The passage of time

I was doing a spot of spring cleaning to rearrange some of my stuff and came across a scrap book that I had kept when I was in China in 1992. Quite a few of the people in the photos have already passed away but the story of how we got back together as family is worth repeating.

In 1991, the Malaysian Government finally allowed it's citizens to visit China unconditionally. In the past, such visits could only be made by those over 55 years old and even then, they had to be vetted by the Police Special Branch to ensure no affiliation's with the Communist Party of Malaya.

I took my mum, her brother (my uncle) and my wife to Guangzhou in September 1991. We spent 1 week in a very remote, rural farm where my maternal Grandfather was born and bred. It was more than 100km from Guangzhou (go westward past Foshan to the county of Gaoming, to Hup Sui Jen and onto the little farming village of Pin Hung Chuen). That's where at least one branch of the Lee family in Malaysia originated from.

Left my mum and uncle in Pin Hung Chuen for another week while my wife and I went to Meisan (on the border between Guangdong and Fujian province - pronounced as Moi Yen in Hakka) to visit her 2 brothers (her father left them there when the communist took over. Never went back as he was a landowner and during the cultural revolution, landowners had a tough time).Spent a week in Hakka county before meeting up with my mum and uncle in Guangzhou city. I had reserved us rooms in Equatorial Hotel in the city center.

But that is another story.

The story this time was about my Grandma (maternal) who had married in China, bore 3 children (that we know of - there was rumors of a 4th girl). Husband passed away and she went to Nanyang (as Malaya was called then), remarried, got my mum and uncle and passed away when my mum was 13 or 14 years old.

When we went back to China in September, another family of relatives also arranged to go back to the old village where my maternal grandma was from. Mum asked them to check if grandma left anyone around. When we met back in KL 2 weeks later - my mum was told that my mum still had a surviving brother and sister! A flurry of snail mail followed to confirm identities and expectations and we were back in Guangzhou in Jan 1992. Mum made sure uncle knew that if he accepts us as family he is fully cognizant of the fact that we were not rich (despite the expectations in China that Nanyang was paved with gold!)

As they say - a picture is worth a thousand words. And I would leave these photos here as memory to those days we reconciled as family in Jan 1992.

Here is a group photo of the bother and sisters with the sister-in-laws. Next one here is with my first cousin (he was a deputy director of land department in Guangdong province before he retired). The following photo is with my Uncle and 5 of his 7 children. 2 more were back in the village near PanyuAnd with cousin sister Sim and her family. Then there is my 3rd cousin and wife. They do not have any kids. And a bunch of nieces. Cousin sister Kiew and her family. Last but not least (on Uncle Hon Chung's side), cousin sister Ming and her family. And then there was the families from 2nd uncle who had passed away a few years before this trip.The next couple of shots are the families from my Aunt's side. By which time, I had problems remembering who was who!

The story did not end there. From the Shen family side - Uncle Hon Chung had addresses of his cousins in Malaya and we were tasked to find them. Find them we did and we ended up with another set of uncles and aunts in Serdang.

Sadly, Uncle Hon Chung and Aunty Yuet Ngan has now passed away. I managed to bring Mum back to Guangzhou for another visit 10 years after the first, i.e. in 2002. All the nephews and nieces have grown and many have their own families now.

That would be yet another story!