Day 22; Taishan (Sat; 19 Apr)

 Tour 2; Day 9

The plan:

• Visit Donna's Ancestral Villages with Student Researchers
• Yanhu / Nganwo (maternal grandmother - Situ / Seto / Soo Hoo village)
• Long'Gang (paternal grandfather - Fong / Kuang village)

After our normal buffet breakfast we met with Liz, one of our student researchers, in the hotel lobby about 8 AM. She had scheduled a Didi (Uber) driver for the day and we were off, first to Yanhu, the village Donna's maternal great grandfather lived. As an aside, Donna had been communicating her cousin, Happy Louie, regarding their shared ancestors. Happy's grandfather was Donna's great grandfather's younger (by ~20 years) brother and also lived in Yanhu. Happy and her husband, John, happened to be in China when we were and we met with them at the entrance to the village. Although Donna had been talking/texting/emailing/zooming with Happy for over a year, this was the first time they had met in person (even though they live in the SF Bay area, a short Mooney flight away from us ...). 

In an attempt to identify the folks we met in Yanhu and Donna's relationship with them, here is one of the four family trees our student researchers developed for Donna, with my notes regarding who's who and those we met outlined in green... 

We were given an extensive tour of  the home that Soo Hoo Doo, Donna's Great-grandfather, recently lived in by Bingshen's wife (and I'm sorry that although we met her, I don't recall her name. In my defense I think I recall that she did not speak English and we did not speak Chinese so all comm was through our student researcher/translator - I'm sure she told us, but I don't recall it...).  In any event, the tour was fascinating. An eclectic combination of old and new with some very nice art work and amazing examples of ingenuity.   

                                      The entrance to Yanhu. Most villages had an arch-like entry like this.                                        Right to left: Happy, John, Donna, Donna's cousins Yanhua and Bingshen's wife, Weijie (Bingshen's son), Yanhua's husband, and cousin Cao 

Yanhu Village - every village we visited faced a communal pond

Into the village we go...

The entrance to Donna's Great Grandfather's (Soo Hoo Doo) house

Inside the Soo Hoo home - it had been lived in by Bingshen's wife until about a year ago...

Happy and Donna compare notes...

This side of the home was two-stories - upstairs we saw this ancestral altar with candles and incense, which turned out to be common to almost every home we went into.

Upstairs was quite spartanly furnished, perhaps reflecting the gradual moving out of this home...

View looking back from upstairs balcony (back being away from the pond). Note the electrical wiring (lower right, blue and white wires), definitely added long after the homes were built ...

... and looking forward towards the pond.

Interesting feature - a grated vent hole in the floor perhaps reflecting that the home was built over 100 years ago, before electricity, plumbing and certainly air conditioning...

Back downstairs, the cooking area...

... and the adjacent sink area.  Note the plumbing for the sink...

... and the wiring for the lights, etc.  The red strings are pull switches.

Half of the home appeared to have been remodeled recently.  In this picture you can see the difference between the floor of the kitchen area (through the door) to that of the washroom area, separated by a very substantial, lockable door. This side of the house (with the pink tile floor) had several rooms and a separate entrance.

 

The remodeled side of the home had some exotic living room furniture and art - a comfy chair, a fan and a motorcycle... 

... with a shop in the adjacent room. Add a fridge for beer and I'd be ready to move in...

The remodeled side had three stories, the stairs had stainless steel handrails. And, although I didn't take a picture of it, this side of the house had the ultimate upgrade - a sit-down, flushing toilet.

After touring the Soo Hoo Doo home we went over to the Situ Wendi home where Happy's grandparents lived.

Entrance to the Situ Wendi home. Stainless steel clad doors were fairly common in all the villages we visited.

Although nicely furnished with some amazing artwork, it appeared that no one had lived here for some time...

Portraits of Happy's grandparents

Views from the 2nd floor balcony of the Sito Wendi home...

Looking down the stairwell, the lockable grate doors between rooms were interesting. I think back when these homes were built there was concern about "bandits" entering your home.  Just a guess...

We saw this mixture of old (antique pots) and new (electric cook-pot) almost everywhere we went in China

Wood fire cooking area

The back door. I have to think these stainless steel doors came long after the original build - who'd need indoor lockable grate doors with these? You'd need a battering ram to get through these!

