Trying to locate Tung Hing/Wong Village Taishan

[benclee]

Hello,

I am planning to take my parents back to their village in Taishan. They have not been back for 60 years and I have never been there. We are planning to leave on Oct. 25, 2008.

Would anyone know how to locate the subject village? The village name (Tung Hing Village / Wong is indexed as number 138 in the Roots Village DB when a search by surname Wong is used. It's in the old Ng Sup "50" Heung.

Also are there experts in the Taishan area that can help us find the village when we go there to visit. We are hiring a guide, set up through the China Travel Agency, but I'm not sure he/she will be knowledgable.

Any help here would be appreciated. Thanks!

Ben Lee

[Henry]

Hi Ben,

Welcome to the Forum !

I was not able to locate your ancestral village Tung hing ( 東慶 ) in the Ng Sup ( 五十 ) area:

mysite.verizon.net/vzepzaui/Ng Sup.jpg[/img]

Ng Sup is about 8 km ( 5 miles ) east of Taicheng ( Taishan City ).

If you need a guide, my Taishan nephew, who can also speak English, knows the area quite well and can check on the village location before you come and also go to the village to check on village relatives, family genealogy book, preparations for you and your parents to pay their respects to the ancestors at the cemetery. If you a need a reliable guide, and you will be coming in from Hong Kong, he can meet you at the Lowu border crossing - reached by taking the Hong Kong Metro to the last station. Please contact me at: [e-mail]


Henry

[tyuti1668]

seached "Name Address Database Center of China Post" & get the following result:
東慶's address=
四九镇松朗村委会东庆村 postal code: 529222

map of the village /Map of the nearby school

[benclee]

Thank You Henry. I'll check with my agent to see the expertise of our existing guide. I'll contact you via your email, to let you know. Thank you for the map it is helpful.

[benclee]

Thank you tyuti1668. The maps are very helpful!

[Henry]

Ben,

I admire you for taking your parents back to visit the ancestral village ! In 2005, I took my 84 year old mom back to my father's village where 65 years before, she married my father, who was in the US at that time, through a rooster proxy - what is known as " sung gai sang how" :

www.qimagazine.dailyqi.com/magazine/2008%20sept/tom.html

To our colleague tyuti1668 : please provide the link to "Name Address Database Center of China Post" - this is a very useful tool to locate a village - thank you so much!

Based on tyuti1668's information - I have located your ancestral village of Tung Hing on a map and it is literally a stone's throw south of the larger Song-lang village identified in the postal database. I would say that Tung Hing village is probably 3 miles east of Taicheng ( Taishan City ). On this map, the Chinese characters for Tung Hing are in "simplified" Chinese characters.

Henry

mysite.verizon.net/vzepzaui/Tung Hing.jpg[/img]

[tyuti1668]

Official China Post Address Database* IE works fine, firefox

[benclee]

Henry,

Thank you so much! This map really nails it!! My dad has confirmed the information, so we know it's right. This forum has been a real blessing. I'm so encouraged that I'm going to try and locate my mother's "Long On (Lee)" village somewhere in Taishan using some of these map tools. As well as my wife's parents village in Hoi Ping. I'll let you know how that goes!

Based of the success of locating my father's village, I don't think we'll need the services of your nephew although we may change our minds. Thanks for the offer anyway. My dad indicated that my fathers's sister inlaw's grandson lives in Taishan and may be able to direct us.

I enjoyed your article on Qi magazine. I am inspierd by what you've done. I am also ABC and beginning to get a little closer to my China roots. I've dabbled with geneology for many years, but have restricted myself to family in America. What heritage I know of in China has come from skimpy memory of my mom and dad. And sad to say their memory is fadding as time marches on. So this is an opportunity to stir up their memories and add more to my knowledge of my family's history.

My Dad is 92 and Mom is 89. My father has especially wanted to go back to the village for some time, so I'm glad we can do this with him even though it may be an arduous journey at his age. We will be having the entire immediate family including the grand children on this trip. We also plan to see other parts of China which neither one of my parents have ever had the opportunity to visit.

Thanks again to you and to our colleague tyuti1668.

Ben

[Henry]

Ben,

Good, glad your dad was able to confirm the location of your ancestral village. If you need some additional help with locating the other villages - there are members of this Forum that are very helpful.

You are so fortunate that your parents are still with you. If you are also doing a China tour, I advise that you take a day of rest for every 6 days of touring, which can be quite tiring - especially for the seniors. When I led that tour for 36 people, I also always had the bus drive right up to the gate of the place being visited and also picked up at the gate. I tried to minimize the amount of walking for the seniors in our group.

Regarding your interest in genealogy, I suggest that you find and make a copy of the family genealogy book. This is rather important if you want to be able to trace your family lineage. There are many overseas Chinese that do not have this genealogy book and it is quite sad that they may never know their family lineage and heritage. Sometimes this takes a few days to find or to convince a family member or village relative to share their copy - you may want to ask your Taishan relative to find this family genealogy book before you come to Taishan.

Henry

[benclee]

Henry,

Thank you for the advice. You have some great suggestions.

I'll take your advice and see if anyone can help with locating the other villages. I've not had success yet and I'm running out of time. I'll make another posting.

Thanks agian for sharing your knowledge with me.

Ben