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The Chinese American Migration History Tour, Summer 2004:
Reprinted from The Bulletin
The Summer 2004 Migration History Tour was quite an inspiring and perspiring program. The group has just returned after 18 days of activities under the heat and humidity in southern China .
A three-day journey to the ancient Mei Ling Pass and the Zhujixiang old settlement in Naxiong in northern Guangdong was thoroughly inspirational. We hiked up the Mei Ling Pass and strolled through the narrow street of the Zhujixiang settlement where our ancestors had stayed 900 years ago, as claimed in most of our family genealogy. We were at awe by our ancestors' spirit, given the harsh physical conditions still visible today.
The Opium War Museum told us how chaos and desperation led to emigration from the Pearl River Delta since the 1840s. Numerous historical sites connected Chinese America with modern China: the 72 Martyrs Memorial, the Sun Yatsen Residence, the Chun Afong Residence, the Chin Gee Hee Residence, and the emigrant garden villas in Kaiping—one completed in 1936 and one just built earlier this year. Marlon showed us how to examine a series of representative emigrant villages in Taishan, Xinhui, Kaiping, etc. From these sites we learn differences in Chinese American family maintenance, respective to different social conditions and time periods, and understand emigrant village configurations and features affected by Chinese exclusion in North America .
When we entered the nearly deserted Mui/Mei Clan Estate in Taishan, we were in awe of the grandeur of this site—once a bustling, affluent, and self-contained residential-commercial development. It was a well-planned community, rectangular in design and larger than a full-sized football stadium, built in the 1920s-30s by the Mui people from mostly North America , and with high-ceiling three-level western buildings of various but harmonious facades. The place is now mostly empty—abandoned buildings with peeling paints, fallen plasters, broken windows, and rusty iron works reminded us of its former glory. The same awe and sadness were again experienced when we walked into a western-styled high-ceiling home, one among a cluster of over one dozen homes in Yong'an Village in Kaiping that was built in the early 1930s by the Ong/Deng clan from Phoenix , Arizona and San Francisco . There were also the six extravagant but now-empty western mansions in Zhongxing Village , built in the early 1930s by a Hom/Tan family from San Francisco . All are now padlocked.
Visiting our group's own ancestral villages was always exciting and full of anticipation and beyond expectation. Some of these villages were so far and isolated that we wondered how our ancestors found their way out to North America . Our guide from the local Office of External & Overseas Chinese Affairs (EOCA) had no prior information on everyone's exact ancestral houses except for Peter Jan's case whose visit was pre-arranged. Everyone had the opportunity to conduct one's own empirical search, by reaching out and talking to the local villagers—making connections without local EOCA intervention—to find one's ancestral house after arriving at the villages.
As with previous tours, when we reached a village unannounced, there was always excitement among the villagers and we were warmly received despite being total strangers. After a brief self-introduction, the locals were genuinely pleased and eager to offer whatever they knew about our member's family. When ancestor's names were mentioned or photographs shown, connections were instantly made. Sometimes it was a confusing start since a Chinese man would have various names, one each for birth, school, marriage, etc. When they didn't know, they would call the village elders to figure it out for us—an elder in his 90s would appear and tell us exactly the information we needed. Of course, we made sure that we were not inconvenient intruders, disrupting their normal routine and work. At the same time, Marlon made clear that we shouldn't become emotionally overloaded in these initial “home” visits with his sense of off-the-wall humor and at times reality-mediating comments, reminding us that we should always maintain an objective distance even in our personal matters.
