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Post by ian54 on Dec 20, 2020 16:25:04 GMT -5
THE GREAT FAMILY MYSTERY
How about this for the Great Family Mystery! A good Christmas puzzle to solve. I did my DNA test on Ancestry.com a couple of years ago. So, upon checking matches of potential relatives, the first three were straight forward…my niece, my first cousin and my nephew.
The fourth related person was XYZ (I shall change his initials to protect his privacy). So, I contacted him via Ancestry.com. It turned out the DNA submitted was of his relative (father?) Also, XYZ is from Northern India and more importantly, has DNA strong enough to be my fourth DNA match. So, who is XYZ? He replied he was 50% Chinese. I then responded listing names of several uncles, my granduncle, and both my grandfather’s names and asked which one he was related to. Sadly, he never responded. Unfortunately, this correspondence occurred right in the middle of the current China-India border conflict earlier this summer, so it is possible, he may have been concerned with replying and being accused of “communicating with a Chinese person” and get lynched, as there is a lot of paranoia right now.
If you read some of my earlier posts, my grandpa Tham and Grandpa Chan migrated from China to Calcutta, India in the early 1900s. It is possible that the one of my granddads or my uncles got an Indian lady pregnant. Maybe when she got pregnant, her family sent her back to live with relatives in Northern India or perhaps she eventually moved to Northern India or maybe she was married to one of my relatives.
So, who could be the potential father:
1 Grandpa Chan: Grandpa Chan was in India between the ages of 16 to approx. 36 before he married Grandma Chan, so he could be the father, but from mom’s recollections, he seemed to be a fairly straight laced guy. 2 Grandpa Tham: He lived in India even longer, returning to China, after the India-China border war of 1962. He married three times and was a bit of a maverick, so he could likely be the father. 3 My Grand Uncle. He was there a long time and even had an Indian girlfriend, so he would be a likely candidate 4 Uncle Peter: He was 19 years old when the family migrated to Africa in 1939. He was a womanizer and so a strong candidate. 5 Dad: He was also 19 years old. He migrated to Africa about 6 months after Grandma Chan and family migrated to Africa. But unlike Uncle Peter, Dad was more of a steady man and less likely to stray. 6 Dad’s two adopted brothers in India: Grandpa Tham adopted two sons while he was in India. We do not know if he adopted them by returning to China to get them or he adopt them from a Chinese family in India. From my understanding, in China, at the village level, if you did not have a son, you would first try to adopt a brother’s son from the same village, then a cousin’s son, So, we do not know if one or both of these two adopted sons were adopted from our Tham village in China. If yes, one of them may well be the father with the DNA match. Also, we do not know if they stayed behind in India after Grandpa Tham left, during the old border war in 1962 and married Indian women 7 Uncle Francis: He would have been only about 7 years old, so he can be discounted
So, the great family mystery remains unsolved with too many potential candidates. Hopefully, when the current border skirmish calms down and life returns to normal, XYZ might feel safe to contact me again.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone.
Ian
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Post by ian54 on Feb 28, 2021 20:12:18 GMT -5
MY GRAND-AUNT MARRIED A CHICKEN:
My mom, aged 92, told me this story before but I could never wrap my head around it as it never made any sense. However, an hour ago while on FaceTime, she repeated it to me, so this time I Googled it and to my surprise it was confirmed by a couple of articles. Has anyone heard of a similar story with any relatives or can reconfirm this tradition which apparently is in the general Shenzhen region in Guangdong.
My mom said her mom’s sister had an arranged marriage with a Chinese man who was living in America. He did not want to (could not?) come back to China for the wedding. Mom said the wedding proceeded with all the formal traditions and her aunt was married to a rooster (which was the proxy for the husband). The rooster was not to be killed as it represented the husband. Apparently, the husband never returned to China ( mom thinks he had married someone in America).
The mother-in-law purchased a girl for my Grand-aunt to raise, so she would not be alone, so sadly, my poor Grand-aunt never did have children of her own.
I will attach the articles separately
Ian
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Post by ian54 on Feb 28, 2021 20:15:20 GMT -5
Article: Chinese Creeds & Customs by Burkhart
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Post by ian54 on Feb 28, 2021 20:16:49 GMT -5
Article: We Walked to Freedom: A Memoir: By Loretta Ng Guinness Slaton
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Post by chansomvia on Mar 31, 2021 3:33:02 GMT -5
Great to hear that you are compiling your great adventures. It would be interesting to get copies of your works so we can compare. My own trip was very interesting but no real details came out of it. Was involved with the Tomb Sweeping ceremony "Ching Ming" and took quite a lot of photos. Was off this forum for a while but will reactivate it. Keep the stories coming.
