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Tracing back 115 Generations
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our Ancestral Village
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Wing On Le (Yong'an Le) and Hing Lim Le:
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two Majionglong villages in Kaiping (Siyi counties)
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These are the villages of my ancestors. 120 years after a member of our immediate family arrived in Canada, we (descendants) finally visit the ancestral villages of my parents (in Siyi counties) and of my spouse's parents (in Sanyi counties).
What is of particular interest to a detached descendant like myself, is to learn of all of the historic intrigues of the distant and not so distant past. The inter-clan wars between the various peoples of this region and the multi-generational hate and feuding between certain clans. For example the Setos' and the Kwans' dislike for one another dated back several centuries. "Each clan used to fire their cannons at each other when they happened to pass through one another's territory", so informs my friend Calvin Quong. And myself, an old boy with roots from the Siyi county read this about my spouse's ancestral county, neighbouring Sanyi:
... Within the villages themselves disputes could turn violent, as in that between the Chen and Zhang families of Nanshan village referred to at the beginning of this article. Feuds could include people of whole counties such as in 1898 when severe fighting broke out between the Siyi and Sanyi peoples, involving 'swords and guns' and disrupting business. This is a dispute that may have begun among their fellows in America, in any case they were closely enough involved that an official was sent to explain to those in the United States about the need to live peacefully.
[article courtesy of Helen Wong, referenced from a Chinese Australian website]
I guess the good thing about not knowing too much of your own history is that this sort of nonsense is forgotten. Below is a photo of my village's ancestral Hall - renovated about a decade ago. I also have some images of it, prior to it's renovation that shows wonderful old architectural detailing and intricate woodwork. It's a small, modest little building.
In the old days, villages and whole counties vied for status by showing off the "successes" of their clansmen by announcing the achievements through architectural elements: the "Wok ear" gable end walls on private residences, which indicated a successful scholar in the imperial government system; the doorway stone "door drums" indicating important officials; the tall diaolou watchtowers that contains all sorts of "foreign" embellishments, etc. These sorts of physical archetypes interest me, and I hope to devote more time on researching this stuff.
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Wong Familly Ancestral Hall (with Tian Lu Diaolou at rear), Wing On Le
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Wong Family Genealogy ... going back 1,000 + years
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