At the end of March, I found myself in the rural countryside of southern China, looking out at lush, green mountains and long, flowing rivers. It was like something out of a shan shui ink painting. During the spring vacation, I had decided to join my family on a trip to China. It was primarily an opportunity for my grandmother to visit her relatives, many of whom she hadn’t seen in years. For me, though, it became something of a search for my roots: a foray into a family history I knew little about.
Like many Singaporeans, my grandparents were migrants who left their hometowns in the mid-1900s, setting sail from China in search of the brighter future that awaited them in Southeast Asia. In 1958, my 13 year old grandmother departed from Fujian province, arriving on the shores of Malaya with her mother and sister. Slightly later, my grandfather made a similar journey from Guangdong province. They eventually settled in Singapore, raising a family and creating a new home for themselves.
As a third-generation immigrant, I grew up with only a vague sense of what my grandparents left behind. My life unfolded in a tropical, urban, primarily English-speaking metropolis. I had never set foot in either Fujian or Guangdong, my only experience in China being a holiday to Shanghai when I was two. Everything I knew about my grandparents’ hometowns came from the occasional anecdote shared during family gatherings – a rare, fascinating glimpse into their past lives. So when I heard that a trip to China was being planned, I jumped at the opportunity. I’d finally get to visit my ancestral homeland.
Our first stop was Zhangzhou, a port city in the Fujian province where my grandmother spent her childhood. We arrived at 10pm, but the city was still wide awake. Bright lights illuminated high-rise buildings, and e-bikes whizzed past on newly-paved roads. It was hardly the rustic village I had envisioned in my head. Despite the late hour, our relatives were waiting cheerfully at our hotel, welcoming us with hugs and laughter. “Welcome home,” they said in Mandarin, “we’re so happy you’re here”. Very quickly, we were fed with local snacks: san jiao guo, a deep-fried, triangular taro cake; mian jian guo, crisp and golden with a brown sugar filling; and si guo tang, an icy dessert soup filled with fruit and jelly. Although it was my first time meeting them, I felt a deep sense of homeliness and joy. Perhaps it was their hospitality; or perhaps it was the fact that they had been conversing with my grandmother in Hokkien, a variant of Southern Min. Hokkien had been my only medium of communication with my late great-grandmother. The language, so rich with childhood nostalgia, was also one that I was slowly losing. It was no wonder, then, that being surrounded by it once more had evoked a familiar feeling of warmth.
The next day, we visited the modern-looking residential estate where our relatives lived. What had once been my grandmother’s childhood home was now a cluster of high-rise flats, complete with posters around the compound bearing slogans reminding residents to be gracious and civic-minded. Yet, dotted around the neighbourhood were echoes of the past: a temple with upturned eaves, 500 year old courtyard houses, and a stone bridge with ornate carvings.
That evening, we wandered through Zhangzhou’s Ancient City – a network of streets lined with charming shophouses and glowing lanterns. Holding my grandmother’s hand, I asked if the place was as she remembered it from her youth. She nodded. Along the way, we ducked into bookstores and tea shops, our expedition fueled by skewers of tanghulu and a tray of soup dumplings. As the night drew to a close, my aunts spoke about the rapid pace of development in recent years that had transformed Zhangzhou into a modern city. Not a single star was visible in the sky that night, drowned out by the dazzling, incandescent lights.
Early next morning, it was onto Dapu County, my grandfather’s hometown in the Guangdong province. Despite being adjacent to Fujian, Guangdong felt distinctly different. Most notably, the local vernacular had shifted. As we drove through winding country roads, my aunt and my grandmother exchanged stories in animated Hakka, a language I did not speak. Throughout the ride, I channeled all my energy into deciphering the lilting, foreign tones. In the end, I probably understood a healthy two percent of the conversation.
We arrived in a village that, when seen on Google Maps, looked like an uninhabited piece of land. To the left of our path was a tobacco plantation. Straw hats peeked out from between rows of crops, shielding the farmers from the hot sun. Soon, we reached our destination: my grandfather’s childhood home. It was built in the style of a typical Chinese courtyard house (si he yuan), but had fallen into some disrepair. Still, it had evidently been a beautiful house, and many of its decorative details had survived. Couplets hung on either side of the main door, black ink characters calligraphed on red paper. Next to the couplets were vertical panels of bird-and-flower paintings, the kind that one might expect to see in a museum. Smaller, square-shaped panels depicted human figures, presumably drawn from traditional Chinese folklore.
Later that afternoon, we went to a nearby town called Gaopi. Situated at the corner of a junction was a dessert shop specialising in tangyuan – glutinous rice balls with a sesame filling, served in a sweet mung bean soup. Sitting at roadside tables, I learned that my grandfather would frequent this shop whenever he visited home. Even on a balmy day, the warm dessert was deeply comforting. My grandfather was someone I never quite got to know. By the time I was old enough to properly communicate, it had been too late. But now, I could see him in my mind’s eye, making his way down the old streets of Gaopi, sitting down to a bowl of tangyuan, savouring his favourite dessert on a quiet afternoon. I was gathering fragments of him – the places he visited, the people he spoke to – and reconstructing, for myself, an image of who he was.
Before leaving the village, we clustered around a tea set in a small clothing shop owned by one of my aunts. My uncle sat at the head of the table, masterfully brewing and serving tea to the ten or so people gathered. Being a tea master was not an easy skill, I discovered. One had to be attentive and swift, fluid in one’s motions, while remaining engaged in conversation. As the tea flowed, so did stories and memories, resurfacing in the melodious Hakka language, which I was getting marginally better at understanding. From these accounts, it was evident that my grandparents’ love for their family and their homeland had never wavered, even in the face of great geographical distance and long periods of time spent apart.
That night, at the hotel, my grandmother described how difficult the living conditions had been for her relatives back then – how they barely had enough money for food, and how she and my grandfather had helped out financially wherever they could. I listened intently, because her past was something we rarely spoke about at home. I am sure she fought hard to build a new life in Singapore. Learning several new languages, running a business, and raising her children all at once could not have been easy. But she does not need to say this out loud for me to understand. My grandmother is a stoic, pragmatic woman – the kind who hangs up the phone before you can finish saying ‘goodbye’. Maybe her struggles are not something she wishes to burden her children, or indeed her grandchildren, with.
By the end of the trip, my heart was indescribably full. I had been moved by the generosity and hospitality of relatives I’d only just met. I was struck by the strength of familial ties that had endured in spite of the way our lives had branched out in such varying directions. I also came away with a renewed impression of the complex, multifaceted country that is China. On the one hand, I had seen a rapidly modernising economic powerhouse, with its urban development projects and malls filled with consumer goods following the latest international trends. On the other hand, I had also seen a country with deep, long-standing traditions that were valued by its people; where history retained great significance even as society moved relentlessly forward.
In many ways, the country I saw was not the one my grandparents had left behind. The world has changed in the six decades since, and my life now could not be more different from my grandmother’s when she was in her twenties. Still, when I think about my being in Oxford today, 10,911 kilometres away from home, I inevitably think about the generations who came before me; their bravery, grit, and resolve. To leave home for a new place is both an act of hope and an acceptance of loss. So as I write this, I remember with gratitude my ancestors, who chose to take that leap of faith and seek out what the world had to offer, opening the door for all that followed.
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