Chen( 曹) family of Jamaica from Tián Xīn Wéi (田心圍)

[mchinsee]

Hi,

The Chen ( 曹) family ancestor immigrated to Jamaica as an indentured laborer in the late 1800's.  we would like to locate our family history book (Jiapu/zupu).
The ancestral village was located through resources provided online by The Chinese Benevolent Association of Jamaica:

Tianxin Road, Dongguan Shi, Guandong Shang, China
www.google.com/maps/dir//22.75072,114.16608/@22.7504629,114.1640608,743m/data=!3m1!1e3 

Are there any Chinese government agency or organization through which we can contact to help us in our search?
Any help or suggestions provided to aid in our search would be very much appreciated.

thank you.

[Doug 周]

Oct 25, 2018 16:31:04 GMT -5 mchinsee said:

...Are there any Chinese government agency or organization through which we can contact to help us in our search?...

The only government agency I know of which has bounded copies of the diagrams of compiled zupus is the Overseas Chinese Agency in Taishan. I have not heard of any in Dongguan. Usually you will have to commission your own field researcher. The two reputable services are Henry ‘s nephew and My China Roots . You will need to provide more information, especially the Hau or Zi given names of ancestors who were born in China.

[Henry]

mchinsee,

Please contact: this office to get the contatct information for the DongGuan office branch:

Guangdong Overseas Chinese Affairs
Email: [e-mail]
Add: 8 Haishan Jie, Ersha Island Guangzhou 510105
Tel: + 86-20-8735 3375
Fax: + 86-20-8735 2060


Henry

[Doug 周]

Yes, please follow Henry's advice and explore the response of the agencies. Most importantly please share your experience with the Forum so future family historians can learn.

This group is only as powerful as the shared information and experience.

[mchinsee]

Hi Henry, Doug,
thank you for your quick reply. i will follow Henry's advise and contact the Overseas Chinese Affairs in Guangdong and see where this leads us.
i want to thank you for your expertise in this area and your willingness to share your knowledge with other people.
for Chinese illiterates like myself, this site is an invaluable resource.

[mchinsee]

Hi All, it would appear email inquiries to this email domain will be blocked if you are using a Gmail address. attempts to send messages to [e-mail] was returned, undelivered using my Gmail account. 

Email was returned undelivered  to my Yahoo account too. 

[Henry]

mchinsee,

The Great Fire Wall of China blocks many websites: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websites_blocked_in_mainland_China

Last November I came prepared with ExpressVPN on my laptop, it was fun watching ExpressVPN defeat the Great Fire Wall of China.

I will be leading a group of 50 people on our Overseas Chinese Genealogy Workshop & Tours in China, starting next week and I have advised the people to get ExpressVPN.

Henry

[Doug 周]

Usually the purpose of the Great Firewall is to censor viewing of thousand of selected non Chinese websites from its citizens. I find that emailing Chinese agencies and even citizens not as reliable. It may be that the email address has changed, especially when the return email error is 'undeliverable'. Maybe opening an account and email address with qq.com , either desktop or mobile, might be more successful.

Hopefully when Henry is in China conducting his genealogy course, there can be an update of the Overseas Affairs email addresses. However, whether someone monitors the email address is another issue. Chinese society functions under Guanxi 关系; you need network connections to get things done. The greatest Guanxi for a family historian is when a Chinese villager says: 'You are family'.

A few years ago, these post discussed the Chinese non response to email. Some pertinent comments:

...it is a headache to deal with people with gmail or a non-Chinese domain. You never know if the person doesn’t get your email because it is getting blocked. No such worry with qq.

QQ email is reliable. Most of Chinese people use QQ email.

...most of enterprises know that people in other countries do not use QQ email to send email. So most of them chose the OUTLOOK EMAIL to contact with foreign trade.

[Henry]

Doug,

The ExpressVPN works very well when I am traveling all over China.

Last November, when I tried to sign on to my Cox.com account, I could not - I called the Cox technical staff & they told me that when their software detects an IP address from a site in China ( my hotel), it will not allow access to my account/ emails. The solution was to forward my Cox emails to my Gmail account, which is banned in China, however, my ExpressVPN allowed me access from within China.

