Taishan and its Overseas Chinese

[chansomvia]

Dear Henry,

Thank you for anchoring this thread which ties in so many like minded persons who will slowly but surely establish a base for the new generation of Chinese interested in knowing more of their roots. The journey of discovery is perhaps more satisfying than the actual arrival at the destination. The interest in China and Chineseness has been generated, amongst other things, by the publicity of Olympic games and the knowledge that China is a super-power and can hold its head high.

My children were born in Malaysia, the choice of education there was to:

a) send them to State school where Malay was the medium of instruction with a lesson in English and a lesson in Chinese, or
b) send them to private Chinese schools where the medium of instruction was mainly Mandarin, with about half of the other subjects in English, with intensive Malay as a compulsory subject, or
c) send them overseas.

We took b) which was more expensive and prepared them for overseas studies, but more importantly to be taught Chinese history and Chinese customs, particularly filial piety and discipline; learning Mandarin was a side benefit. As Philip will tell you and you may have learnt this when you were in Malaysia the Chinese in Malaysia are very patroitic and consider China as their motherland. The reason I bring this up is because my daughter and her husband went to China and did a month tour taking in most of the usual tourist sights - but with a difference. They speak more than 4 Chinese dialects, as most Malaysian Chinese, (but not Siyip!). They studied Chinese history and as they read Chinese they discovered (and appreciated) much more than I did during their trip.

I belong to the Canterbury Chinese Association and we encourage full fee trips for our youths to go to China and see some of the roots. We do not subsidize the trip but assist in arranging the trip through agents. As those who have been back to the villages arranging for the youngsters to go back to burn joss-sticks at the graves and look at the ancestral homes is not really an attractive feature to the younger generation. As you have mentioned these village trips could be side trips to the main tourist centres. Language is not an insurmountable barrier as an English speaking guide helps. Most tourists will try to learn a bit of the language of the country they travel to, such as Spanish to Spain and South America, French to France, English to English speaking places like North America, England, Australia, New Zealand etc. It will be an added incentive for the youngster to learn some Chinese.

This forum plays a great part in dissemination information on where to look for our ancestors, our oldsters are diminishing rapidly and soon the oral presentation will be unavailable. So to all contributing to this forum I thank you for your time and suggestions, and a special thanks to the webmaster and moderators.

Joe

[Henry]

Dear Joe,

Thank you for sharing your most interesting story about yourself, your children, and your overseas Chinese association with our SiYi Forum members. Truly, it is your contributions, as well as, those viewpoints of all our Forum contributors, such as Ah Gin, Raymond, Douglas, Helen, Kiwi, laohuaqiao, and others, that enable such insightful and authentic perspectives of the overseas Chinese experience in SiYi and other regions within Guangdong province, and with regions in other provinces of China from where overseas Chinese have originated from.

Yes, as you have said, it may well be the gratification in this journey of discovery / return to our roots that enlightens and not so much with any grandeur of the destination, however, visiting our ancestral villages, no matter how humble, and seeing the surrounding hamlets and villages, towns, and rural landscape is such an unforgettable memory. I believe my own experience is a rather typical, one that I have previously shared: www.qimagazine.dailyqi.com/magazine/2008%20sept/tom.html

Also, thank you for sharing your insights with regard to the Malaysian educational experience for overseas Chinese. I believe the minority status of the Chinese in Malaysia has actually polarized and instilled this strong patriotic spirit for China that would not otherwise have been present and to the extent of setting up alternative schools where Chinese and others could formerly educate their children with additional Chinese language skills, history, and customs - an opportunity that many of us wished was available for our children.

Yes, my good friend Philip Tan in Malaysia has been busy also trying to organize 2 initiatives since my recent to visit to Kuala Lumpur. Philip is trying to leverage the publicity of my visit as detailed in this newspaper feature: mysite.verizon.net/vzepzaui/Star.pdf and is now working on trying to set up a Chinese genealogy group within the Federation of Chen Associations in Malaysia. This group would be for English speakers that want to learn and research their genealogical origins in China and they would plan tours to visit their ancestral villages in China. He is also planning a major Chinese genealogy presentation for the public during my possible return visit to Kuala Lumpur during January 2009 and we plan to invite the teachers from all these Chinese schools in Malaysia with the intent of establishing a basic Chinese genealogy curriculum in these Chinese schools. As we say in the business, “training the trainers”.

Beyond solidifying the “Chinese connection” of overseas Chinese to China, Chinese genealogy / research can also be a perpetual mechanism that extends this connectivity to China and things Chinese to all our children / relatives and their descendants. I believe it is for these underlying and unstated goals that we have so many and enduring SiYi Forum members.

