My father's village - South Post Station - My heritage 南社站，我爸的祖乡

My first and only heritage trip to my father's village was the most unforgettable experience I have ever had in my life. Somehow, a stranger brought me to the village like a guardian angel. It was unplanned and a surprise. The visit instantly put me in touch with the heritage that I have never known.

It happened shortly after my divorce at 42. My attorney said I was the "man" in my divorce. I had to clean out my bank accounts and dipped into my line of credit to settle for the divorce. I still remember Monday I signed the final agreement, Tuesday I was called into my boss' office and given the surprise pink slip. And then Friday some teenager ran the red light and pushed my car up the middle partition of the street. I was fine but my car was totaled. It all happened in one week. I was broke, unemployed and naturally quite depressed. My family in Hong Kong took pity on me and suggested me to go home for a visit. It wouldn't be an expensive trip for me. So I flew to Hong Kong after things calmed down.

Both my parents have already passed away so I could go back to visit without feeling too shameful being divorced. I was feeling a great sense of void and uncertainty for the future. Now that I was alone, I wanted to do something different by myself. Since I had never been to China, I thought I would buy a train ticket to China and roamed around on my own in free spirit, the American way of travel. When my oldest brother heard of my plan, he advised, almost threatened, me against it. He traveled to China frequently for business and said the crime was too rampant for women to travel alone. I reluctantly took his advice, thinking that why I should follow my brother's order now that I was a full grown woman, but I signed up for tours anyway. In retrospect, I'm glad I went with the tours as that's where I met the stranger who brought me to my father's village.

In one of the tours, I had an older lady as a roommate. My roommate was an interesting and independent lady. Not educated but very kind. I would share with her my life in US and she would tell me how her parents forced her to marry at 28 because she was becoming a spinster. She never liked her husband and travel alone was her escape. We talked till midnight every night and became buddies throughout the tour. While we were chatting In the tour bus about our last names and home town etc., the guy in front of us turned his head and said, "Oh, that's your father's village? Do you know it has now become the largest designated cultural village in the province of Guangdong? Have you been there? If not, it's worth a trip and I can take you there!" My eyes popped wide open when I heard this. Wow really, the biggest cultural village in Guangdong? My whole life, my mom seldom told us anything about our family in China. I have no clue. It turned out that the guy was the President of the Archeology Society of Hong Kong and he knew the cultural villages (historical sites) very well. He was the God sent.

We met up on the day we agreed on at Lowu train station and started our journey to my father's village. When we got there, early in the morning, we were told that we were in luck. An elder from a neighboring village was visiting and he could give us a really good tour from the feng shui perspective. Another unplanned surprise to enrich our experience. The elder showed up and started telling us the history of the village. The original founder of the village fled from north to south to escape the war when the dynasty fell. He picked out the land because of the feng shui and built the village on it. Over the years, it turned into a rich and powerful village in the area, with famous scholars and high level government officials abound. This was quite a contrary to what I thought I knew. From the little my mother talked about, I was under the impression that we were from a very poor village and we were "nobody". This was quite a surprise to me. He went on to tell more history and stories. When he got to the part that most people in this village had split toe nail in their little toe, I almost laughed out loud as I had one just like he described. I always felt shameful of my ugly split toe nail but now I knew it was in my heritage and it made me a legitimate descendant of the village! At that moment, my shame turned proud.

The village was found four or five hundred years ago during the Ming dynasty. It was a miracle that the village survived so many wars and the cultural revolution with the Ming Dynasty architecture intact. The village, he said, was shaped like figure 8 and started with a pond in the entrance for best feng shui protection which probably explained why it received minimum destruction over the years while the neighboring villages were left with piles of ruins. (We visited my roommate's village too. Unlike my father's village, it wasn't much of a place to see. It was filled with trash, weeds and piles of ruins.) The government restored the buildings and opened my father's village to tourists. We did see multiple local groups toured the village while we were there. We then moved on to the village temple where the elderly people hung out. I asked them if they would know of my father or grandfather. I knew my father's name but not my grandfather's. All I knew was my grandfather supposedly was a rich landlord in the village and was hung on a tree and beaten to death by either the Japanese or Communists. (I never got the timeline right.) I told them my father took my mother to Hong Kong many years ago and I was told I looked like my father. They looked at me and examined my face. They looked and looked, tried to find some clue of who my ancestors would be. Finally they shook their head and said they couldn't think of anyone who would be my grandfather. They were in their 90s, very old, probably not in the same generation as my father or grandfather. I was disappointed. I was hoping we could visit the house that my father lived in. But being in my father's village was good enough "root searching" for me. So then we moved on to the highlight of the trip - the original founder's tomb.

According to the elder, the tomb had the best feng shui in the village. No blemish, just perfect. He also said normally women were not allowed to set foot on the tomb but since I was from America, he would make an exception for me but I was not allowed to take pictures of the ritual. He let me stand in front of the tomb and bowed. That was the highest honor I could pay to the ancestors as a woman. I felt proud and special. I then asked him if he would know anything about my mother's village. He said he did. He also explained to me that my mother's village was a smaller village. Since my father was from a rich family in a wealthy village, my mother was probably arranged to marry my father for financial protection and a "better" life for her family. When we were small, my mother said nothing about the village or their family other than my father's family made her do hard labor in the field and she had great suffering. She was happy to leave the village and went to Hong Kong with my father 15 years later. All of a sudden, I could understand my mother's screaming, frustration and anger in her life. I felt connected to her as a woman and a mother.

My friend told me there was a book published on my father's village by the government detailing the Ming Dynasty architecture. I bought the book and brought it back to US. I still have it today. For the first time, I could set foot on the ground where my parents grew up and lived. While I was feeling alone and void from the divorce and layoff, I found a sense of wholesomeness that I haven't had before. The split little toe nail, the founder's tomb, the village temple, the Ming Dynasty architecture, the pond, the farm and the chickens roaming round free, all these identified my heritage - the Chinese blood run inside of me. My spirit was uplifted when I thought of the fact that I was part of my father's village where the values and virtues were passed down from generation to generation. At age 42, I found my root in my father's village. It was a day that I would never forget.

P.S. The first picture here is the village temple where they put the ancestors plates in the altar. The five big Chinese characters said "Tse's family village temple". Tse is my maiden name. Everybody in the village has the same family name and are therefore the descendants of the Tse village.

For those of you who are not familiar with feng shui, it is a considered a pseudoscience which claims to use energy forces to harmonize individuals with their surrounding environment. Literally "feng" means "wind" and "shui" is water. It is used in selecting and designing burial sites and building structures. It is all based on the Yin Yang, Five Elements and Qi flow as discussed in other posts. It is customary for business or companies to consult feng shui masters for the best feng shui design. Personally, as a Christian, I am not too much into this. I can agree with the impacts of the physical environment on the infrastructure and building etc, but I do not believe in the mystical or spiritual part such as feng shui protection as the elder mentioned. I merely stated what he said because he was a feng shui master and feng shui is prevalent in the Chinese culture till today.