Joe alias chansomvia
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Post by ian54 on Apr 10, 2021 5:41:37 GMT -5
Hi Chansomvia,
I hope all is well with you in New Zealand. I just got my second Covid shot here in Louisiana with the side effects being just a sore arm and a one day fever. We are already vaccinating anyone 16 years and older here...there are a lot of people not wanting the vaccination for political or personnel reasons, so at this rate, we will never reach herd immunity, and the virus will continue in one form or another. Even though I already got the Covid virus back last August with my symptoms being similar to the flu, i still got the vaccination, in order to protect my family, friends and work colleagues.
Unfortunately, as with most cases in life, I got busy on other home and yard projects and so working on my great adventures was put on the back burner but I need to find the time to get working on it again.
Ian
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Post by chansomvia on Apr 11, 2021 17:48:43 GMT -5
Nice to hear from you. Keep it up as we are losing our African stories. I have a Zimbabwe Chinese friend whose father arrived in Beira before the 2nd world War and traveled all the way to Rhodesia to start a new life, children mainly in Canada and UK, one in New Zealand. Fascinating story but never documented before his death. All the best and good luck with the fight against Covid19.
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Post by chansomvia on Apr 11, 2021 18:12:06 GMT -5
ian54 How do find your books? Joe
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Post by ian54 on Apr 12, 2021 21:30:30 GMT -5
Hi Chansomvia,
How did your dad end up selecting Tanzania as his destination? After fleeing India because of his bankruptcy, while in China, my grandpa Chan initially corresponded with a Chinese friend in South Africa about working at a paper mil there. But the friend advised him that there were no work opportunities in a South Africa and told him to go to East Africa instead. That is how he ended up in Tanzania.
With regard to the books I have written, they are really intended only for our family, our children and grand children. They have not been published. A lot of the second and third books are emails between my siblings reminiscing and remembering our childhood.
Actually, the best family stories that stand out are actually those I have written on this thread. Up to now, most of my stories are about my mom’s Chan side of the family. I have not written about my grandpa Tham and his opium den yet. Or about him cutting a chicken and a duck at their knee joint, switching their feet and allowing the joints to heal. Grandpa Tham was a herbal doctor and quite a character.
Ian
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Post by chansomvia on Apr 14, 2021 16:52:14 GMT -5
Hi ian54
Nice to know you are still active on this amazing forum and I do respect your privacy. My own travel to our village and talking to our distant relatives revealed many unproven skeletons in the cupboard and I left with a distinctive bad taste in my mouth. I however keep the fading memories of the times we spent in Africa in the mines and early education in the small schools in the bush.
As far as I can recollect the days of starvation drove my father to leave Toisan Haiyan to Thailand, then back home, and then managed to go to Beira. He then became a Portuguese citizen. Having had enough after a few years he packed up his belongings whatever it was and boarded a ship to China which stopped in Daressalaam. As an active adventurer he came off the ship to take a walk on land after days in the confines of the ship and met a Siyap chap and those days any Chinese is your brother in Africa.
My father left the ship and started a new life in Dar as the chap told him there was opportunities in German Tanganyika. Somehow he worked his way up and even brought his two brothers to Dar. His sisters had starved to death in China and elder brother was shot as he was deaf and did not hear the Police telling him to stop. The stories fade away as nobody is alive to tell more. My father also managed to bring over and look after a few families from China and the stories are sketchy.
I have some old faded pictures which I will try to post on the forum and it is nice to hear from you. My children were born in Malaysia and had an trilingual education so they are well versed in Chinese, and my daughter went back as a tourist to the cities quite a few time and met her mother's side, so different as they there are city slicks in China, good jobs. My second son graduated as an engineer in New Zealand and was employed in Los Angeles for 7 years, they kept him on as he spoke Mandarin and Cantonese and he was their consulting trouble shooter for the America factories in Shanghai and Guangdong. So they look at China in an entirely different perspective to my own experience in trying to trace my roots.
Keep you stories coming.
