Where is Zhuangjiang 庄江?

[ahlim]

Anybody know the location of Zhuangjiang 庄江, apparently somewhere west of Meizhou?
We are looking for the ancestral village of the 胡 (Hu/Woo/Oh) Family.
Appreciate any of your help
Ahlim

[Henry]

Hi Ahlim,

Welcome to our Forum !

Yes, Zhuangjiang is way west of Meizhou - west to the major city of Heyuan. I am including 2 maps: an orientation map showing the cities of Guangzhou, Heyuan and Meizhou and a larger scale map that shows Zhuangjiang village. It looks like if you take Rte G205 north out of Heyuan for approximately 45 km then you come to Rte S229 north for about 2 km and then at Luohu town turn left and head NW for about 4 km along a secondary road ( sorry, no name) you'll reach Zhuangjiang village - whew ! Some trek !

Way in advance, you may want to contact the Heyuan Overseas Chinese Affairs Office:

www.heyuan.gov.cn/website/en/

to do some preliminary research for you. Since these offices were set up to promote investments from overseas Chinese and companies, I do not believe they will charge you any fees for locating relatives or a genealogy book of your family, however, I suggest keeping some of your family information confidential - so that you can really confirm that the people who claim to be your village relatives - really are.


Good Luck !


Henry

[ahlim]

Thanks a million, Henry
Wow, that's areally fast response.
Do you know, if there is a database of villages with family clans of the surrounding areas?
Thanks again
Ahlim

[Henry]

Hi Ahlim,

Sorry, I do not know if there is such a database. There is one for the SiYi region:

www.c-c-c.org/villagedb/about.html

I think your best bet is to contact the Heyuan Overseas Chinese Affairs Office - I imagine that they must keep some sort of gazetteer of vilages along with the contact information for the villages chiefs - that manage the affairs of each village.

If you have a Skype telephone capability and can speak Chinese - you may want to call them. Since Heyuan is not too far from Meizhou, you may need to know some Hakka as well as Cantonese to converse.

Henry

[ahlim]

I envy you guys, a well organized database, a lot of efforts and work to make it happen.
Will try to contact them, unfortunately don't speak Hakka.
Thanks a million again
Ahlim

[Henry]

Hi Ahlim,

".... the Roots Village Database, a digitization of the information from the Index of Clan Names By Villages published by the American Consulate General in Hong Kong in the 1970s. Originally used to investigate immigration fraud, this data is now valuable for genealogy research. "

This Village database was conceived by the well known Chinese American historian, Him Mark Lai, and now looks like they have included all the 4 volumes of information. They do not include the maps that went with these volumes. I had these maps scanned by the Library of Congress and offered them several times to the Chinese Cultural Center of San Francisco - which manages the this datbase and for some unknown reason they will not even acknowledge my offers - very strange ! Anyway, these maps are available for free from my Tom Genealogy website:

mysite.verizon.net/vzepzaui/maps2.html

I suggest try emailing the Heyuan Overseas Chinese Affairs Office in English - they probably have staff that can read and write English - as they probably have to respond to English inquiries from overseas Chinese.


Henry

[ahlim]

Thanks Henry.
I assume that the village database, were compiled from those people who migrate from the port of Hongkong?
While the ones from the northern districts, such us Heyuan district, most likely took a different route, presumably they left from Amoy, and no records were taken from them, right?
Apparently, during the height of the exodus, up to 50 thousand per month sailed from Amoy.
Thanks again
Ahlim

[laohuaqiao]

Ahlim,
In the early 1900s more than 90% of the Chinese arriving in America were from the Siyi area, and the most of rest were from nearby southern counties such as Zhongshan, Shunde, Dongguan, etc. Claiming to be someone's paper son was the only way for some to obtain an entry visa. The US consulate in HK kept the comprehensive database in hope of catching the "paper sons" during the interview process.

OF which period were there 50,000 leaving Amoy per month? Prior to the communist takeover, to Taiwan perhaps? They were certainly not heading to the US.

[Henry]

Hi Ahlim,

Yes, the Chinese Cultural Center of San Francisco (CCC) Village Database is derived from the 4 volumes compiled by the American Consulate in Hong Kong during the 1960s to be used to question Chinese migrating to the US. As I understand it according to my mother who came as a paper daughter who was interrogated for over 2 weeks at Ellis Island, "paper sons & daughters" really had to learn many details of the village that they were supposed to from. But, afterwards, the Chinese would remember what kinds of questions were asked - so the next batch of "paper sons & daughters" would know how to answer.

There were several major migrations of the Chinese within China from the North China Plain down to the SiYi region. External emigrations of the Chinese overseas occurred in waves and from various ports - depending upon the chronology of historical events that created push/pull factors, financial support by the "chain migration" of friends & relatives in terms of providing money to buy papers, travel expenses, finding a job, place to live, and how to survive and send remittances back to China.

