Post by NZBC on Jun 8, 2013 19:06:39 GMT 12
IT’S NEVER TOO LATE...............Patricia Tse
黄
美
玲
, nee Wong, of Bak Shek (Baishi)白石 ancestry, is a daughter of George Yew
黄
錫
堯
and born in New Zealand. Her mother was a Chan from Sun Gaai. Three of her siblings have never been back to
China and lately, they all decided to go together in their late age to see their ancestral roots. This
is an account of Patricia’s feelings about her nostalgic visit:China is huge. It has mega-cities. The mega-cities have traffic – overflowing with vehicles,non-stop. It seems the roads into the big cities are layered, top layer for traffic bypassing the actual town, the next layer of highway there for you to manoeuvre into so that you can reach the lower level and reach your destination. Looking d
own from the comfort of our air-conditioned tour bus, I could see the layered roads and through
the jungle of concrete, the footpath at the bottom and people going about their business. The
drivers in China are excellent. They canchange lanes, well, they just do it, no indicating,
nothing. And no-one minds, because they all do it, and do it skilfully. Six to eight lane highways were the norm in the big cities, and when I could bear to keep my eyes open at some of the near
misses I saw, I must say I didn’t see one prang . In the smaller towns the traffic was different. There were more motorbikes, or were they motorized bikes? Those things werecapable of carrying a family of four, or a whole pig slung across the shoulders of the rider, even saw a providore with a clutch of about
twenty dead chickens hanging off the handlebars, on his way to the local restaurant.
I don’t know why I didn’t expect to see so many skyscrapers in China. Large buildings, yes, but not s
kyscrapers for miles on miles, all modern, of every shape and colour, some quite ugly,
but all majestic. Beijing and Shanghai had their fair share, appropriately I suppose, to
cater for their huge populations and to show the wealth that is now being generated in China. The hive of building activity in the cities was in direct contrast to the village towns. Travelling through the countryside there were many unfinished buildings, some rather derelict.There didn’t appear to be much infrastructure going
on in the villages, I assumed because more work and better pay could be found in the cities. In Beijing I noted a workman who was using a hammer and chisel to break up a huge flagstone
while around him there were four or five pneumatic drills being used to cut through
concrete. The workman did not have any ear protection, or even work boots. When I walked back later he was still there and hadn’t made much impression on the flagstone with his primitive tools, but not for want of trying.
Our tour of China included some of the most famous sights, one of the first we were to experience being the magnificent Karst limestone peaks seen on the cruise of the Li River. This just took my breath away, the sheer beauty of those rounded mountains jutting out on either side of the river, so bold yet so serene, some shrouded in soft mist, others showing shades of blue and purple or green, they reminded me
of the paintings we had on the walls at home when I used to think that someone was taking artistic license because mountains just didn’tlook like that. But they do and I am so pleased that I have seen them now. Over the centuries and even to this day they must be the subject of many a poet’s pen.
Photographs of the terracotta warriors of Xian don’t do them justice. They must be seen in situ to be fully appreciated. The sheer size of the area that they cover, many still to be unearthed and restored is just huge. The intricate work on the faces of the clay figures, no two figures alike, is spell-binding – and there are hundreds of them, maybe thousands, and horses and char
iots too. Archaeologists working around the clock may never unearth them all in a lifetime.
I recommend seeing Tiananmen Square around midnight– that’s when there are just you, a handful of others and the guards and, of course, Chairman Mao. I was, however, a little perplexed that a busy road runs through the square, somehow masking the true size of it.
In the daytime the square presents itself differently. Tour parties abound, ours added to the general melee on this particular day, lots of security and guards and long queues to get throughthe gates to the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City is just a shell of itself today,though many of the buildings were being restored and painted to their former glory on our visit. We were able to peek through the shuttersof some of the buildings, others we could walk through large empty halls. Just seeing the bones of the buildings and their intricate fret-work that still existed, it wasn’t hard to envisage how the city would have looked in the time of theEmperors. Those beautiful structures full of fine furniture, silk hangings and art works, thebest most precious porcelain on display, huge vases of peonies to grace the reception areas, and thousands of servants silently going about their chores and being at the beck and call of the Emperor and his lords and ladies.
Ah, the sheer decadence of it.
At Jurong Pass I climbed the Great Wall of China.I think there were six or seven towers before reaching the top, which wasn’t that difficult as the part of the wall we went up was restored.