Joe
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Post by Henry on Apr 14, 2021 20:07:27 GMT -5
Hi Ian & Joe,
I love reading your stories about your family adventures in various countries and how they had to overcome so much adversity. I am reminded about my own father, who left China at age 11 with an older brother after grandfather passed on & went to Calcutta, India - where he learned his trade as a carpenter. Then at age 17, he worked as a carpenter on ships that traveled around the world for the next 10 years and visited so many places & countries. When he arrived in New York City, he left the ship the night before it sailed and dodged the immigration authorities for the next 10 years. He won $1,000 playing the Chinese numbers which was quite a lot of money in the 1930s in America & he bought "paper daughter" papers & brought my mother, a "picture bride" to America in 1940 and the rest is the typical Chinese American family history. But, all overseas Chinese have a treasure trove of family stories that they can tell about the struggles of their family & parents - I salute all of them !
Keep your stories coming.
Henry
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Post by ian54 on Apr 18, 2021 20:55:32 GMT -5
Hi Henry any Joe, Thank you for posting your fascinating family stories which I really enjoyed reading. I hope this may encourage other members to post their family history or stories on this site too. It is amazing to think how difficult life was for our previous generations and the difficulties they experienced migrating to their new country, only to find hardship and discrimination even to this day.
My grandpa Chen, a carpenter lived in Calcutta, India between 1900 and approx 1935-1937. My grandpa Tham, a herbal doctor migrated to Calcutta sometime between 1908 and perhaps 1915. He lived in Calcutta until 1962, when the China-India border war broke out, at which point he moved back to China, as the Chinese that stayed were sent to internment camps in India. So Henry, wouldn’t it be interesting if my grandparents and your father had perhaps met in Calcutta. Perhaps grandpa Tham and your dad met at the Tan/Than/Tom fraternity. My mom said she was born near Calcutta’s Chinatown. In fact all five in her generation were born in India. I recently Googled the house address on my moms birth certificate and amazingly the Calcutta street she was born in still exists.
I shall round up and upload some more stories from my mom.
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Post by Henry on Apr 19, 2021 9:34:22 GMT -5
Hi Ian,
Dad probably arrived in Calcutta in 1916 - so it was entirely possible that dad & his older brother may have met up with your grandfather the Tham herbal doctor. Your grandfather probably took care of many Chinese in Calcutta, especially fellow 譚 clansmen.
Worldwide, there are approximately 80 Tom/Tan associations in cities around the world. Many are under the Chew Lun Association 4 clan surname association ( Xu [許], Xie [謝], Tan [談], Tan [譚]), there are Fang Yong Tong (Tom) associations in Kolkata, formerly, Calcutta & Mumbai, formerly, Bombay.
Henry
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Post by ian54 on Jun 13, 2021 19:52:40 GMT -5
THE OPIUM DEN
In India, Grandpa Tham who was an herbal doctor, was well known in the community and had a reputation as a good doctor, but he was very lazy. He smoked opium and lay on his bed day and night. When a patient arrived, he got up, prescribed, and made an herbal concoction, and then went back to lounging on the bed smoking opium.
Grandpa Tham never sent any money home to his wife #1 in China. Mom said she thinks Grandpa Tham paid for the opium from the money he got treating patients, which may be why he never had any money to send to Grandma Tham at the village.
In one of the rooms of his house, he had four beds. The beds were wooden, essentially two chairs joined together end to end, with a plank laying across and straw stuffed mattresses. The sailors would come to his place and lay on the beds smoking opium.
Mom said she knew about this room because her family’s house was on the backside of Grandpa Tham’s house. The Chan house had no water, so the Tham son (who eventually would become my future Dad) and my Uncle Peter, made holes in the wall of each house and ran a water hose from the Tham house to the Chan house. Whenever water was needed, Grandma Chan would tell mom to go to the Tham house next door to turn the water tap on. Mom would therefore have to pass by the room where all the opium users were drugged out on the beds.
According to Mom, Grandpa Tham was thrown in jail several times by the authorities because of his opium den.
As punishment, he was made to carry a hookah and the opium on his head and walk to the jail. His good friend Grandpa Chan would get a message to bring money to pay his fine, so he could get released. This happened several times and Grandpa Chan always came to the rescue. Mom said Grandpa Tham sometimes managed to bribe the policeman so as not to be taken to jail.
Henry, the probability is very high that your dad and his brother knew of or were medically treated by my Grandpa Tham, because my Mom said Grandpa Tham was well known in the Calcutta Chinese community.
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Post by Henry on Jun 14, 2021 9:44:28 GMT -5
Hi Ian,
I agree :-)
It is highly probable that my dad & uncle knew your grandfather - even them, it was a small world.
Henry
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