Historically, many of the overseas Chinese organizations in countries all over the world emerged to support the Chinese that came to earn money to support their families in China while also trying to save money for their return to China. So it is also rather ironic that now, they can also serve another important role of supporting the descendants of these same immigrant Chinese to know and retain a connection back to China through programs that provide an education and understanding of Chinese language, history, and customs. One valuable means that Chinese organizations can use to achieve these goals, be they general, dialect, regional or family/clan organizations, is through the study of Chinese genealogy / research. I believe that the viability and existence of such organizations, in large part, is predicated upon recruiting and maintaining the memberships of the younger Chinese generations.

It is my fervent hope that our shared collective experiences will provide some measure of understanding and encouragement for us as individuals and/or for overseas Chinese organizations - to initiate, maintain, and extend efforts to impart all things Chinese to our children / relatives and their descendants through the agony and the ecstasy of Chinese genealogy / research.

Henry

[Ah Gin]

Dear All,

I am now in Hong Kong, on the way home to the outback of Australia. Thanks to advice from many of you, my journey to Kaiping, Taishan, Zhungshan from HK was uneventful ie no incident at all and very smooth indeed -- more when I return to my home base, as using someone's PC is not that easy.

My trip was most successful -- far beyond my expectation. There were many tears of joy as I walked to my ancestral home from our Clan Memorial Hall. To have the opportunity to receive cups of tea from my relatives at their wedding, to participate in a wedding celebration at the village square in front of our village memorial hall, to walk through the "No People Village" -- next to our own village, to travel on a motor cycle "taxi" in Kaiping, to communicate in my broken Hoisanwa, to have a cup of coffee with my ABC cousin, in the wealthy part of Toishan City, to be given our branch of Jiapu, as written by my father and now enthrusted in my care, to walk down a village lane as if it was part of our own (which it is), to talk to our Clan Roots researchers first hand, to talk to the teachers, headmaster and children of the school long associated with our Clan, keen to learn -- such is the priceless memory and experience of this trip.

For all the above, I am grateful that I have the opportunity made possible because of my parents and those who came before us.

Regards, Ah Gin

[Henry]

Dear Ah Gin,

It is quite reassuring to hear about your wonderful visit in the SiYi area and how it was such an enriching experience. I await to hear more.

Yes, our debt of gratitude to our parents and those that came before can only be repaid by how much we are able to do for our children and all that follow.

I know that you will now add to the family genealogy book and replicate it digitally and/or as hardcopies for your children, grandchildren, family members and relatives.

Henry

[Ah Gin]

Henry,

Exactly as you say -- I know that it's now my responsibility to add to the family book, and in time, when our Village Jiapu is due for update, our additions will be useful. Every interested family member will have his/her chance to contribute, and they will get a paper copy of the booklet. It was an emotional feeling for me when I saw my father's handwriting -- it was as if he was talking to me, and his wish that the booklet will be updated stated.

As you say, we are but the custodian. Much more about my travel later.

Regards, ah gin

[raymond]

Henry, Ah Gin, et al.,

The emotion and feeling of having journeyed back to your ancestral village are quite exhilarating indeed with profound senses of humbleness and gratification in that you, as a descendant of your sojourner forefathers, have come full circle in the Overseas Chinese cycle. You have brought honor and dignity to your family clan by making the journey back which had started so long ago when your forefathers embarked on their journey overseas. Not only is it now in our charge to preserve and continue the family clan genealogy for generations to come, it also our charge to literally thank the ancestors at their gravesites for their sacrifices made in order to better the lives of yourself, your family and future generations to come. It is our filial obligation to declare in the presence of their final resting place, "Baba, ngor fon lay la"......"Father, I have come home".

Raymond

[Ah Gin]

Raymond,

Thanks. Exactly my feeling. Few more bits of shopping in HK before the short trip back to Oz. As promised, I will share my travel experience etc. when I am back at the outback.

Regards, Ah Gin

[Henry]

Ah Gin,

If you still have some time to shop and have a multiple entry China visa. I suggest taking the HKG Metro north to the last stop at Lowu and go through the China border crossing - special line for seniors and people with foreign passports. Walk a couple hundred feet and enter the 6 story building - the size of an American football field and shop until you drop. Thousands of stalls selling products from every province in China and cheap too!

For example, a Chinese chop (seal) costs over 500 HKG dollars, you can pick up chops there for about 60 yuan each - less than $10 USD and they will make them while you wait. Great Christmas gift for the children/grandchildren. You can get the chop that has the Zodiac animal for that person - try to get the chop made from Fujian stone - best there is. If you can pick up a chop carved from a stone from Shoushan mountain in Fujian province - you got the best, but, the Shoushan chops will be more expensive. There is a great restaurant on the 3rd floor and a great dim sum place on the 6th floor.

Enjoy.


