Getting Ready for the Trip

I have been pondering in the last few months about my upcoming trip to China, to places where my ancestors come from. Thanks to my sister Amy, she has been instrumental in contacting and re-connecting with relatives in Xingning (興寧) , Lianghua (梁化) and Huizhou (惠州), where all my grandparents, my dad and all my other 8 siblings were born.

Amy will be accompanying me on this trip. Together we will visit my grandfather's ancestral village in Xingning, go to Huizhou where my brother Pete was born and where my Dad worked, to Lianghua where my grandfather built his fortune. He together with my grandma were buried there. I together with others will pay my respect at the grave site. Will try to find the location of the Farm House where most my siblings were born. That Farm House had long been gone and dismantled. Visit the three stories building where my grandfather built and had his business. It is still standing but in poor shape. Will go and take pictures of the elementary school where all my siblings had attended and where my Dad was once a teacher.

I will meet many relatives that I have only heard of but never met. Being born and raised in Hong Kong and the U.S., I always feel like an outsider whenever my siblings talked about their childhood memories in China. For I have no clue about the sights and sounds and geographic locations of any of these places. Thanks to Google Map, I have been studying some of these places and now have some ideas about the distance and direction of where all these cities and villages are. This trip will fill-up my senses with smells, sights and sounds that I have been missing all my life.

I will also try to visit Cheun Shan (中山), where my maternal parents came from. If we still have time, I will take my sister Amy to visit Macau where my Mom was born. Amy had never visit Macau before. I have been there many times as a child and adult. I always have a close connection with it every time I visit there. I think it is from the memories etched into my psyche long ago when my Mom took me to visit her brothers. I was only six years old then.

I have arranged all the usual traveling necessities: visas, flights, hotels, gifts...etc. Will pack light as we will take many buses throughout China.

I try to keep an open-mind about this trip as I do no know what to expect out of it. It is a journey I always wanted to do but afraid of. I know many of my siblings thinking I am wasting my time and energy. But, they have never grew up as "an outsider" as I was. It is a personal trip for me to look beyond my time and get connected with my family's past. Wish me luck!