I believe another benefit of Express VPN is that it is a "private network", so your information on your laptop or any financial transactions cannot be viewed or be vulnerable as in the case of public WiFi & hotels. Also, your SIM card ( China Unicom - handles most US based mobile phones ) can also serve as your personal "hot spot" for your mobile phone to serve ( tethering )your laptop with online connectivity.

This is another reason why I do not get a qq.com account, the Chinese government probably monitors the email traffic and can probably perform surveillance on your emails & your information.

Henry

[Doug 周]

So I got in contact with Harry He harryhe699 & harryhe , who is a librarian in Zhongshan. He shared with me the WeChat QR for the Guangdong Overseas Chinese Affairs office.

You cannot view this on a desktop, even with WeChat enabled. It can only be viewed on a WeChat enabled mobile.

When I translate the page (of course it is only in Chinese), the updated On duty fax number is [phone]. Consider typing your request in English and Chinese and faxing your contact information. You can also message them via their WeChat page, but my translation function did not work on their page.

Overseas Chinese Affairs Office: voice: 87353473 fax: [phone]

You might consider private messaging Harry, but he has not logged onto the Forum for a few years.

Thanks mchinsee for giving us the feedback. I hope this additional information will be helpful.

The difficulty of this has exhausted me

[Henry]

mchinsee,

I asked the members of my workshop in China group to download & install We Chat For a group, this is a great way to immediately broadcast messages for last minute changes & announcements, if people get separated or lost from the group - they can send their location - so then, we can send somebody out to rescue them. If you send the " real time location" and the other person accepts it - then you can see the locations of both people and also watch as each one moves towards each other and decide to meet at a common place - each person is heading towards. On We Chat if you receive a message in Chinese, just place your finger on the message and you will be asked if you want it to be translated into English, or when somebody receives your message in English, they can do the same and have it translated into Chinese.

Henry

[mchinsee]

Hi Henry, are VPNs legal in China? there are countries such as Saudi Arabia where VPNs are expressly banned. i was able to send my request through an address provided from the Foreign Affairs Office of the People's Government of Guangdong Province website (no bounceback!). who knows if it will get routed to the proper office.

[Henry]

mchinsee

As the man said, it all depends: www.travelchinacheaper.com/is-it-legal-to-use-a-vpn-in-china

Legality of using ExpressVPN is more applicable to companies, than to individuals, in China.


Henry

[mchinsee]

the Guangdong office still haven't replied to my inquiry. however, i got a reply from My China Roots. they are in the process of opening a new branch office in Guangzhou.

[Doug 周]

Feedback from Forum members on My China Roots has always been positive. They are a business and people mention their professionalism.

I used my VPN to email the Guangzhou Overseas Chinese Affairs office. I was unsuccessful using Yahoo, Gmail, and Outlook email clients with my VPN spoofing my IP address to Hong Kong. My VPN does not mimic the IP address inside China.

Chinese literate friends had mentioned this non response is usual for government offices. When my network looked at the WeChat page of the Overseas office, she could not find an email address. There has been tightening in restrictions of online communications into and out of China just this year.

The only Forum member to have gotten a response from an Overseas office was gckimm , who snail-mailed a letter. He is Chinese literate.

Apr 22, 2017 11:18:48 GMT -5 gckimm said:

...There are a couple of things you can do other than visit China. One is that you could write to the Quanzhou Office for Overseas Chinese Affairs. The address is here:
泉州市人民政府外事侨务办公室
泉州市丰泽区府东路东海行政中心交通科研楼A栋二楼 E-mail：[e-mail]
I don't know how effective a message in English would be. Perhaps someone else on this forum has experience dealing with this office and would be able to give you direction. But in my experience in dealing with similar offices in Guangdong Province, a letter in Chinese gets results. (bold by me for emphasis) I would send the information you have (photocopies would be good) and ask if you still have any relatives in the area. ...

Consider using Google Translate to generate a letter in Chinese and fax the letter to the numbers provided in the my previous posts if you don't have the address in Chinese. 

I have tried WeChat with three different persons. Only one responded. With the other two I probably did not have enough Guanxi 关系.

Thanks you for providing the feedback. I hope my analysis and experimentation helps.