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Post by douglaslam on Feb 7, 2013 6:12:24 GMT -5
Fay Chee, migrants are the out of province workers residing in the village. There are even ladies of easy virtue walking the narrow alleys. There is no hiding because you they don't speak the dialect, don't have our family name, and are not known to the true villagers.tyuti1668's article is in Chinese, it is not much good to you.
Most of the migrants are from Hunan, Guangxi and Sichuan provinces. In the bigger townships, there are Uighur Muslims from Xinjiang, Mongolians even, they flock to the boom towns in the south. Never before would we see such diverse mix of culture within the province.
I do have more photos to upload, just that I am rather busy lately with the New Year looming. Did you buy yourself a few lucky New Year sayings in red to paste on the wall? Get in the spirit, foster a tradition starting from you. Douglas
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Post by FayChee on Feb 7, 2013 23:30:05 GMT -5
Douglas, thanks for explaining what a migrant worker is in China. In the US, these would be the Mexican migrant workers. Without them, we would be in hard times. I try to be extra kind to them when I see them with their families in the stores. If they ever suddenly stopped coming to help us on the farms and other labor driven industry, we would be in big trouble.
I was reminded about the Chinese New Year coming up on the 10th.....I have been really sick with the flu this past week, but I will make it to the store and get my New Year lucky sayings for the wall this weekend. Unfortunately, we are expecting a bad blizzard to start tomorrow, so I hope the roads will be clear by then.
Fay Chee
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Post by tyuti1668 on Feb 8, 2013 1:07:33 GMT -5
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Post by douglaslam on Feb 10, 2013 0:00:44 GMT -5
The Hall is generally called by us The Big Hall 大祠堂 because it is the central and biggest of all the ancestral halls dotted through the village. I hear conflicting accounts as to the age of the Hall. One source, the genealogy book says it was built in 1645. Another source, a newspaper article says it is at least 500 years old because our clan came to settle in the village over 700 years ago. By word of mouth, I was told it was of Ming Dynasty vintage. Whichever the year, I plan to find out on my next trip. I am also keen to make a small contribution to its reconstruction. But I wasn't asked to make a donation. It would give me a great deal of satisfaction to have my name engraved along with my fellow villagers on the roll of honour for posterity. After all, it is my village, I belong. It is a big task to renovate the Hall because I think it had never been maintained under the Mao years. It was taken over by the commune production brigade as office during the chaotic Mao years. Under Mao, nothing was untouchable, antiquity meant nothing. The oyster shell wall facing the main entrance was hacked for windows. Unlike the first oyster shell wall I ever saw at Doug Joe's village LTW, this one was plastered over originally. Seen here a window is removed, and oyster shells are used to fill in the gap, to bring it back as close to the original state as possible. My fellow villager showed me much courtesy when guiding me around the site. He said the oyster shells had to be brought in from Macau. This lump of timber is probably slated for a beam. Notice it is brought in by a simple barrow because no heavy vehicle can get close to the hall. Left of the picture is Ming's old village bakery, to the right it is the hairdresser's which I now patronise. As you can see the interior is completely gutted. Everything is stripped down. The green window (earthenware) is retained. Authenticity is the watch word. This is one of the main columns. As you can see it is rotting at the base. It definitely needs replacing. Opposite the hall used to be a small house next to a small square. the house is now gone, and the square made bigger. It is now a makeshift workshop for the craftsmen to work on. Notice too the stacks of bricks and tiles salvaged from the building. Every reusable piece is retained for authenticity. Where replacements are needed, the contractor would source similar vintage ones salvaged from elsewhere to ensure compatibility to the period is not compromised. This is an outside wall that needs attention. It is of double brick construction. I was told the project would take twelve months, but one newspaper article says it would be completed by June / July. if it was the former, I could probably make it back for the re-dedication ceremony. This is an article in the Australian edition of the Sing Tao Daily 星島日報 on Jan. 26. It is about the rebuilding of our hall. The Sing Tao quoted a major newspaper in Canton as the source. I am surprised our village project gets a mention in a big metropolitan newspaper. The successful tenderer brought in his workers from Chiu Chou 潮州. They are billeted in our disused ancestral halls. According to the article, the workmen do not have a blueprint to work with. It is by reckoning, experience, aided perhaps by sketches, and digital means.
