Day 23; Taishan (Sun; 20 Apr)

Tour 2; Day 10

The plan:

• Visit Donna's Ancestral Villages with Student Researchers (Day 2)
• Dong'Anli (maternal grandfather - Ong village)
• Zhutang (paternal grandmother - Yee village)

On the home stretch now... 

Today was our last full day in China and it was a good one. Up once more in time for the buffet breakfast we then met Liz, Yang Yang (2nd student researcher) and the same Didi driver we had yesterday - I'm embarrassed to say we never got his name. It was a little tight with the 3 women in back but we (they) managed as we drove for about an hour to the Ong village of Dong'Anli. This is the village that Donna's mother lived in from 1930 to 1937 (ages 4 to 11). We were met there by two of Donna's cousins, Deng Jian Qiang (Jianqiang ) and Deng Jian Jin (Jianjin, who still lives there) as well Prof. Selia Tan who brought along a video recording crew. Prof. Tan spent a lot of time interviewing Donna and her cousins regarding Donna's visit as an Overseas Chinese person. The video was over 3 hours long and Donna initially got an edited version which was about 6 minutes long - see it here 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/z7JBBVRFnnDzqTvN8

Ultimately, Donna got the entire video but it took a lot of effort from several people as it was a 200 GB file and transferring a file that size from China to the US proved to be problematic. We toured the house Donna's grandfather built, Donna's mother lived in from 1930 - 1937, and Donna's cousin Jianjin lives now with his wife, Guan Aiyun. From there we went to a second house that Donna's cousin's grandmother lived. Actually, this is all quite confusing as when Donna's grandfather moved to the US (in 1912) his brother (the cousin's grandmother's husband) moved to Venezuela (in 1914)... and I've confused everyone, including myself, enough now. After visiting that house we went to lunch at a restaurant/house in the village built by Soo Hoo Chung Wing, another brother of Donna's grandfather, and managed now by Jianjin. Got it all straight now? That makes one of us... The restaurant was quite nice and the home was built above it. We walked through the restaurant kitchen to visit the house.

Between the second house visit and the visit to the house/restaurant we toured two schools across the road from the the village - the "new" school and the "old" school. It appeared that both schools are now music schools, that is, not K-12 per se (or the Chinese equivalent) that they may have been earlier.  Donna's mother attended the "old" school during the 7 years she lived in Dong'Anli (the "new" school wasn't built yet) and the "new" school was built, at least in part, with donations from Overseas Chinese including Donna's uncle Ally Ong Hing, aunt Lilly Ong (nee Hing) Fong*, and grandmother Helen (nee Soo Hoo) Hing. The new school has several classrooms two of which have signs beside the doors identifying Ally and Lilly as donors.  There may be a similar sign for Helen but it wasn't pointed out - all the signs were in Chinese...  (* Note; Wing Fong, Lilly's husband, is not related to Donald Fong, Donna's father... still with me?).

After lunch we - Donna, me, Liz, Yang Yang and the Didi driver - headed to Zhutang, the Yee family village of Donna's paternal grandmother. This was the other "fail" that Selia Tan pointed out in her initial lecture. I would say "fail" is a bit harsh - no, they didn't find any of Donna's ancestors in or near the village but we did get to visit the village and a couple that lived there was kind enough to show us around and even invited us into their home for tea. They were roughly our age, maybe a bit younger, and did not know anything about Donna's grandmother, Quee (nee Yee) Fong. I'm embarrassed to admit we never got their names, or if we did it was spoken in Chinese and I missed it so I'll refer to them herein as the "Zhutang husband and wife" or something to that effect. So, although we (the royal we meaning Liz and Yang Yang...) found the village, we didn't find Donna's grandmother's house or speak to anyone who knew of her grandmother, Quee Yee. In any event, we had a nice visit thanks to our interpreters Liz, Yang Yang and the Didi driver.