Although no one lived in the homes we toured, a (very) few people still lived in the village as witnessed by the well kept fruit-bearing trees and chickens (although I think some of the chickens were not long for this world...).

This well-kept, newish sign in the town square. We think it is called a stille board that listed donations by name (and possibly amount) to the village. It seemed that something like this was in most of the villages we visited.

After touring the two homes we drove down the road a bit for lunch.

After lunch our Didi driver took Donna, Liz and I to Long'Gang, Donna's paternal grandfather's ancestral village. This was one of the "failed" efforts that Prof. Selia Tan pointed out in her initial lecture (see Day 17; Jiangmen) and our visit there would provide little argument. Our researchers were unable to find any evidence of Donna's father's father having lived there and although the village was basically deserted we were able to talk to one person there who was the village caretaker (or something along that line). He told us that there were no "old" people there who might have some memory of who lived in what homes. This village seems to have suffered what is of great concern (to some) in China, that being the abandonment of the old villages for life in the newer, nicer cities. Some of the villages have some minimal population (like Yanhu), some, like this one, seem to have a caretaker of sorts, others are just falling into disrepair. We spent a little time with the caretaker but the visit, while still interesting, was essentially a bust in terms of "finding your roots"...

 

There are signs of life in Long'Gang - a well tended garden for instance. But we only saw two men - one who told us to talk to his brother, who was apparently the village's caretaker.

 

 

Liz tries to talk with the village caretaker regarding the family tree printout she had brought. The man looking at his phone was our Didi driver who turned out to be essential to our quest. Not only did he figure out how to get to these small villages (Google maps is no bueno in China, I think he used Tianditu..) he also happened to speak the Chinese dialect that the caretaker spoke. It was most interesting watching the Didi driver talk to the caretaker in one language, then to Liz in essentially another (as Liz did not understand the caretaker), then Liz re-translate to Donna that basically "He doesn't know, or know of, your ancestors here".

Even though the visit to Long'Gang was a bust from a genealogical sense, the town itself was quite interesting. You only get a sense of it here but the houses were very precisely organized in row/column order while Yanhu was much less ordered, almost willy-nilly ...

These satellite views give a better sense of it...

I'll bet Long'Gang was more impressive in it's day...

So, after another long but interesting day it was back to the New World Taishan Hotel. Here are a couple of pictures of the hotel... 

New World Taishan Hotel entrance

Hallway off of lobby leading to one of the many restaurants in the hotel.

The seafood restaurant, live menu...

View from our room

Our student researchers - Liz on the left, Yang Yang on the right

Day 21; Kaiping / Taishan (Fri; 18 Apr)

 Tour 2; Day 8

Update: Thanks to Donna, Alex and Amy Jay, a couple of clarifications... 

The day's plan:

• Grand Yu Ancestral Hall
• Baoguosi Temple 
• Claypot Rice Lunch in Kaiping City
• Xinchang Market Place
• Shopping Mall 
• Travel to Taishan

Noteworthy: Our last day on tour bus...

 The Grand Yu Ancestral Hall was the largest ancestral hall we've visited to date. It is comprised of at least 9 buildings and is also the site of the Fengcai Middle School. As it is an active school (we saw several kids there) they have restricted entry and we had to have an appointment as a group to tour there. It has an extensive genealogy display filling at least 2 large rooms with Yu/Yee genealogy artifacts. Located on an outcropping along the Tan Jiang River that I believe is man-made (the outcropping that is...). We toured the buildings for about an hour and half.

 After the Yu/Yee ancestral hall we took the tour bus to the Kaiping Baoguosi Temple. I think Baoguosi mean Baoguo temple so I'm likely calling it the Baoguo Temple temple... This temple was one of the smallest we visited but it was nicely kept and not crowded. We visited there about an hour or so. Interestingly, we had to walk about a 1/4 mile or so to get there. Although the road went right to the front of the temple there was a small bridge with a short but steep ramp up and on to it. The bus driver said the bus would get "high-centered" and stuck on the bridge if he attempted to drive over...

 On to lunch. Today was different. We went to a restaurant that serves each person their lunch in clay pot that contained lap cheong (Chinese sausage), vegetables and rice (thanks Donna) and something. I don't remember what the something was as we didn't choose it but I do recall that I ate it all. The highlight of the dish was the rice which adhered to the pot and was crunchy when you finally got it - it took some effort to get it out of the clay pot. Many folks in the group were delighted as the dish and manner of preparation is considered a delicacy. I thought it was pretty good but found watching them prepare it - on an outdoor oven-fire pit sort of thing - more interesting. This specific restaurant has been in business since the 1800's.

