Day 17; Jiangmen (Mon; 14 Apr)

 Tour 2; Day 4

The plan: 

• Dexun Lin Ancestral Hall
• Meet Prof. Selia Tan
• Genealogy Research Presentation
• Wuyi University
• Workshop
• Individual Research Review
• WU Overseas Chinese Museum tour
  

 Today began with the normal buffet breakfast at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, which I noted in my journal as mediocre. I should qualify my breakfast opinion(s) by saying if they didn't have at least one of my typcial "American" breakfast items (e.g. yogurt, bagel, grapefruit) I gave it a less than average rating - probably unfair on my part... Anyway, buffet breakfast then on the tour bus to the Dexun Lin Ancestral Hall (DLAH), also known as the Blue Tile Heritage Centre. There we met Dr. Selia Tan. Dr. Tan has a PhD in architecture but apparently she has a passion for Chinese heritage, specifically overseas Chinese heritage, as she is quite well known for recent and continuing work in this area. 

Note: I have to give credit where it's due; Henry Tom, the tour organizer did a great service to all who attended Tour 2 by putting us in contact with Dr. Tan. She, along with a small staff of full time (?) researchers (5-ish) and a group of 30 or so student volunteers did the leg work in China, prior to our arrival. This work allowed many, if not all, of us* to gain a much richer insight into our ancestral history. That said, I would add that those tour members who put in some prep time before coming to China reaped more benefit from the whatever research was done by Tan et al in China. Donna put in a lot of pre-trip work and had several questions as well as new leads for our researchers. 

*All of us who were Chinese that is... there were a handful of us spouse-types that had no possibility of a Chinese ancestor and were along in a  support and/or educational role...

At the DLAH Dr. Tan gave a presentation as to how the research was carried out and what results were considered "successful". In general, the information supplied by the tour group folks to Dr. Tan, months in advance of the trip, was divided amongst the full time staff who then directed the student volunteers. Donna sent information about all four of her grandparents requiring four separate lines of inquiry. During her presentation Dr. Tan pointed out that the results of two of Donna's inquiries were considered "fails" and went on to say why. I forget the precise details of how she classified "fails" but I think that it was because they were unable to physically talk with anyone with personal knowledge, or see any direct evidence*, that the person they were looking for (i.e. the grandparent) lived in the village. We also toured the DLAH, which was spectacular (there's that word again...). The DLAH was initially funded by overseas Chinese, Lin Zizhao from Malaysia, in 1935 but fell into disrepair. It was restored in 2022 and the primary beam raising ceremony is featured in a YouTube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDENYuZW-oc).

* Direct evidence meaning a written record, known as a jaipu. A jiapu is a multi-generational family record maintained by a Chinese clan that dates back thousands of years. Similar to a family tree but more direct in that while a Smith in the United States is not related to every other Smith, a Chang in China is of the same clan as other Changs and whose ancestors should reside in the Chang jaipu. 

Now you know everything I know and I made up a little bit - questions regarding jaipus, etc. should go directly to Donna...the errors in the above description are mine though (djt)...

 After the DLAH presentation and tour it was back on the bus and on to Wuyi University where we met the volunteer student researchers assigned to our task. I'm not sure who our full time researcher was but we were assigned two students, Liz and Yangyang who were outstanding! (Some of our tour members were not so fortunate in that they expressed less than outstanding service from their team, but as I mentioned earlier, a lot of what we got out of this effort depended on how much work was put into it stateside...). Yangyang took us to lunch at the Wuyi student commons that was unlike any student commons I've ever seen.  The commons had more than 50 walk up food outlets along the outer wall with seating for hundreds, maybe a thousand, in the center. Most of the outlets offered Chinese food (duh...) but I found one that offered a sort of chicken wrap. Liz, our other student researcher met us during lunch and they began presenting the results of their work to Donna. As an observer of this interaction it seemed that the three of them were pretty excited as Donna went over their results, which had been emailed to us a couple of days before we left for China, and added insight and additional results she had acquired between the time she sent her information to Dr. Tan and our arrival.  After lunch the entire tour group along with the assigned students and staff members gathered in a small lecture hall while Dr. Tan told us about how Wuyi University fit into the scheme of what we were doing (i.e. genealogy research) and her work regarding overseas Chinese. We then took a tour of a small overseas Chinese museum there at the university.

After the tour it was back on the tour bus and back to the hotel for a short rest then dinner, which I note in my journal was "better than average". Regarding "average" - I would argue that by now I had a statistically significant Chinese banquet data set and a sense of below, at or above average. But that's just me, my expertise in what truly constitutes good Chinese food should be considered suspect...

Today was just a hint of what was to come regarding the ancestral village visits that would come later in the week.

 

The Dexun Lin Ancestral Hall

Some details, of the outside. Blue tile roofs, accurately restored here, were apparently quite rare.

Some inside pictures...

The "Red Beam" featured in the YouTube video

Prof. Selia Tan describes the hall and the restoration effort

Prof. Tan's presentation (zoom in to read)...

Unfortunate light reflection - One of Donna's inquiries was presented as an example of a "fail" yet had significant information, specifically about Donna's great-grandfather's brother. Ultimately, however, the veracity of that finding was questionable.

This from the Overseas Chinese Museum at Wuyi University

Display of Overseas Chinese in America

It was a very small museum but had an interesting assortment of displays - here a foot-driven sewing machine

Just getting started at dinner...

Fish, crabs and others, not long for this world. The planks on top of the lower tanks are to prevent escape attempts, particularly of the crabs...