Day 10 - Revisit Lianghua 5/16/2011 Monday

Monday morning, under an overcast sky and light drizzles we set off in the Isuzu with umbrellas, water, sweet pastry and extra branches of Yeun Mae’s green mint leaves, and headed out of town. Big Dog took a side road along the perimeter of the city and traffic soon became non-existence. Five kilometers out of town, he pointed out this huge industrial complex that house 20,000 workers. It was a clothing manufacturing facility owned by some Taiwanese company. 10 kilometers later, Big Dog got us on the toll highway and 15 minutes later we were at the exit to Lianghua. I was very glad to handover 5 yuans for the toll. Amy was so please that we never have to get on that same bumper road we experience 5 days ago.

We got on a two lanes road after exiting the toll highway and started to head toward Lianghua some 5 km away. The sky was cleared and we can see farmers were out doing their daily chores in the field. As we were driving along Amy piped up and asked Yee Kwan if he knew where Thunder God Peak (雷公領) was. Yee Kwan said it is coming up on the right soon. Big Dog asked if Amy wanted to stop there and Amy nostalgically said yes. Amy and her family spent 3 years in Thunder God Peak from 1970 to 1973. They were forced to move there during the “Downward Reform” (下放) movement when the government decided to have city folks to get a taste of rural farming life. It was the hardest time Amy’s family ever endured. Amy’s two youngest daughters, Nancy and Helen were born there.

Big Dog came to the turn off and started heading toward Thunder God Peak. We drove about 1 km and stopped in the middle of a bridge. On the other side of the bridge we can see a small village with typical single level houses clustered around along a single road. We can see a few small mountain peaks in the backdrop. We took some pictures and while Amy reminiscing her time there. Big Dog drove across the bridge and parked on the other side. We walked into the village and stopped at the very first building. It was a little grocery store with a group of men sat around a small low table playing card and smoking. They were arguing furiously about some one played a bad hand. Yee Kwan with his smiling face caught the eye of one the man and started talking to him. Soon Amy joined in speaking Hawk Lo dialect (the local dialect at that particular village and she still remember). The men stopped arguing and were all looking at us. Amy started asking these men about people she knew some 40 years ago. One of the men with big round eyes kept looking at Amy. She finally recognized the man as her ex-brother-in-law. Pleasantries were exchanged and an older man wanted to invite us for tea. We politely declined and left as we still have a full schedule ahead.

Big Dog got us back toward Lianghua and soon we were there in about 10 minutes. Once in town, he pulled the car into a vacant building which was under renovation. A young man came out and I thought he was going to tell Big Dog that he cannot park there. But, instead he gave Big Dog and Yee Kwan a warm welcome. He was Big Dog’s little cousin. We then followed Little Cousin into town and got on the main street. Little Cousin’s father (Yee Kwan’s younger brother) owned a string of property along the main street and we stopped at one of his store and paid him a visit. They were very happy to see Amy and wanted to invite us for lunch. Again, we declined and after a few rounds of tea we headed down the main street again and stopped at On Punk’s store. On Punk, his wife Han and his mother (suffered from a stroke) greeted us with great enthusiasm. The store was inside this narrow long building, neatly kept with well-stocked dry good items, soft drinks, rice wine, cigarettes and many bundles of toilet paper (for the hot summer ahead). On Punk had Han brought out a big tub of the local treat….a big pile of freshly steamed corn-on-the-cob. We all had a taste of the local treat and found it was indeed every sweet and firm with big yellow kernels.

Afterward, we walked down the main street again toward my grandfather’s vacant building with On Punk as an additional escort. I began to get a better sense of the surrounding and felt more relax as compared to our last visit. May be it had something to do with the cooler weather or the extra mint leaves we bought along. Once we got to the my grandfather’s building, Amy and Yee Kwan went in and visited Chi Keung’s rental tenant and On Punk with Big Dog began to lead me through the narrow alley between the twin building and head for Lianghua Elementary School where all my relatives once attended and my dad was a teacher.

We walked along a small back street where we found the house where my brothers once lived. I took a few pictures and went around the corner and found the school. The school was in session with the gate closed. On Punk said I can take some pictures from the outside and while I was doing so, Big Dog got on the phone. After a couple minutes, Big Dog hung up the phone and said we had permission to get inside as he just called his childhood friend, an English teacher in the school. We walked around carefully along some classrooms full of young children while teachers were conducting the lessons. The school had rows of classroom, three stories high in all three sides with a center court yard the size of half a foot ball field in the middle. Behind the left side of the classrooms was a huge playground with for soccer field and basketball courts.

A young lady walked towards me and said, “Hello!” in clear English diction. She was the English teacher. Big Dog introduced us and I tried to have a conversation with her in English but was careful not to use any ChinGlish. I told her the purpose of my visit and she told me the entire school had been rebuilt and the only thing left of the old school was a small hut used for a kitchen. We walked over to the hut and a lady was preparing lunch for the teachers. I got permission to take a few shots and we thank the English teacher and left. I crossed off one more thing off my list.

On the way back to find Amy, I saw some vendors on the main street selling gluten ball pastry (糯米池), a local sweet treat with ground peanut, sesame seeds and sugar filling, that I heard my sibling talked about all the time while growing up. I bought 5 of those huge balls and handed this grateful lady a 5 yuan note (75 cents U.S.). Amy later ate 3 of them and I only had 2. On Punk asked if I wanted to go back to the farm house again to retrieve those broken ceramic pieces I found 5 days ago. He must have read my mind as that was exactly what I wanted to do next. Big Dog, had an interest in old Chinese pottery, even went and got a little shovel from his uncle’s store in case we needed additional excavation.

We all piled back in the Isuzu and headed out of town. We found the farming village with ease and Big Dog drove us even closer to the farm house so we only needed to walk a little way before we arriving to this lovely piece of land. I have to say, I felt very drawn to this place. I just felt very connected to my grandfather at the farm house more than any place else that I visit on this trip. I felt peace and happy and relax. I really wouldn’t mind to rebuild this house again to its original glory. This time we were not in a rush and Amy was running around like a littler kid and started to explore the entire area. I went and found the pieces of broken ceramic I left in front of the ruin wall and Big Dog started to dig around the area and found more pieces. On Punk started to walk around the perimeter of the ruin wall and gave me a report that the house measured 18 meters by 10 meters. (about 1,500 sq ft.)

I heard Amy calling out from the back of the farm house ruin, behind the 100 years old lychee tree, that she found the spot where she had drowned the water buffalo when she was 8 years old. We all went over and investigate.

Apparently, when she was 8, after my parent escaped to HK, she was asked to look after this water buffalo belong to these 4 families (one cow leg per family). She led the buffalo to this tree next to a stream and tied it there and left to play. Upon her return, to her horror, she found the buffalo felt into the deep water and drowned. My Aunt at that time told her to run and hide in the next village so the angry, buffalo-less families will not persecute her. Amy ended up living and help babysitting in the next village for 3 years before she returned. Anyway, I told more pictures and we left to find the car.

At the car, right before we got in, we saw a man with a straw hat on a motor scooter coming toward us. We thought it might be Mr. Woo, the watch repairman. But as the man got closer and stopped, we saw it was a different man, darker and younger. Amy started talking to him and asked questions. But, abruptly she said goodbye to this man and hastily urge everyone to get in the car and commanded Big Dog to drive. I asked Amy what was the hurry once we were underway and she finally confessed the straw hat man was the son of one of the family that was part owner of the buffalo she had drowned some 62 years ago. The father was still alive and Amy didn’t dare to mention her name to this young man. We all laughed and teased her all the way back to Huizhou.