A Trip to My Ancestor Village                  Jonathan Teoh      posted to HGN in April 1995

My ancestor village is Shong(up) Chuan(as in Sze-"Chuan" province) Chun(village), located in Western Fukien, Yong Ding county. Yong Ding county is one of the 8 pure hakka-speaking counties in Fujian. It is also one of the 20 counties that are considered as the Hakka baseline culture.

My ancestors have spent 20 plus generations in that village. All the people there have only one last name, long bow(Teoh, Chang, Chong, Zhang). The boys have to marry girls from other villages and all the girls will marry to other villages. The population of the village is about 2,000 people.

There are 3 huge round buildings, and 2 huge rectangle buildings in the village, the rest are small houses. It is about 4 storey high. In the evening, little kids playing in front of the round building, cool breeze of air, sun setting, sound of river rushing, and in the midst of these, groups of teenage boys and girls shouldering two pails of water with a stick, coming in and out of the round building, just like the stuff you see in the movie. There is a spring water and a river supplying water for the entire village. Wood sticks were piled up around the Round Building, used as the fuels for cooking.

I spent a night in one of the rooms. It is a rather small room by today's standard. When I was there, it was still the Chinese New Year celebration period(they celebrate from 1st to 15th), so at night, I canl hear the drum beat for about half an hour to create the New Year atmosphere.

In the morning, I stood at higher levels and looked around the round building, the smoke streams were raising from the kitchens with chicken cocking in the background. The boys and girls are active once again while adults go out to tilt the land or repair the land for next round of cultivation. Along the river bank, there are girls washing the clothing, younger ones tend to group together, chit-chat while washing, the elder ones tend to scatter a bit.

Some round buildings are clean but the one in my village is dirty. People use the central area of the Round Building to raise pigs and chickens. One of the relatives actually complained to me that they should not raise pigs and chicken inside the Round Building.

Usually in a village, there is an ancestor hall. In front of the ancestor hall, there are tall pillars raised. The pillars are of two types, Wen pillars and Wu pillars. The Wen pillars are for those who have reached high education level or become famous scholars. The Wu pillars are for those who have obtained official position in the military. Thus a village can "boast" of its accomplishment by counting the number of pillars in front of the Ancestor Hall. Unfortunately in my villages they were all torn down during cultural revolution.

When a child is born, the name of the child is written in the red paper and sticked to the walls of the ancestor hall to "announce" to the ancestors, officially, of the child's birth. My ancestor hall was once turned into the "revolutionary" factory. I visited another village, the ancestor village of Hu Wen Hu3(tiger), they have impressive pillars and ancestor hall; However, my relative told me that my village's pillars were more impressive than "theirs" if the our pillars were still around today.

Ancestor's graves were built around the villages. On the first day of Chinese New Year, the entire villagers will gather around the grand ancestor grave(usually the one that started the settlement in that area), and lighted the fire-cracker. There are drum beating, and incense burning and the sacrifice of five animals. As the villagers "marched" towards the grave there is a banner carrier in front of the march with the drum beating and the gong.

I also noticed that people were making lantern and hanged in front of the doors or windows. They were preparing the celebration of Yen Shiao(15th day of Chinese New Year). On the 15th day of Chinese New Year(1995) , in my village, people gathered in front of ancestor hall at night with the lanterns, and they matched through the entire village, like a lantern parade. This occasion also marked the end of Chinese New Year celebration. This is the first time in my life, I understand the meaning of Chinese New Year, it is meant to be celebrated throughout 15 day period, and it is truly a celebration of Spring coming communitywide, not a personal or family two-day vacation.

As I leave the villages from the mountains towards the plains of the coastal area of Xiamen, I have a sense of dignity, I have "found" myself and at peace in heart. At the same time, I realize the critical moment Hakka culture is facing. Hakka culture is caught in between the two striving cultures, Kwangtung and Fukien. On top of this, the government policy of teaching Mandarin is eroding Hakka consciousness, the input of "modern" culture is also rocking this traditionally mountaineous Hakka strongholds. While every culture is dynamic and evolves, it should n