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Post by chansomvia on Jun 17, 2021 0:51:41 GMT -5
There was a Tam Kee who worked in Kenya and understand he came form India.
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Post by ian54 on Jun 27, 2021 19:55:48 GMT -5
Joe,
I checked but my mom did not recognize the name Tam Kee.
By the way, did your dad work at any of the Geita, Buhemba or Senkeke gold mines in Tanzania, which dad and/or uncles worked at during different times. Also, did you dad or you know my Grandpa Chan or my Uncles Laing, Ah Choy (Peter) or Ah Tim (Francis). My Uncle Laing is the one who had a small gold mine operation but I do not know what it was called…it probably had 20 or 30 workers and so had no name.
Ian
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Post by ian54 on Aug 8, 2021 8:03:35 GMT -5
Grandpa Tham was a well respected doctor, even if he enjoyed smoking his opium and running his opium den.
Perhaps he had the talent to a mad doctor or was under the influence of opium but mom mentioned the story about his duck and chicken experiment. She said he would cut a duck’s leg at the knee joint and do the same with a chicken. He would then swap the legs and wrap herbs at the joint, so you ended with a duck with chicken feet and a chicken with duck’s feet. How successful the experiment went I do not know but it must have been quite a sight to behold.
Ian
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Post by ian54 on Jul 19, 2022 21:40:37 GMT -5
Mom said her mother told her Great Grandfather Tang was very wealthy at one time, but he smoked opium. He had bought a girl and boy who were raised to be the family’s servants. He owned a lot of land around a mountain. It was full of trees. But because of his opium addiction, he started borrowing money from his sister and her husband, but in time, he had to sell the trees on his land to buy more opium to satisfy his addiction. He sold the trees to people that made furniture.
Eventually he was left with only two lychee trees. These bore lots of overly sweet lychees. Mom said she loved lychees and when the trees were full of fruit, she would gorge herself until she got sick! Mom said her Aunt, her and her younger brother would sleep under the trees to prevent thieves from stealing the lychee fruit. One time, they did not sleep under the tree and the next morning, some thieves had plucked the lychee trees bare. In time Great Grandfather Tang had to forfeit his land to his sister and her husband.
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Post by ian54 on Jul 19, 2022 21:44:23 GMT -5
It is lychee harvest season. Here is a video of lychees being harvested. I can just visualize my mom gorging herself and sitting bloated under the lychee tree.
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Post by ian54 on Nov 25, 2022 21:17:06 GMT -5
MYSTERY SOLVED? HALF CHINESE-HALF INDIAN RELATIVE
Who is EP (the true initials for XYZ in my previous article of December 20, 2020? EP has a very typical sounding Indian first and last name (surname).
Without any good leads, it was impossible to try to figure out how EP was related to me.
After my initial contact with him, he revealed he was 50% Chinese: 50% Indian. However, when I asked who his father/grandfather might be, he never replied. This was right in the middle of the China-Indian border skirmish in 2020, and so I thought perhaps he feared he might get in trouble communicating with a Chinese person and decided not to respond. So, I reached a dead end.
However, with recent DNA improvements and my mom having just taken her DNA test, it revealed that EP was related to me via my mother’s side. This immediately eliminated my dad or any other male Tham relatives.
This implied EP was related via my Chan side (Grandpa Chan) or my Tang side (Grandma Chan’s father was a Tang). EP is listed as a 4th cousin, which therefore disqualified Grandpa Chan, Uncle Peter and Uncle Francis and my Grand Uncle, as EP would have to be my 1st or 2nd cousin if he was a child/grandchild from one of them. So, who was this mysteries EP?
I called mom and told her EP was not related to any Tham and was a 4th cousin of a Chan or a Tang. I asked mom if there were any other Chan or Tang relatives that migrated to Calcutta. A day or two later, she recalled that Grandpa Chan indeed had a cousin that moved to Calcutta. She could not remember his name. But this helped solved the mystery.
