was one feast after another. Lunch was a simple gathering at the local village restaurant. Yet the food was so good. Earthy perhaps. Then there was the welcoming of the bride and groom, to the groom’s family home. Typical wedding cakes (or cookies as our American cousins would term). In fact there were cookies that I did not recognize – mind you I was born in the jungle of Malaya, so the Malayan Chinese wedding cookies were influenced by other local Chinese and even other races, not exactly the same as that served at the village. Fire crackers were thrown to welcome and perhaps frightened evil eyes. Then there was the teasing of the bride and groom ceremony, all in good humour and fun of course. The young relatives demanded the bride to sing before they opened the door to the building and she was then allowed to step into the building. There was no “little boy pee into the spittoon” ceremony, or if there is one, I must have missed it, as the entire household was so noisy and busy. (In context: in the old days this ceremony / custom I think is part of the fertility rite. A little boy is invited to roll about the nuptial bed and then pee into the spittoon). For me, the tea ceremony was the highlight. As I reported before, I was included as part of the extended family, and the bride and groom offered me tea as well, after they have gone through the right protocol and sequence (elders in the family first of course). Just as well I was well prepared. I had red packets ready. That evening we had a wedding feast at the village square. All the tables, chairs, bowls, plates etc. were supplied by the village ancestral hall. The entire village was invited. Everyone helped in food preparation and the washing up after. So it was not catered in, but very much a village event. It was such fun and honour to see all villages at work. The next day, there was another wedding dinner, this time it was held in town, in fact in a restaurant owned by another clan member. The proceeding then became more modern than traditional – or shall I say, the modern version.
Enough rambling on by me, enough to say that I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to my ancestral home.
Regards, Ah Gin
|
|
|
Post by douglaslam on Jan 21, 2013 0:28:01 GMT -5
I have written briefly and posted pictures on many of the villages I have visited. My own village is now getting a little attention from one of its own. My village is called On Tong in Cantonese, in official Mandarin Antang. It is in that part of Chungshan county that has its own dialect, Longdu. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dachong It is also part of a cluster of villages called Tai Chung or Dachong. On Tong is also a village well know for its overseas connections. What you are about to see are some of the images I have captured on camera. The historical facts are cited from a genealogy book which I bought, together with entries for my extended family, several years ago. This is the well known gateway, the Centenary Gate 百歲坊 looking into the village. The Gateway was built in the fifth year of Emperor Tongzhi, in 1866 by an imperial decree. It was for a virtuous wife and widow on her hundredth birthday. The genealogy book did not say who or what her deeds were. It remains a major landmark. Apparently Mao's Red Guards did not do much damage to it, or the damages had been repaired. When I was a child, this was just a dirt road with few houses. Ma Gor told me, to the left, coffins used to be stored in a shack awaiting burial on an auspicious day or something. Looking out of the village, there is a busy road and many taller buildings erected only in the last thirty years or so. The once dirt road leads to adjacent villages, to the right Nanman 南文, tyuti1668's village and the main town centre of Tai Chung with its department stores, shops, markets, home units, and factories. I prefer to remember it as paddy fields with low hills in the distant. I think it was the early days of collectivisation, mother was assigned to work in the fields here, I would play by the side of the road, catch crabs in the irrigation channel. The big thrill was to watch the steam-powered bus chuntering past. Mother used match boxes and colour paper to make a bus for me, and I would take it out each time a bus go past. Another incident I remember was that because of Mao's benevolence, the villagers were promised of a tractor to do the hard work, and with it a motor car on show. The village kids, myself included, all flocked to a point past the gate, craning our necks to see what a motor car or tractor was like. It happened so long ago, I could not really remember if a car did show. If was not until years later in Hong Kong, that I had my first ride in a car. This is a 24 hour KFC branch opened about two years ago. Transformation of the village is complete with the appearance of this multinational giant. It is sited about the spot where I used to play when mother was working in the field. The girl on the left is my cousin's granddaughter and her good friend. I asked the girls to take me to a stationery shop to buy brown-paper envelopes so that I could send the chop to Fay Chee. It was the excuse I needed to give them a treat at KFC. It was a delight spending time with the children, and making them feel they were helping me. In fact, they did help me. A short way into the village to the left is the primary school. This is a view of the school through the main gate. It is built on what used to be farmland and fish pond. Much of the funding was raised by donations. I knew the man over fifty years ago, who made money available for the main gate. This is the main teaching building. It is built by a generous donation from a well-off villager. This is the library building. It has an Australian connection because the donor is a well-known Sydney Chinatown identity Stanley Yee. Stanley Yee has extensive business interests in Sydney, operating restaurants, butcher shop, cake shop, and he is one of the early makers of tofu in Sydney. Yee is from a neighbouring village, but his mother is from On Tong. The building is named after her. As you are reading this, the whole school maybe under the wrecker's hammer. Tyuti1668 can verify it for us. It was earmarked for demolition when I was in the village. It is moving to a much small ground adjacent to the high school. This large tract of land with playground is very valuable for redevelopment. The village officials just steam-rolled the proposal through. Some people will have a windfall profit from it. The excuse for moving the school? They say it is not earthquake proof. This is a bold statement of foresight and consideration for the children's welfare and safety. A lesson learned from the Sichuan earthquake, no doubt. People who generously donate are wary of all future donations, fatigue is setting in. Wouldn't you be peeved off? For the time being, this kindergarten next door is safe from demolition. The donor's name is clearly visible. Outside the school are these old banyan trees. This was one of my favourite spots. It was here the water buffaloes were led to rest and feed at the end of a hard day on the fields. Farmers too, gathered here to talk and cool down. I loved to come here watch and smell the beasts, even the dung was pleasant to a country boy's nostrils. I wanted to touch and pat them, but was afraid of the horns. With the demise of the school, a host of small business, and cheap food outlet operators next to it are facing an uncertain future.
|
|
|
Post by tyuti1668 on Jan 21, 2013 5:57:39 GMT -5
KFC?
|
|
|
Post by FayChee on Jan 21, 2013 7:52:03 GMT -5
Nice pictures of your village Douglas. Did the little girls enjoy KFC? I would give anything for a taste of the food at Mings dinner. Fay Chee
|
|