After the Zhutang visit it was back to the hotel. This was the last night that the Tour 2 group would be together and the organizer, Henry Tom (or maybe it was Stony, I don't really know...), had organized a final grand banquet that included the primary the group, of course, but also all of the primary researchers and several others who had made the trip so successful from a genealogy perspective. We had one last Chinese banquet meal and it was memorable. After dinner there were a handful of speeches - from Henry, Stony, Selia, other researchers and even a couple from members of the tour group. All the speeches were gracious, some were quite touching.  Then it was off to our rooms to pack and, for Donna and I, get ready for an early departure from the hotel to the airport and our flight to Singapore.

Here are some pictures... 

Abbreviated Family Tree

Dong'Anli 

Dong'Anli seen from the highway entrance - the restaurant is on the right and the O.C. Hing home is to the left, just past the large pinkish building.

Selia and the video crew arrive

Selia, Donna's cousin Jianqiang and Donna

The O.C. Hing house

Bicycle in front of the Hing house - it was quite old and the owner (I assume) saw me checking it out and asked if I'd like to ride it. I said yes and managed to take a lap or two without falling. I was actually amazed that it still worked at all, but it worked fine - don't know how far away I'd go on it though...

It is customary for the visitor(s) to give the host a gift (or gifts) of appreciation - here Donna gives Jianqiang a bouquet of flowers that Liz, our student researcher, got for Donna as Liz was knew this to be customary (and we did not...)

Donna gives Jianqiang the customary lai see gift (small red envelope) in appreciation of hosting our visit

Another custom is to honor the ancestors. Here Jianqiang , Donna, Guan Aiyun and Jianjin present food prepared by Guan Aiyun

It is also customary to honor one's ancestors by burning paper money, which Guan Aiyun does here. This is also a custom at the Taylor household as I do this on a daily basis, burn money that is, though not literally and only occasionally (more like rarely) thinking of my ancestors...

Some parts of the inside the O.C. Hing home were surprisingly modern...

... while others appeared more contemporary.

Here Jianqiang and Selia discuss some of the genealogy records that Jianqiang had brought with him. Note the pictures on the wall behind them - many pictures (and collages of pictures) of ancestors and relatives were common in most of the homes we were in.

At one point during Donna's interview Prof. Tan asked me what I thought of all of this, but you know me, no opinions and not much to say about anything... ;-)

Jianqiang explains something from the Ong genealogy record to Donna. The record is, of course, in Chinese and Jianqiang didn't speak English , fortunately Liz and Prof. Tan were there to translate

Donna recognized several of people in some of the photographs. Some of the photographs she's seen in the homes of her grandparents, aunts and uncles in the US.

O.C. and Helen Hing with Donna's aunt Lilly, mother Minnie, and uncle Ally (oldest to youngest). Donna has seen copies of this photo that her mom and aunts/uncles have here in the US

O.C. and Helen Hing with 9 of the 10 Hing children in Arizona in late 1948 or early 1949.

Art in the Hing home. Prof. Tan commented that some of the artwork was quite famous

We make our way to Jianqiang and Jianjan's grandmother's house

The entrance to the house was quite striking...

... and the inside is being renovated by Jianjin.

No one was living there when we visited but they had to be renovating it for someone...

Art at the Jianjin / Jianqiang grandmother's house.

The pictures of the two people on the right are Donna's great grandparents, on the left is Jianqiang and Jianjin's grandmother.

Apparently something of interest here, but I've lost that thread...

The "new" school as seen from across the street in the village...

... and the "old" school from roughly the same place.

The "We were there" picture with Jianqiang at the entrance to both schools. Apparently Jianqiang had some horsepower as the keepers of the schools opened the gate and allowed us to tour the schools after he made a brief phone call...

And in we go...

This picture of Donna's uncle Ally and his wife Jane at the new school was in one of the collages in the Hing home

One of the signs honoring Ally (or Lilly) next to one of the classrooms of the new school

Classroom in the new school...