If you look at the chart, you can see EP. With 50% Chinese and 50% Indian mix. With an Indian surname, EP's dad would have to be Indian and his mom Chinese. His maternal grandparents would then both be Chinese. This would make his granddad a “second cousin twice removed” of my Grandpa Chan.
Mystery solved, but I only wish we knew this unknown Chan relative's name was.
I am having trouble attaching the photo of the family chart and so attach it separately as soon as possibly
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Post by ian54 on Nov 25, 2022 21:26:39 GMT -5
Here is the relationship chart
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Post by ian54 on Sept 4, 2023 19:42:47 GMT -5
My mom celebrated her 95th birthday last month. She is starting to get a little frail but her mind is still sharp.
She recalled this story;
When in India, apparently, many Chinese men had Indian girlfriends but wives back home in their ancestral villages in China.
Mom said whenever the men went back to visit their wives, the Indian women would tell them to make sure they returned, as they had put a “potion” in their food which would now be in their stomach. If they returned, the woman would give them an antidote to the “potion”, otherwise they would die if they stayed in China.
After he emigrated to Africa, my Grand Uncle told his sister that he had never told his girlfriend he was leaving for Africa. As a precaution, to prevent any”potion” or “spell” on him, he killed a puppy and placed a drop of its blood on each item of his clothing. This was suppose to prevent anything happening to him. Furthermore, he just disappeared, never mentioning a word to his girlfriend. She was probably wondering what happened to him, while he was already safe from the dreaded “potion” and sailing to Africa.
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Post by ian54 on Dec 24, 2023 11:41:36 GMT -5
CHRISTMAS MIRACLE:
Eureka!! Three days ago, I received word from Steven Guan in Kaiping, China that he found my Ng cousins who are our aunt's children (i.e., dad's sister's children). She married an Ng and by tradition, upon marriage she has to move to the husband's village. The only clue I had for Steven was a photo from 1965 with names and ages of Grandma, Aunt and the children.
Being from the same generation as us, the children now range in age from about 78 to 63. Unfortunately, Grandma, aunt, the eldest son and youngest daughter, have passed away, so only three in the original 1965 photo are alive.
I have been on WeChat with the youngest son, the last three days trying to catch up on 57 years of lost history. This is a summary:
Shuibiancun (the village we visited in 2019) is the correct Tham ancestral village (even though there is no record of dad, granddad & great-granddad in the zupu). We do not know the reason why.
When Grandma Tham (wife #1) got older in age, she moved to stay with her daughter (our aunt) at the Ng village. She transferred our Tham ancestral house in Shuibiancun village to a Tham cousin who now owns it. My Ng cousin is going tomorrow to take photos of the house and the village for me.
Grandpa Tham did come back to Shuibiancun during/after the 1962 India-China border war started. He lived three more years dying on Feb 2, 1965.
My Aunt died in 1985. Grandma Tham died in 1987.
The Ng village is about 1 or 2 miles from the Tham Shuibiancun.
Grandma Tham's maiden name was SZETO, first name Yuxia and her village is about 8 -9 km away. My cousin cannot remember her village name, but he will ask his older brother. Hopefully, they will remember & we can visit it in November 2025.
What an amazing Christmas gift to have. Thank youSteven Guan. His email address is stevenguan08@outlook.com if anyone needs his services. I wrote some info on Steven back in 2019 in the "News links" section on this board.
Ian
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Post by ian54 on Feb 4, 2024 23:15:48 GMT -5
WOMAN MARRIAGE TO A CHICKEN (ROOSTER)
In my older post on this thread dated February 28, 2021, I mentioned the story of my grand-aunt, who married a Rooster because the man she was to marry would not/could not come back to China to marry her.
Dan Seto describes the story of a woman who had married a Rooster during his visit to Kaiping's China "Visit To Hoiping China Museum". This is at the 4 minute 33 second point of the attached Youtube video.
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