Here is a very general overview about overseas Chinese:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Chinese


Henry

[laohuaqiao]

my mother who came as a paper daughter who was interrogated for over 2 weeks at Ellis Island

Henry,
Did your mother ever describe her journey from China to Ellis Island? I have heard that some Chinese after landing in Victoria BC, instead of taking a train across the US to the East coast, were put on a trans-Canadian train, escorted by Canadian immigration, to Halifax and then put on a ship to Boston or New York. Their entry to US was processed on the East coast, Ellis Island in the case of New York.

I found the trans-Canadian journey, with escorts and all, to be quite interesting, but I don't think much has been written about it.

[Henry]

Hi Laohuaqiao,

My mother is now 87 year young and still is sharp as a tack and in perfect health - it must have come from the herbs given by my grandfather, an herb doctor who lived to 104 years. In 2005, when we visited China, she was the first one of the group of 36 people to scoot right up to the top of the Great Wall and looked behind her at us and shook her head - laughing a little.

Yes, my mother was a picture bride and went to my father's village and married a rooster, it was a proxy for my father - the ceremony was called " sang gai sang how". She left Hong Kong in 1940 on the Empress of Russia and it took about a month by ship to arrive in New York City. After the unsuccessful interrogation to try and find a mistake in my mother's testimony - they released my mother and then my father met her at the gate, they had never met before - just a couple letters and went to a city in New Jersey and got married on the day of her release from Ellis Island.

I had my mother's name placed on the Immigrant Wall of Honor at Ellis Island - 60 plus years after her arrival, we brought mom back and we have a photo of her pointing to her name. I could not place my father's name on this wall on Ellis island, he was a merchant seaman ( ship's carpenter ) that had jumped ship in 1932 in New York City - he was always quite proud of that he did not have to buy papers. But, dad, who only had a couple years of schooling before he had to "choot mourn how" (go out into the world) at age 15 - when my grandfather died - he went to India with an older brother to learn to be a carpenter. Dad had won a $1,000 Chinese lottery in 1938 and paid $800 for mom's papers - this was quite a lot of money in those days when most Chinese were only earning $10-$12 per week. Besides, getting a wife - after he married mom - dad also got a green card - permanent status - double benefit. He had to evade capture by the US immigration for years before that. But, my dad did love my mother so much, they had 5 children and a bunch of grandchildren.

I have several friends that have much more interesting stories about their grandparents in the West during the 19th century etc. As overseas Chinese, we all have some very interesting stories that we could tell.


Henry

[Doug 周]

Dear Henry,

Great story about your mother being a picture bride and the term 'rooster'.

Can you have your other friends post their stories here or in 'Sharing Tales' or where ever you think it is appropriate? As you know, NPR has started their StoryCorp after Thanksgiving: Record a story of a loved one to archive for future generations.

I would love to read more stories and tales of Chinese Immigrants.

Doug

[Henry]

Hi Doug,

I would have to ask them to see if they wanted to share their stories in a public forum.

But, if you go to a web-page on my Tom Genealogy website - you can read some more stories:

mysite.verizon.net/vzepzaui/biographies.html


Henry

[ahlim]

Dec 17, 2008 8:45:28 GMT -5 laohuaqiao said:

Ahlim,
In the early 1900s more than 90% of the Chinese arriving in America were from the Siyi area, and the most of rest were from nearby southern counties such as Zhongshan, Shunde, Dongguan, etc. Claiming to be someone's paper son was the only way for some to obtain an entry visa. The US consulate in HK kept the comprehensive database in hope of catching the "paper sons" during the interview process.

OF which period were there 50,000 leaving Amoy per month? Prior to the communist takeover, to Taiwan perhaps? They were certainly not heading to the US.

[ahlim]

Henry,
If I remember correctly in one of the stories, that was after the Taiping rebellion, probably around the 1870s.
To my understanding, at the height of the exodus, about 50000 in 1 month sailed from Amoy, they mostly migrated to the Nanyang. They just sailed on a small junk, obviously no records were kept.
Ahlim
_____________________________________________________

Dec 17, 2008 8:45:28 GMT -5 laohuaqiao said:

Ahlim,
In the early 1900s more than 90% of the Chinese arriving in America were from the Siyi area, and the most of rest were from nearby southern counties such as Zhongshan, Shunde, Dongguan, etc. Claiming to be someone's paper son was the only way for some to obtain an entry visa. The US consulate in HK kept the comprehensive database in hope of catching the "paper sons" during the interview process.

OF which period were there 50,000 leaving Amoy per month? Prior to the communist takeover, to Taiwan perhaps? They were certainly not heading to the US.