Day 5 - Half a Day in Lianghua (梁化) Part 2

Ming drove us back to the main street and Chi Keung stopped the car again after we passed four more stores down from On Punk’s. Amy let out a big cry and said, “Here’s the store your grandfather built!” I immediately got out the air-conditioned car into the furnace-like street and started to sweat again. The twin 3 story building stood right in the middle of the main street where hundreds of shops were located. My Dad and my second oldest uncle (Chi Keung’s grandfather) inherited this building. My dad got the left half and my uncle had the right. But the government had confiscated the building since 1950 and used it for some 35 years before letting us reclaim our ownership. Since we reclaimed this building in 1985, our side of the building had been taken over by some dubious people from my brother’s wife’s side as we have nobody from our family left in China.

These people had been taking advantage of us and had used the building for some not-so-legitimate businesses. Things like massage parlor and Mahh Jongg gambling joint and god knows what else. It had been abandoned for the last 10 years and the front door had been padlocked with the key held by one of the nephews, Dong Bark (許東八), of the now deceased sister-in-law. I had asked my brother Jilin in Sacramento to contact Dong Bark to bring the key so I can set foot in this building and get a glimpse of this place full of my family history.

The side walk in front of our store was now rented out to a street vendor to sell clothes. The proceeds have been pocketed by another nephew who had had a big fight with Dong Bark over the exploitation of this building. The right side of the building had passed to Chi Keung as the rightful heir and he rented the entire building to an electrical appliance store and the business (due to a busy location) is doing really well. The intrigue and interlocking relationships with these people in this little town that involve my grandfather’s legacy are quite complicated and I am just beginning to understand.

Our next task was to contact Dong Bark to get him to produce the key to open the padlock of the abandoned store. On Punk once again sprung into action and found a relative of Dong Bark who happened to own a bookstore close to his. We found this relative and stated our purpose and she immediately got on the phone to call Dong Bark who lives in the next village. The lady-relative at the bookstore told us that Dong Bark will be here to meet us within an hour.

The heat was so unbearable and we didn’t want to hang around to wait for the key bearer so to save time we decided to go to my grandfather’s grave site and pay our respects. All of us piled into the KIA with On Punk giving directions and Ming’s expert driving, we began to snake around narrow streets and congested intersections to the outskirts of town. We stopped in front of some old 6 story concrete residential buildings and we all got out. We were going to meet up with another off spring, relative to my grandfather before going to the grave site. This man nicknamed Auck Koo (惡古) had been receiving money from us and Amy for the last 20 years to supposedly help maintain and pay homage to our grandfather every year. His house is just around the corner from the grave site.

Just a side note, the Chinese believe it is important for the offspring to clean and maintain ancestral grave sites to keep up the good feng shui (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feng_shui) so the subsequent generations can live a healthy and prosperous life. Such notions have ingrained heavily in many Chinese psyches especially that of the older generation. My sister Amy is one of them and a strong believer in that tradition/superstition and has been secretly funding Auck Koo since my Dad passed away 17 years ago.

We found Auck Koo and his two sons at his house which he also used as a store front for selling vegetable wholesale. The three men, with dark sun-burned skin, looked like characters out of a Chinese Kung Fu movie as highway robbers, greeted us and we all headed toward the grave site around the corner.

As we came around a narrow alleyway, there stood several tall buildings on the right and a single-level old style Chinese brick home on the left. In between there was a small pie shaped clearing 150 ft long by 30 ft wide at the top end and 10 ft at the bottom. There were two concrete mounds and tombstones sitting side-by-side facing southeast. The one on the right was my grandfather’s grave. There was a concrete water drainage ditch running along the length of the site to provide proper drainage during the wet season. A strong foul smell emitted from it. At the end of this elongated lot, we could see that someone had taken over a 20 ft x 10 ft plot and planted vegetables and piles of garbage had been accumulated next to the veggie garden. Amy was really upset and started to complain to Auck Koo and his two sons about how they would let people encroach and litter the plot. They all kept silent.

Chi Keung and Auck Koo’s two sons lit candles and incense and Amy laid down some fruit and candies with Tao Sun burning paper money. I walked around and took many photos and videos and tried to get a sense of what the surroundings were like before it was overrun by concrete buildings. After the customary talking and bowing in front of the grave, Auck Koo’s oldest son lit the long string of firecrackers to scare the evil spirits and we said goodbye to my grandfather. It was a short re-union with my ancestor whom I had never met and I felt disgraced by the condition of the plot. We left the area and Amy arranged to have other relatives to join us for a lunch at a nearby restaurant.

At the restaurant, we got a private room with air-conditioning just to cool off. Apparently, all the flies in Lianghua had the same idea and decided to join us. On Punk volunteered to shoo the flies by opening the window and systematically guided them out with great success. We had set the table for 9 but were told there will be 3 more to join us. So we got 3 more chairs. As the flies in the room were thinning out by On Punk, more people got wind of the free lunch provided by the American relatives, an older woman plus two younger women with three kids showed up. They were Auck Koo’s wife, daughters-in-law and grandkids. We had to squeeze in the newcomers and ordered more food. The atmosphere was not a pleasant one as people just ate and packed the leftovers and left. The daughters-in-law didn’t even say goodbye and just took off. Nobody really tried to make an effort to get to know each other except Auck Koo’s younger son. He tried to make small talk but one could tell he was not sincere. My sister Amy passed out red envelopes with money to a couple of older men who she felt sorry for. We left Auck Koo and his two bandit-looking kids at the restaurant after lunch. They kept asking us to stay for a few more days.