I had hoped there would have been some of the original wall to climb, with more difficultterrain and no handrail, to provide a bit more of a challenge. However, I witnessed a very movingmoment when a middle-aged gentleman beside me who had climbed the wall alone and reached the top had an expression on his face of such
sheer satisfaction, of happiness and achievement, He had triumphantly climbed to the top, no drink bottle in sight, no backpack, no camera, just him in his black cot-ton suit and thin canvas shoes. Whenever I think
back on my climb of the Great Wall, I think of this gentleman and the hero that he was.
The arts of Asia are world renowned and the Museum of Shanghai holds some of the best. I can highly re
commend anyone who is interested in Asian art or, for that matter, beautiful objects, to spend a couple of hours in the quiet surrounds of the museum – an oasis right inthe city. Shanghai itself, with the Bund and Nanjing Road, is a fascinating metropolis, very vibrant, very noisy, very crowded and very Western.
Bak Soi village 2007
The young people are modern, follow fashion and it appeared to me that the boys spent as much time, if
not more, on trendy hairstyles than the girls. Wealth pulsated throughout the city centre, especially noticeable along one street that boasted only top brands such asGucci and Prada, etc.
The highlight of the trip was the chance to visit the ancestral villages of father and mother. Sister
Janette had been to Bak-Shek 20 years ago. It was to be a new experience for brother Danny, sister Suzanne and me. We were hugely indebted to our distant cousin, Bor Wong, who came fromHong Kong, arranged a mini-van for the day and did all the translating for us. Our first stop was the village of Bak-Soi, Dad’s birthplace, where we met Mr Wong the key holder and accepted his family’s kind offer of tea and cakes. Bak-Soi with its pond
and quaint homes around it was quietly peaceful,very few people in sight apart from a group of youths in the distance, on the other side of the pond.A woman passed close by us and went down a lane carrying a pole across her shoulders with large metal buckets at each end. She appeared far too slight to be carrying such a heavy load. We left Bak-Soi and drove only a few minutes before we arrived at Bak-Shek. In contrast to Bak-Soi, Bak-
Shek was quite a large market town bustling with people, its narrow streets lined with shops or stalls
selling the basic needs of the wider community. A new building was being built at the end of our street and Jan noted that, where once was the village pond, was now housing and small apartments.
Having seen photos of the ancestral home prior to this visit, I recognized the homestead immediately and it was more a feeling of curiosity and interest than one of any emotional bond or connection to this house. Mr
Wong turned the huge key in the lock and invited us into the now vacated home. It wasn’t until after
we paid our respects to our ancestors and took photos to show those at home that I paused for thought then wandered through the building, envisaging my father as a young child, tripping up and down the now shaky
wooden stairs, gazing out the window at the lane below, shouting to his friends. That old bed frame stackedgainst the bedroom wall could have been the bed he slept in, those cricket pots of his father’s piled
up in the cupboard would have held a fascination for him. And as I stepped out into the back garden, now overgrown,I imagined the soil I was treading on would once have held his footprints. It was then I felt a strong connection to this piece of China.
Sun-Gai village, no great distance from Bak-Shek village, was in a tranquil setting. A large stream
saddled one side and there were a few elderly ladies sitting in chairs in the shade of the trees on the river bank. We did not know the location of granddad’s home so settled for taking pictures of the ancestral hall and pond in front. I liked this village very much as it had a feeling of peacefulness to it. The village is
situated quite close to a major road and new industrial building area. Let’s hope it doesn’t get swallowed up by progress.
The sheer size of China lends itself to a land of contrasts and contradictions. The few places where
I touched down provided me with a chance to meet some of the people and to observe others at work and at play. The people in the villag es always had a ready smile. In the cities some were keen to interact; once they heard
us speaking to one another in English they would practice theirs with a cheery hello and
how are you? Of course, I got cheated at a market in Guangzhou, but after all, aren’t tourists fair
game? We got charged double by the taxi driver when he drove us to the Bund, but we gave him the money without argument as it was still so very cheap to what we are used toat home. Friends of a very inebriated and argumentative young girl in Guangzhou had a lot of trouble keeping her upright and quiet. I felt
sorry for them, but I didn’t feel sorry for her and the huge hangover she would have in the morning.
I didn’t expect to see such a sight in China, but there you are, I am learning. Even at my age.