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Post by tyuti1668 on Feb 10, 2013 2:43:15 GMT -5
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Post by FayChee on Feb 10, 2013 20:25:20 GMT -5
Douglas, Wouldn't it be easy for Ming to find out who is in charge of the Big Hall and ask them how you can make a donation to the restoration project in honor of your mother and yourself?
Fay Chee
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Post by tyuti1668 on Feb 10, 2013 23:31:29 GMT -5
No private donation NEEDED in this project, the fund is from ZS govt.
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Post by douglaslam on Feb 11, 2013 0:03:10 GMT -5
tyuti1668, are you spending New Year in the village? Can you verify for me if the hall's roof work is now complete? I called my people in the village, they were not too sure at the time. They also said donations may still be solicited at the later stage of interior fitting. I left words that I want to be informed. I asked Ming in particular that I may make a small donation through him, and my name must not be engraved in simplified characters.
Fay Chee, yes, China's economic gain is built on the abundance of cheap local and migrant labour. I am grateful to the ones who waited for me at the table, drive the bus and so on. Labour costs are now getting higher, and migrants are leaving the south for good. My uncle in LA also employs Mexican women to care for my aunt ( father's younger sister) who is suffering from Alzheimer's. My uncle can't care for her because he himself is 101 years old. Yes, 101. Uncle gets on well in Spanish because his family came to the U.S. from Cuba as refugees in the 60s. Douglas
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Post by tyuti1668 on Feb 11, 2013 0:44:14 GMT -5
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Post by laohuaqiao on Feb 11, 2013 18:00:16 GMT -5
Speaking of ancestrial halls, on a recent trip to China, I did a day trip from Xinhui to Zhongshan Shaxi 沙溪鎮 Longruicun 龍瑞村 to visit the Lau Clan Ancestral Halls, as a follow up on a discussion we had here in this thread. Longrui is not far from Longtouwan. I was told the ancestral halls were renovated about a year or so ago and a huge banquet was held right on the courtyard of the ancestral halls to celebrate the completion of the renovation. Attached is a photo of the main hall, one of 3 halls in the complex. The other 2 halls are for 2 branches of the Lau clan in Longrui. Within the complex there is also a temple Guangong 關公, the honorable general who was one of the sworn brothers of emperor Liu Bei/Lau Bei of state of Shu during the Three Kingdoms Period. Attachments:
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Post by douglaslam on Feb 12, 2013 5:58:44 GMT -5
laohuaqiao, I did pass the same ancestral hall you mentioned on the day I went to Doug Joe's village re-Joe Shoong's family tree. There was a wedding reception on that day. ------------------------- I now go about a few of the many village halls located on the same side of the main thoroughfare as the principal hall and elsewhere. Ming, Ma Gor and me all belong to different branches of the clan within the village. In the old days, we would go to our separate halls at Ching Ming time, for example, then set off to visit the graves of our direct ancestors. It was so colourful, vibrant with rituals and traditions. During the New Year celebrations, the halls would have been very boisterous, decked out in red, flowers in full bloom, the ancestral altar lit up with oil lamps and candles, with incense smoke curling up the ceiling as the people gathered to pay their respects to the deities and ancestors. If only I could turn back the clock before mad Mao appeared on the scene, to savour the excitement of it all. This is one such hall. It is now falling silent and locked up as I walk past. Its last use was a restaurant. I can recall on my visit in 1993, I had lunch there with mother and a few others. One dish stood out, a plate of fried rice. It was piping hot, it was the most delicious fried rice I tasted. Perhaps I was very hungry that early afternoon. I do have some pre-digital day photos of my earlier visits. If I could find and scan them, I'll endeavour to show them. These two adjoining halls had seen many usages. It was once the village primary school which I attended briefly in the early 1950s. In the commune days and early reform years the halls were used as factory. Now, one half is a kungfu school, the other half may be turned into an exhibition hall of village history or something. The square is a basketball court. Popular competition matches used to be held here until a sports centre was opened. The two halls are the best maintained, of course none of the original ornament and fixture are to be