Vietnam (snapshots)

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

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?

Mazu's birthday

Mazu is a Daoist deity that is highly revered among Chinese immigrants, largely because she is considered a protector of fisherfolk and other seafarers. Apparently, she was the daughter of some official in Fujian province in the 10th century A.D. I think she's a big deal in coastal provinces like Fujian and Guangdong, as well as Southeast Asian countries with substantial Chinese populations, such as Taiwan, Vietnam, and Malaysia.

Anyways, Mazu's birthday is something like the 23rd day of the 3rd month (using the lunar calendar), which happened to fall on April 18 this year.

Mazu is a huge deal here in Taiwan, they have all sorts of festivals where villages bring their Mazu image to commune with the mother image, which is usually at some big temple. These photos are from Chaotian temple, one of the oldest and most important temples in Taiwan in the town of Beigang.


They had these huge floats with kids dressed up as Chinese gods throwing candies at adults. It was like Halloween, in reverse.


I've been telling people that the entire festival was very pyrotechnic and bloody. Yes, bloody (I'll get to pyrotechnic later). Some was fake blood, like in the two images below, where this handicapped guy would put these young guys into a (fake) trance.


This guy, pictured below, was actually using a sharp metal spiky thing and pounding it on his head and back. In other words, real blood. And I'm pretty sure he went into a real trance, if there is such a thing.


Tattoos are big here.

Now we get to the pyrotechnic part. Firecrackers, lots of them. If you go to a Chinese street celebration, definitely bring earplugs. This bit almost seemed a bit masochistic: a guy would run around in circles in a costume as about 5 to 10 other guys would literally throw firecrackers at him. When the smoke had cleared, most of the costume was burnt.




The music was pretty cool, very loud trumpet-like horns that actually sounded a bit like bagpipes. I've got a sound recording somewhere.
Annalisa says, "Taiwan never ceases to amaze me." Exhibit 7c: One village decides to bring their Mazu image decked out in disco lights, dancing, and playing disco music.

Living in a Buddhist Temple, Sao Paulo

As you may know, I lived in a Buddhist temple for nearly three weeks upon my arrival in Sao Paulo. The temple, 中观寺 (Zhong Guan Si), celebrated its fifteenth anniversary during my stay there. It was opened by a monk from Taiwan; now, it is run by four nuns. Three are from Taiwan, and one is from Buenos Aires, Argentina. The temple is located in an upper middle class district of Sao Paulo, Vila Mariana. Almost all of the people that go to the temple are Taiwanese -- the first large Chinese group to settle in Sao Paulo during the 1960s and 1970s.

Chinese people in Ciudad del Este

I finally figured out how to resize images in my computer (I'm using a non-conventional, stripped-down version of Linux). I know you may be wondering what the City actually looks like, and I will put photos up of the city later. But here are some people.



Buddhist temple

Panyu Ancestral Temple 番禹会馆 Lima, Peru

Continuing on the same theme of "ancestral temples" as the previous post, I had a chance to attend another temple gathering within Barrio Chino. This was at the Panyu temple, which is supposedly based around clans and kinships from Guangzhou City (广州市).

This gathering was held on Monday, the day before Peruvian independence. A lion dance was held outside and made its way inside.




Throughout a hallway and within a special room were photos of the original immigrants from Guangzhou.