Our ancestral village

[CHUNG Yoon-Ngan <chungyn@mozart.joinet.net.au>]

Our ancestral village

My niece works in Hong Kong. Occasionally she has to visit the ancestral
village, called Feng Gang, which is about 20 kilometers from the town
called Bao An, because my brothers and sisters have some investment there.
This is what she told me:

> Dear Uncle,

> I will have to find out the Mandarin Pin Yin from cousin Su Peng. 
> You should find the time to go back to our ancestral village. 
> It is developing very fast into a modern town. 

A new highway way from Chen Zhen to Guang Zhou is passing through near 
the village. 

In China, I have a few nephews and nieces who are the children of my
father's first born. During the 1930s the Hakka either by tradition or
obligation had to sent the first born male back to the ancestral land to
retain the roots. That was how my poor eldest brother ended up alone in
the ancestral village. He suffered a great deal, but my father did
support him financially. 

The unforgetable impression of my niece when she first arrived at the
ancestral village was that the villagers spoke the same kind of Hakka 
as those in my hometown. She felt as if she was at home. She saw a man 
who looked very much alike as one of my younger brothers - her uncle. 
She approached him and later discovered that he was our distant
relative, sharing the same surname.

My niece told me that our ancestral dilapidated old house is still
standing there with wobbling walls. It was vacated since my eldest
brother abandoned it, a long time ago. My grandparents left the village 
over a hundred years ago. The government told my niece that that house
still belongs to our Chung family. Anyone offspring of my grandparents
could claim it provided we could produce the title to verify the rightful
ownership. According to my aunty my grandmother lost the title during the
Japanese occupation. The government might resume the site of our ancestral
house if no one claims it.

CHUNG Yoon-Ngan.