Patricia Tse
www.tungjung.org.nz/images/stories/newsletters/2010/winter_2010.pdf
黄
美
玲
, nee Wong, of Bak Shek (Baishi)白石 ancestry, is a daughter of George Yew
黄
錫
堯
and born in New Zealand. Her mother was a Chan from Sun Gaai. Three of her siblings have never been back to
China and lately, they all decided to go together in their late age to see their ancestral roots. This
is an account of Patricia’s feelings about her nostalgic visit:China is huge. It has mega-cities. The mega-cities have traffic – overflowing with vehicles,non-stop. It seems the roads into the big cities are layered, top layer for traffic bypassing the actual town, the next layer of highway there for you to manoeuvre into so that you can reach the lower level and reach your destination. Looking d
own from the comfort of our air-conditioned tour bus, I could see the layered roads and through
the jungle of concrete, the footpath at the bottom and people going about their business. The
drivers in China are excellent. They canchange lanes, well, they just do it, no indicating,
nothing. And no-one minds, because they all do it, and do it skilfully. Six to eight lane highways were the norm in the big cities, and when I could bear to keep my eyes open at some of the near
misses I saw, I must say I didn’t see one prang . In the smaller towns the traffic was different. There were more motorbikes, or were they motorized bikes? Those things werecapable of carrying a family of four, or a whole pig slung across the shoulders of the rider, even saw a providore with a clutch of about
twenty dead chickens hanging off the handlebars, on his way to the local restaurant.
I don’t know why I didn’t expect to see so many skyscrapers in China. Large buildings, yes, but not s
kyscrapers for miles on miles, all modern, of every shape and colour, some quite ugly,
but all majestic. Beijing and Shanghai had their fair share, appropriately I suppose, to
cater for their huge populations and to show the wealth that is now being generated in China. The hive of building activity in the cities was in direct contrast to the village towns. Travelling through the countryside there were many unfinished buildings, some rather derelict.There didn’t appear to be much infrastructure going
on in the villages, I assumed because more work and better pay could be found in the cities. In Beijing I noted a workman who was using a hammer and chisel to break up a huge flagstone
while around him there were four or five pneumatic drills being used to cut through
concrete. The workman did not have any ear protection, or even work boots. When I walked back later he was still there and hadn’t made much impression on the flagstone with his primitive tools, but not for want of trying.
Our tour of China included some of the most famous sights, one of the first we were to experience being the magnificent Karst limestone peaks seen on the cruise of the Li River. This just took my breath away, the sheer beauty of those rounded mountains jutting out on either side of the river, so bold yet so serene, some shrouded in soft mist, others showing shades of blue and purple or green, they reminded me
of the paintings we had on the walls at home when I used to think that someone was taking artistic license because mountains just didn’tlook like that. But they do and I am so pleased that I have seen them now. Over the centuries and even to this day they must be the subject of many a poet’s pen.
Photographs of the terracotta warriors of Xian don’t do them justice. They must be seen in situ to be fully appreciated. The sheer size of the area that they cover, many still to be unearthed and restored is just huge. The intricate work on the faces of the clay figures, no two figures alike, is spell-binding – and there are hundreds of them, maybe thousands, and horses and char
iots too. Archaeologists working around the clock may never unearth them all in a lifetime.
I recommend seeing Tiananmen Square around midnight– that’s when there are just you, a handful of others and the guards and, of course, Chairman Mao. I was, however, a little perplexed that a busy road runs through the square, somehow masking the true size of it.
In the daytime the square presents itself differently. Tour parties abound, ours added to the general melee on this particular day, lots of security and guards and long queues to get throughthe gates to the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City is just a shell of itself today,though many of the buildings were being restored and painted to their former glory on our visit. We were able to peek through the shuttersof some of the buildings, others we could walk through large empty halls. Just seeing the bones of the buildings and their intricate fret-work that still existed, it wasn’t hard to envisage how the city would have looked in the time of theEmperors. Those beautiful structures full of fine furniture, silk hangings and art works, thebest most precious porcelain on display, huge vases of peonies to grace the reception areas, and thousands of servants silently going about their chores and being at the beck and call of the Emperor and his lords and ladies.
Ah, the sheer decadence of it.
At Jurong Pass I climbed the Great Wall of China.I think there were six or seven towers before reaching the top, which wasn’t that difficult as the part of the wall we went up was restored.