Outdoor hallway of the 2nd story of the new school, Donna and Selia looking across at Dong'Anli

The old school as seen from the new school

The part of the old school that we were able to go into appeared to be a multi use room - gym, music, stage entertainment, etc.

The old school had roof line statues like those we've seen in many of the older structures in China

Just inside the entrance of the restaurant. If you go back to the Google Earth view of the village you can just make out circular roof seen here

Live eels...

...  and fish...

... and turtles.  All not long for this world.

We pass through the food preparation area of the kitchen on our way to tour the home portion of the building upstairs.

More photograph collages, many of the same photos seen earlier (which makes sense, the builders were all brothers).

Views from the 2nd story porch of the restaurant house. Here looking across the road at the new school...

... looking east...

... and looking northeast.

Assembling for lunch, several more people on their way...

As you can see, it was quite a large gathering for lunch - 18 folks seated around an automatically revolving lazy susan. Before we sat down Selia reminded Donna the it was customary for the visitors (us) to pay for lunch and we were getting used to the idea that a big bill was forthcoming. However, Jianqiang told us that the room we used was often used for large parties and the money they made from one (or more) of those was used to pay for lunch. I'm not sure that that was true but it was very gracious of Jianqiang and Jianjin to pay for lunch.

Here another of Donna's cousin's (not shown) husband, Lin Wen Zhan, shows Donna how to peel shrimp.  Funny story -  the guy to the left of Jianqiang managed to pull the shrimp meat from the shell with his chopsticks without touching the meat or shell with his fingers. When Donna said something to the effect of "how'd you do that?" (as we had grown weary of using our fingers) Lin Wen Zhan said "I'll show you" and proceeded to demonstrate the technique of extracting shrimp meat from the shell... with his fingers. 

On to Zhutang...

Zhutang 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zhutang appeared to be a typical Chinese village with a community "utility" water pond and dirt road entrance. Note the high speed train tracks in the upper right hand corner of the picture that guides the 235 mph trains past the village - the juxtaposition of old and new China we saw time and time again. The community pond was present at every town we visited throughout China, the entrance roads, on the other hand, were often hard surfaced (paved, cement or cobblestones). 

We literally stumbled into the couple that lived in Zhutang on the main (and only) street in the front of the village. That's the Zhutang husband in the blue shirt on the right (perhaps checking into what these strangers were doing in his village...)

Looking back towards the entrance.  The car belonged to our Didi driver. The 1980's motorcycle in front of the 1880's (?) home belonged to a resident (I assume).

Like all of the villages we visited the rows of homes were separated by the walkways. These walkways were perpendicular to main road in front of the town and most of the doors to the homes opened along these walkways. So, in my way of thinking, the front and back doors opened on the sides of the houses (if you assume the homes faced the main road).

Still exploring on our way to the Zhutang couple's home. That's our Didi driver just in front of the Zhutang wife.

Liz, Yang Yang and Donna "stroll down main street".

Looking over the community pond at the high speed train tracks

The homes in the village ranged from dilapidated and unoccupied...

... to newly renovated and clearly occupied.

At once relatively stately manor, now being renovated

I have no real sense as to when these homes were built, but clearly before electricity was available in the village...

As we saw often throughout our travels in China, some of the most exquisite art was found in the most unusual and unexpected places. Here, nice paintings above an abandoned home...

I'm not an artist but it seems like someone put a lot of effort into these paintings

The "front" door of our Zhutang host's home

Inside, the Zhutang wife pours tea while the husband sits aside on a stool as there weren't enough chairs for the 7 of us. As I think I mentioned, they were very gracious. The husband kept offering the Didi driver and me cigarettes, which, I think, was quite generous on his part. The perception with regard to smoking is about 40-50 years behind that of the US - there are a lot of smokers in China.

The gracious Zhutang couple and Donna pose in front of a village sign. It's much more substantial than a "sign" and I don't know what it conveys but I think it has something to do with folks who have donated to the restoration of the village.