 Lunch done, back on the tour bus to make our way to Xinchang Market. This street apparently was once a bustling business area whose primary customers were banquet halls and such. The day we were there it was all but vacant of customers. There were several shops open selling restaurant supplies, costumes (such as the lion head costume we saw in Cangdong), chairs, tables, even drums. There was an eclectic mix of products, just not so many shoppers other than us and as I recall, we didn't purchase much...

 Next stop was a shopping mall. It was impressive. At least 5 stories tall it seemed as though you could buy anything there from milkshakes to cars. It appeared that the 5th floor was devoted to entertaining small kids (maybe while the parents shopped, I'm surprised we haven't seen that approach in the states...)

 After a full day it was back on the bus and on our way to dinner, which was at the Lingzi Mushroom restaurant where we had a banquet of several mushroom based dishes - it was surprisingly (to me) pretty good.

Dinner done, back on the bus and on our way to the New World Taishan Hotel. My journal note says "Impressive lobby, room is quite nice, maybe nicest of trip so far, hope the breakfast is up to par". We're near the end of the China part of our trip but looking forward to tomorrow when we meet up with our student researchers again and for the next 2 day visit the 4 villages of Donna's grandparents.

The Grand Yu Ancestral Hall with a portion of the Fengcai Middle School running track out front.

This is a picture that was inside the building of the hall/school. As you can see, it is quite a large complex. The ancestral hall we toured was essentially the middle and right side sections. 

More of the intricate sculpture work along the roof lines that many of these ancestral halls feature...

... the closer you look, the more the intricacy pops out.

Our group getting ready to go inside...

Through the entryway and into the main courtyard, note the carvings along the roof line...

... here's a closer view of one panel. The intricacy of this work is amazing

I would think that this hall is a Yu/Yee genealogists dream come true. There were several panels like this...

... and this. Of course, being able to read Chinese is helpful (I assume...)

Upstairs and outside you could examine the roof details up close and personal...

Inside the hall there is this huge bronze casting - I believe this is Yu Jing, the revered founding grandfather and government official

The Kaiping Baoguo Temple

Just inside the entrance, the main courtyard

As with the other Buddhist temples we visited, there are several Buddha statues on display...

This temple also had a display of several hundred Buddhas. It turns out that the answer to the question "How many Buddhas are there?" is not a simple one. As I understand it, there is no "one" number of Buddhas. There are a lot here though...

In addition to the Buddhist monks, there were other residents in attendance...

The temple was essentially 4 main structures centered upon the main court. 

This building was next door to the temple and the fence was so intimidating (note the embedded glass shards in addition to the the barbed wire) that I felt compelled to raise my camera way up and snap a blind picture. It's not clear to me as to what is so inviting in there...

The Zhong Hui Restaurant (yellow characters) which is described as Clay Pot Rice Cooked by Wood Fire (blue characters(I'm guessing - dt)) - Thanks for the translation Amy. The Clay Pot Restaurant. I suspect it has a real name, but I couldn't find it (although I didn't try too hard...)

Lunch being prepared...

The final product... very tasty!

Apparently duck was available... on second glance, that's long neck for a duck, maybe it's a goose...

Walking down the market street. The rooms above the shops were mostly vacant apparently due to some argument as to what city/municipality they were actually part of.

Lots of stuff for sale if you run a restaurant or similar business

One could imagine that this was a thriving business area with merchants living above their stores, once upon a time...

... not on this day though

Still, I don't know where else you'd go if you need a lion head costume (the white hanging things are lion head bases awaiting the colorful decorations)

There was also at least one drum shop. These, drums made of Banyan trees, awaiting final finishing and their drum skins

Typical mall...

... well, almost typical. The shop in back is store filled with those "put your money in and move the claw to get a wonderful toy machines... darn, didn't get it, put in more money and try again".

Looking to buy an apartment? You could get it here...

One of our fellow tour bus group outside the mushroom restaurant. Not sure if the mushroom is to scale...

Mushroom soup entree...

... and the banquet style dinner that followed.

Just part of the New World Taishan Hotel Lobby...

Our room - it looks spartan now but I was way impressed at the time. Everything is relative...