All in all, this activity was very enjoyable for the members who made it to their ancestral village for the first time. It was an intensely enjoyable and yet memorable experience of self-discovery. The participant-observers all gained first-hand experience in the process: John Lee was told that he looks just like his father. Adolphus Wong met someone who was his father's childhood playmate, allowing him realize that his stern father also had a carefree childhood unbeknown to his own children. Hubert Yee was told to bow before the family altar since he was the first male of his generation to make it “home.” They all saw their ancestral house as-is—some still in good shape, some collapsed or near-collapsing. There were also disappointments, surprises, and typical pleas: Peter Jan's grandfather's house is now a vegetable patch but the relatives are rich beyond his imagination; Michele Lee's grandparents' village has been rebuilt into a modern dormitory for school teachers. And, there were repeated requests to repair a leaky roof of our ancestral house. We didn't expect echoes of “a leaky roof”—a featured theme for the forthcoming CHSA gala—coming from our ancestral villages in southern China !!
Thanks to Marlon's “ China connection,” we had VIP seats to watch an exciting local Dragon Boat race in the Siqian Town of Xinhui on June 22, with a sumptuous pre-competition 12-course official luncheon. In the same evening, Director Liang of the Xinhui Office EOCA hosted a dinner reception for the group. On June 23, Mr. Zhong of the Xinhui City CCP Standing Committee went with us to the relocated 1893 Gold Mountain Charity Cemetery and hosted an extremely elegant luncheon for us. In Gowgong (Jiujiang) Town and Foshan City, the Offices of EOCA were extremely hospitable with Peter Jan's “homecoming,” escorting him to meet his “missing link” relatives, and hosting a wonderful luncheon in Jiujiang and an exclusive VIP vegetarian banquet in the evening at Foshan's Renshou Monastery. In Guangzhou , Mr. Wu Xingci, Deputy Counsel of the Guangdong Office of Overseas Chinese Affairs also hosted a farewell dinner reception on June 28, during which time Marlon received his appointment as a member of the Board of Directors of the Guangdong Overseas Exchanges Association. (He didn't show up to receive it in April). In return, wherever we had local official assistance and receptions, we presented to our hosts a specially made glass plaque to show our appreciation. Mr. Wu also hosted receptions for our previous travel-study tours in July 2000, July 2002, and January 2004. He said our CHSA Museum is the best among all the “overseas Chinese museums” he has visited. As it stands now, CHSA appears to have a well-recognized reputation in southern China .
Despite the hectic pace, participants had some free evenings to explore and shop around. The accommodations were excellent. All the hotels were 4- or 5-star rated or the best available; they were clean and comfortable. Food—different local delicacies—consisted daily of 9 courses plus one soup for lunch and dinner (breakfast varied). We even had a dish served in the shape of a dragon-boat when we were in Toishan. On June 29, our travel agent hosted a farewell luncheon in Guangzhou with a whole roast suckling pig. As a result, most of us gained some weight, despite all the activities under sweating heat with our clothes constantly soaked in perspiration.
Serious discussions were conducted as we ate our meals, sharing among ourselves what we had observed. Marlon constantly reminded all of us: We have witnessed how our forefathers/ancestors made tremendous investment and commitment in community development and family maintenance in the “old” country, the emigrant regions of the Pearl River Delta. But these places are now mostly abandoned. What would have become of our Chinese American communities in North America if our forefathers and ancestors had made similar commitment and investment in the “new” country? (Why did Chun Afong give up this Hawaiian family—a wife who was a Hawaiian princess and 17 children—to return to Meixi and build a gated western residential compound? Why did Chin Gee Hee build six mansions in Taishan and none in Seattle ? Why did Chinese Americans build all those fancy mansions and residential gun-towers in Kaiping and nothing comparable in Phoenix , San Francisco , or Toronto ? Why did Xie Weili build a Li Yuan garden villa in Kaiping and not a similar one in Chicago ?) Must Chinese Americans wait for the post-WWII civil rights period to have a sense of belonging in North America ? Why are so many Chinese Americans still making large sums of charitable but unaccountable donations in China today—to build roads, bridges, roadside pavilions, and schools—and not do something comparable or similar in Chinese American communities? Indeed these are serious questions for us Chinese Americans, both old and young, to ponder as a lesson on Chinese American civics and history today.
There have been suggestions to organize another Chinese American Migration History Tour in January 2005.
Marlon K. Hom
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