Henry

[Ah Gin]

Henry,

Lowu shopping (Football Field Mall?) Missed it by that much -- I am now back home at the Outback of 'Ostralia. There is always the next time. Meanwhile, back in the real world, tons of papers to go through. So it will be a few more days hacking through the paperwork.

By the way, this round, I did get a chop for my granddaughter at Kaiping -- one almost similar to the one I had it made for my grandson some 3 years ago. Every child should have one, chop that is, as that is part of their heritage, so says this old fellow.

Talk to you folks later about various aspects of my field trip, after I have chopped down a few trees.

Regards, Ah Gin

[Henry]

Ah Gin,

Okay, Lowu on the next trip. I am sure the lure of Kaiping and the Taishan countryside will bring you back. Hopefully, with some of your children/grandchildren.

Yes, the chops ar really neat !

Wow, I have not fell trees with my Stihl chainsaw since the 1980s when we supplemented the heating of our home with an air-tight wood burning stove inserted into our fireplace. It had a huge plenum around the firebox and a huge fan - we could have the living room temperature up in no time. Flipping on the thermostat to our gas furnace is so much more civilized these days.


Henry

[Ah Gin]

Henry,

Kaiping etc. revisited -- as the Gov Of CA said in one of his star acts, "I will be back". Once the connection is forged, or rather re-established, it will be there forever.

As to chopping trees, ah, it's a small (ish) flowering cherry that has gone to the Big Cherry Farm in the Sky. Time to clean up. Us, poor cousins in Melbourne, we use a smallish axe. Gee, chainsaw -- too fierce for me. That reminds me of a travel tale from my recent collection.

Picture this. 2 ABC and 1 JBC walking along the banks of a tributary of the river named after your Clan Name in Kaiping. Moored along side the river were some houseboats, the occupants not wealthy, but we observed that they were quite happy and contented. An old man was chopping some wood, also bundelling twigs and leaves in neat bunches. So my ABC cousin asked us as to what the old man was doing. "It's for the wood fuel stove on his houseboat". Point? In China, folks remain very frugal and where they can reuse, they will. My ABC cousin wanted to take a photo of the old man. Proceeded to pay the old man some cash. The old man politely refused the money, but let my cousin take his photo. It's call pride, I think, that he, the old man, signalled that he did not need charity. Good on him. Lessons to three of us on a Heritage Walk in Kaiping? Take pride in what you do and what you have.

We walked further down, and there were Majiong tables set up. Bunch of old men were playing MJ. Not far away from the MJ tables were earthern pots, for the convenience of the MJ players of course. I guess the collection will be well used in the field. Waste not want not.

More recollections later.

Regards, Ah Gin

[Henry]

Ah Gin,

I hope there will be many pleasant and wonderful visits to Kaiping and the SiYi region by many in your family.

We still learn lessons from our ancestral home - as expressed by our local sage:

" Take pride in what you do and what you have "

By the way, the Stihl chainsaw with a 20 inch bar was necessary to fell trees that exceeded a trunk diameter of 20 plus inches and a hundred plus feet high.

Regards,


Henry

[geoff]

Hello everyone,

Listening or rather reading your China experiences & visits to the ancestral villages, makes we want to immediately "pack up & go". I'm finding it very tempting to change my original plan of research in Australia then Hong Kong & Canton & maybe a visit to the village. We departed the village 6 generations ago, so our physical & emotional ties aren't as strong. I'd better stick to my original plan otherwise I wouldn't have found info in Australia than can assist with research in China eg. year of arrival in Aust, trips back to China for marriage etc .

Ah Gin, while you've been visiting China, I've been exploring (by email) my gggf's journey around the goldfields of outback Victoria, some 120-130 years ago. I wondered why I couldn't find the town where he took the oath upon being granted naturalization. With luck, I received a reply from a local resident , saying that the town had been "renamed". Other pieces of the jigsaw puzzle also fell into place. I know emailing isn't the same as visiting but it's my only option at the moment.

I also hold the view that we are doing our research for our children & future generations. They will benefit from reading & possibly seeing their ancestors' journeys from their birth place in China to their adopted country & sometimes their final return home.

Geoff
Australia

[Ah Gin]

Geoff,

Recalling some of your earlier and this posting, your family indeed has a long and proud history. No doubt your strategy of conducting your research before you go on a discovery and hopefully visit to your Ancestral Home is a wise one, as with any travel, planning takes the unknown out of the journey, as so many of our Forum Members found.

I belong to a private research group (Chinese Heritage Interest Network, home page address chinese-heritage.tripod.com/ ). Whilst we are no expert in things relating to the Victorian Gold Field, where we can offer some help, we will be delighted to do so. By all means drop me a line regarding the illusive name places, and see if we can add value in locating them or point you to the possible direction. As you are probably aware, some of the mining camps have the habit of disappearing, as the community moved away, when gold ran out.

Regards, Ah Gin