Taishan, the roots of the diaspora

The above photo is of my maternal grandfather's village in Haiyan, literally "Sea Banquet." We had seafood everyday. One meal I counted a total of eight different kinds of fish.

Side note: Blogger has a somewhat annoying format in that it seems to post photos backwards in the order in which I upload them.

Anyways, I've spent the past few days in the countryside, in the Guangdong county of Taishan, a major exporter of fine Chinese products. I mean immigrants. In many of the countries I've been to so far, a large number of the immigrants have come from this single county, Taishan. I think I read somewhere that over half of the population that is "Taishanese" is actually living abroad.

Apparently I am 75% Taishanese, which I had no idea about until recently, when I found out that my paternal grandmother's family was originally from a village in Taishan. Going back to my "old home" in China is an incredible experience; an auntie who helped guide me around the villages pointed out villages in the distance, commenting, "that village went to England. That village went to Brazil."

Brazil.

Everyone was talking about Brazil. Brazil is the new America, by the way. Seriously, everybody was talking about Brazil, and everybody is going to Brazil. I guess people have started realizing that America isn't America anymore.

Old ladies in my maternal grandfather's village in Haiyan. They have just been given 100 RMB (about $14 USD) by a successful entrepreneur who made it out of the village.
The ancestral temple in Haiyan. The first character on the temple reads my mother's last name, "Rong," or "Yung" in Cantonese.

The house that my maternal grandfather built. He was a "Lao Hua Qiao" (overseas Chinese) who went to America, and apparently South America as well. He died when my mom was five and she has no recollection of him. Apparently he suffered prejudice in America. Surprise.
The ancestral shrine in the house my grandfather built.


Now we can move on to my paternal grandmother's village, or at least what I believe is my paternal grandmother's village. She was born in California, but her parents were from Taishan. She even has the same last name as my maternal grandmother, Wu, or "Ng" in Cantonese. Yes, nnnnnngggggggggg. It's not missing at consonants. Try it.



Actually, the village wasn't that remote.


That's me in front of my paternal grandmother's village.


The final village is my maternal grandmother's. I had an "American returning to his roots" moment in which I jumped on the back of a motorcycle to get to this village, because it was inaccessible by car. It was deeply romantic, and I wish I had a film crew on hand.


The driver checks to see if it's the right village. I take photos. This is the ancestral temple.


The Communist ancestral temple. No, just kidding, but I think it used to be the party headquarters, see the faded star?