seen. What you see here is a fighting ring. In the open courtyard, two old fire fighting appliances are on display. Nothing is done to prevent it from further deterioration. This is the inside of another abandoned hall; it is overgrown with weed. The photo is taken through a crack in the door. It might have been a school which I also attended sixty-years ago or more. Passing kids used to throw stones into the classrooms. These are all former halls, now in use as homes to migrant workers. And one is used as a food preparation area and staff dormitory of a caterer. All the halls have one thing in common, all the signage and couplets in big, bold, powerful characters had been removed, and Mao did all the heavy lifting. He never got tired or complained. Poor bugger. There is normally a plaque which reminds us of the hall's former title. This was the grandest and most opulent residence in the village. It was probably built in the early part of 20th. century. It stood out because it was built with re-enforced concrete. Cement had to be imported in barrels from England then. It was something I learned from my 2010 tour of the diaolou in Hoiping. The building was facing the open country not houses when it was built. There was a brick wall surrounding the house for security. I don't know how the owner 敏雅 Man Ngar amassed his fortune. Did he go to the gold mountain? Tyuti1668, would you be able to find out some thing about him? It is obvious the house has been left vacant for years. At one time, it housed many families. The owner's descendants did not come back to claim it. Anything of value was stripped, the brass balustrade was very quickly removed. This is the back and front of another abandoned house on the main street, opposite a village hall. The writing on the doors are the names of the door gods. My own house used to have them on, each time after spring cleaning for the New Year. It is a small but solidly built home for a very special person to 敏雅 Man Ngar. It was the home to one of his six or seven concubines. My village cousin told me the house was unflatteringly called coffin storage because the old woman used to keep a coffin in the house for her own funeral. I would like to have a chance see the inside of both houses. It is an interesting piece of the village's past.
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Post by tyuti1668 on Feb 12, 2013 6:52:32 GMT -5
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Post by douglaslam on Feb 13, 2013 5:02:52 GMT -5
tyuti1668, I don't know where to look re-敏雅. faob.zsnews.cn/2012/04/28/1992775.shtml This 94 years old Australian born Chinese from my village is supposed to be the first Chinese doctor in Australia. I find that hard to believe. I know nothing about it. -------------------------------------- Further to this article in Chinese. It is only fair I should inform our members who weren't lucky enough to have a chance to learn Chinese. It is about a 94 years old Australia-born Chinese medico, who is supposed to be the first Chinese to qualify to practise western medicine in Australia, and he belongs to my village On Tong. He was accompanied to his father's village, the first time, by Stanley Yee ( see my post on page 38, re-school donations) and an official party I passed the link to my friend King Fong's daughter. As you know I have mentioned King Fong on many occasions on this Forum. He is articulate, well-informed, and has a wide circle of friends. No one can speak or know of Sydney's Chinatown better than him. King confirms for me the person in the photo indeed is a doctor whom he knows well. He is Dr. Norman Hing. Obviously, the family name was mixed up by immigration officials. King, too, has doubts about the veracity of the article. Perhaps Normal Hing was the first medical graduate of Chinese descent from Sydney Uni. or something like that. The honour of the first Chinese doctor to practise Western medicine in Australia is unknown to me. A google search yielded no answers. I remember in the 1970s, my state N.S.W. health department's chief bureaucrat was a Dr. Hing. Might it not have been Norman Hing? I'll be meeting King and a lot of old timers in our Spring Banquet on Monday evening, 18th. Feb. We both will follow up on the claim.
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Post by tyuti1668 on Feb 13, 2013 10:43:17 GMT -5
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Post by douglaslam on Feb 14, 2013 7:39:18 GMT -5
æ•é›…是大天二 土匪 Man Ngar was a bandit, his name suggests he is in the same generation as my grandfather according to the generation poem. Dr. Norman Hing belongs to my father's generation. Nowadays, this tradition of naming a male offspring by his generation character is no longer followed.
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