off to china next week - my story
Oct 4, 2012 16:37:49 GMT -5
Post by carbacca on Oct 4, 2012 16:37:49 GMT -5
I've been lurking here for a wee while, but havent really shared anything about myself. But as titled - i am off to HK and China next month so i thought i might write some of this down just to get it clear in my head, and to share
Genealogy wise - i think i know a fair bit, but obviously not as much as some of you guys. i was born in HK, moved to NZ in 1993. Both my parents are also born in HK so not much interesting stuff there. My paternal grandfather (李煥堃 - Lee Woon Kwan in jyutpin cantonese) was from guangzhou, and was working at a radio technician in some sort of newspaper/radio outfit, ran into trouble with the communist when they took over and had to leave his family and move to HK. He was the oldest son and had several brothers still in guangzhou. in HK he met my grandmother and had a family, my dad and two younger aunts. granddad died in 1989 and is buried in Wo Hop Shek in HK (I still have pretty good memory of the funeral and how they dug him up after 5 years to rebury the bones etc but thats another story). Grandma is living with us in NZ now. Maternal grandma has a much longer history in HK, have several sisters (at least 3 off the top of my head) all with families in HK that we are still in contact with.
My mothers side is a bit more messy, mostly on account that she is the 8th of 10 children, with a twist. My maternal grandfather 黃乃成, i dont know where he originates from, but my mom recalls that her grandfather, was a fisherman and lived on a boat. my maternal grandmother 鄭真 was a full time housewife, no surprises with 10 children. the twist is that i have no idea how many children exactly there was because apparently there was an eldest one who died in the war, and then grandmother adopted a war orphan with the surname 梁, and then had another biological son who is considered the oldest son, even though the adopted son was considered one of her own, and so i have a bunch of cousins with the surname 黃 as well as a surname 梁. another twist is that there is a second son, that noone talks about, and is apparently some sort of conman. the third son got married and emigrated to the USA, had a son, got divorced, lost contact with ex-wife and son and moved back to HK where he died a few years ago, but since we have no contact with his ex-wife and son we couldnt inform them and they are basically lost to us
as for me, i married my wife who is from the mainland. she is from zhuzhou, hunan, but lived in changsha as well. Her father is from shandong, but her mother is from hunan, and has aunties and cousins all over the place ranging from shanghai, shenzhen, guangzhou) thats as much as i know about her family at this stage but i will no doubt find out more when we visit her family
maybe i should write this down/computerise it for my children one day...whats a good package to to this?
anyways things we are planning on doing:
- in HK may visit my grandfathers grave, i havent been for 10+ years. His actual grave is in Wo Hop Shek as mentioned, but we have 靈位 (spirit place?? another got a better translation?) at ching chong koon 青松觀 in HK and also one at the Fo Guang Shan 佛光山 in auckland
- i may visit my paternal grandfathers sister who is living in guanzhou, as ordered by my grandma....
- once we are in zhuzhou, my mother-in-law is apparently organsing some event since it will be the first time we are travelling as a married couple, we got married recently. yay
but yeah so thats the breakdown of my limitedly-known genealogy as well as my trip. If any of the names mentioned ring a bell across anyones research message me ok?
Genealogy wise - i think i know a fair bit, but obviously not as much as some of you guys. i was born in HK, moved to NZ in 1993. Both my parents are also born in HK so not much interesting stuff there. My paternal grandfather (李煥堃 - Lee Woon Kwan in jyutpin cantonese) was from guangzhou, and was working at a radio technician in some sort of newspaper/radio outfit, ran into trouble with the communist when they took over and had to leave his family and move to HK. He was the oldest son and had several brothers still in guangzhou. in HK he met my grandmother and had a family, my dad and two younger aunts. granddad died in 1989 and is buried in Wo Hop Shek in HK (I still have pretty good memory of the funeral and how they dug him up after 5 years to rebury the bones etc but thats another story). Grandma is living with us in NZ now. Maternal grandma has a much longer history in HK, have several sisters (at least 3 off the top of my head) all with families in HK that we are still in contact with.
My mothers side is a bit more messy, mostly on account that she is the 8th of 10 children, with a twist. My maternal grandfather 黃乃成, i dont know where he originates from, but my mom recalls that her grandfather, was a fisherman and lived on a boat. my maternal grandmother 鄭真 was a full time housewife, no surprises with 10 children. the twist is that i have no idea how many children exactly there was because apparently there was an eldest one who died in the war, and then grandmother adopted a war orphan with the surname 梁, and then had another biological son who is considered the oldest son, even though the adopted son was considered one of her own, and so i have a bunch of cousins with the surname 黃 as well as a surname 梁. another twist is that there is a second son, that noone talks about, and is apparently some sort of conman. the third son got married and emigrated to the USA, had a son, got divorced, lost contact with ex-wife and son and moved back to HK where he died a few years ago, but since we have no contact with his ex-wife and son we couldnt inform them and they are basically lost to us
as for me, i married my wife who is from the mainland. she is from zhuzhou, hunan, but lived in changsha as well. Her father is from shandong, but her mother is from hunan, and has aunties and cousins all over the place ranging from shanghai, shenzhen, guangzhou) thats as much as i know about her family at this stage but i will no doubt find out more when we visit her family
maybe i should write this down/computerise it for my children one day...whats a good package to to this?
anyways things we are planning on doing:
- in HK may visit my grandfathers grave, i havent been for 10+ years. His actual grave is in Wo Hop Shek as mentioned, but we have 靈位 (spirit place?? another got a better translation?) at ching chong koon 青松觀 in HK and also one at the Fo Guang Shan 佛光山 in auckland
- i may visit my paternal grandfathers sister who is living in guanzhou, as ordered by my grandma....
- once we are in zhuzhou, my mother-in-law is apparently organsing some event since it will be the first time we are travelling as a married couple, we got married recently. yay
but yeah so thats the breakdown of my limitedly-known genealogy as well as my trip. If any of the names mentioned ring a bell across anyones research message me ok?
. However, western and modern Chinese (because of the one child policy) include the women’s side of the family, which increases the potential number of individuals by 4 fold.