I had hoped there would have been some of the original wall to climb, with more difficultterrain and no handrail, to provide a bit more of a challenge. However, I witnessed a very movingmoment when a middle-aged gentleman beside me who had climbed the wall alone and reached the top had an expression on his face of such
sheer satisfaction, of happiness and achievement, He had triumphantly climbed to the top, no drink bottle in sight, no backpack, no camera, just him in his black cot-ton suit and thin canvas shoes. Whenever I think
back on my climb of the Great Wall, I think of this gentleman and the hero that he was.
The arts of Asia are world renowned and the Museum of Shanghai holds some of the best. I can highly re
commend anyone who is interested in Asian art or, for that matter, beautiful objects, to spend a couple of hours in the quiet surrounds of the museum – an oasis right inthe city. Shanghai itself, with the Bund and Nanjing Road, is a fascinating metropolis, very vibrant, very noisy, very crowded and very Western.
Bak Soi village 2007
The young people are modern, follow fashion and it appeared to me that the boys spent as much time, if
not more, on trendy hairstyles than the girls. Wealth pulsated throughout the city centre, especially noticeable along one street that boasted only top brands such asGucci and Prada, etc.
The highlight of the trip was the chance to visit the ancestral villages of father and mother. Sister
Janette had been to Bak-Shek 20 years ago. It was to be a new experience for brother Danny, sister Suzanne and me. We were hugely indebted to our distant cousin, Bor Wong, who came fromHong Kong, arranged a mini-van for the day and did all the translating for us. Our first stop was the village of Bak-Soi, Dad’s birthplace, where we met Mr Wong the key holder and accepted his family’s kind offer of tea and cakes. Bak-Soi with its pond
and quaint homes around it was quietly peaceful,very few people in sight apart from a group of youths in the distance, on the other side of the pond.A woman passed close by us and went down a lane carrying a pole across her shoulders with large metal buckets at each end. She appeared far too slight to be carrying such a heavy load. We left Bak-Soi and drove only a few minutes before we arrived at Bak-Shek. In contrast to Bak-Soi, Bak-
Shek was quite a large market town bustling with people, its narrow streets lined with shops or stalls
selling the basic needs of the wider community. A new building was being built at the end of our street and Jan noted that, where once was the village pond, was now housing and small apartments.
Having seen photos of the ancestral home prior to this visit, I recognized the homestead immediately and it was more a feeling of curiosity and interest than one of any emotional bond or connection to this house. Mr
Wong turned the huge key in the lock and invited us into the now vacated home. It wasn’t until after
we paid our respects to our ancestors and took photos to show those at home that I paused for thought then wandered through the building, envisaging my father as a young child, tripping up and down the now shaky
wooden stairs, gazing out the window at the lane below, shouting to his friends. That old bed frame stackedgainst the bedroom wall could have been the bed he slept in, those cricket pots of his father’s piled
up in the cupboard would have held a fascination for him. And as I stepped out into the back garden, now overgrown,I imagined the soil I was treading on would once have held his footprints. It was then I felt a strong connection to this piece of China.
Sun-Gai village, no great distance from Bak-Shek village, was in a tranquil setting. A large stream
saddled one side and there were a few elderly ladies sitting in chairs in the shade of the trees on the river bank. We did not know the location of granddad’s home so settled for taking pictures of the ancestral hall and pond in front. I liked this village very much as it had a feeling of peacefulness to it. The village is
situated quite close to a major road and new industrial building area. Let’s hope it doesn’t get swallowed up by progress.
The sheer size of China lends itself to a land of contrasts and contradictions. The few places where
I touched down provided me with a chance to meet some of the people and to observe others at work and at play. The people in the villag es always had a ready smile. In the cities some were keen to interact; once they heard
us speaking to one another in English they would practice theirs with a cheery hello and
how are you? Of course, I got cheated at a market in Guangzhou, but after all, aren’t tourists fair
game? We got charged double by the taxi driver when he drove us to the Bund, but we gave him the money without argument as it was still so very cheap to what we are used toat home. Friends of a very inebriated and argumentative young girl in Guangzhou had a lot of trouble keeping her upright and quiet. I felt
sorry for them, but I didn’t feel sorry for her and the huge hangover she would have in the morning.
I didn’t expect to see such a sight in China, but there you are, I am learning. Even at my age.
Patricia Tse
www.tungjung.org.nz/images/stories/newsletters/2010/winter_2010.pdf