The Lost World of the Guans (Shangguans)

Bei Mu Zhen (椑木镇) was a small town that seemed just like any other town. It was well known as 川南第一门户 and  蓉城第一关, which means south gate of Sichuan and first gate of Chengdu. The town started in the Qing Dynasty. It was about 52 Kilometer to my grandmother's city Zigong.  I took a few pictures and asked around if there was still any one with the family name Guan or Shangguan. The first three elders said there was no Guan or Shangguan they knew. While asking around, a young man came up to me and said that there are Guans in the town. He knew that they were not far from where we were. I was excited. I asked him if he could take us there. He agreed and we followed him through very narrow alleys, where the taxi could not get in, and a few flights of stone stairs up and down. 

We went into a residential courtyard, which was similar to the one I had lived at with my grandmother, only not as nice and cluttered and with a few more additions in the yard. There, we met Guan SueLan (官淑兰) of my grandfather’s generation Xuan (选). She showed me all the Guan’s in the big courtyard; one old man also in my grandfather’s Xuan (选) generation seemed to confuse me with someone else. His wife kept correcting him that I was not the person he thought I was. Despite her efforts, he kept getting excited every few minutes thinking I was someone else, but his wife kept repeating that I was not. He stared at me as if he had not seen me in a long time; I noticed his bright blue eyes shining with excitement. He wanted me to stay and have lunch with them. I took a close-up picture of his face, showing his blue eyes. 

SueLan reminded me about my own grandmother and we connected instantly. She told me there were over 2000 Guans and three family shrines on the nearby farm with our family history books still in existence. She could not take me there, since all the young people were out working, but said she could call her nephew to take us.

She talked to her nephew on the phone and I could tell the conversation was not going well. She kept asking him to come and he kept saying that he was busy doing something else. I could not let this happen, so I told her to let me talk to him directly. She handed the phone over to me; he said that he was busy and could not come. I had to tell him that I came all the way from America and that this was my first time ever meeting any Guans outside of my immediate family. No one in our family ever knew about their existence. I needed him to show me this place. This was the first time and possibly my last time to reach this far.

He asked me to recite our generation name poem, as if he wanted to make sure I was one of the family members. It was the code, I just learned few months ago from my uncle’s five pages of family history. I could only recite the first few lines of the whole poem 朝庭选举, 忠孝尊荣, 武功丕显, 新体昭明, 长思世德, 大振家声 I am in the Zhong (忠) generation; he told me he was in my mother’s generation, Ju (举), so I needed to call him uncle, which I did. If he could simply come meet us that would be good enough for me.  He then said he would come. I asked him when. Our taxi’s meter, after all, was still running. Then, he said about fifteen minutes at the fastest, so I told him we would wait for him to take us to the Guan’s farm.

Generation Poem from the old Guan family Zhu Pu

Grandma SueLan asked if we wanted to stay for lunch since it was lunchtime; I told her that we had to run and thanked her for her help. On the way out, the young man pointed out the properties the Guan used to own and my newfound uncle confirmed what he said. He then pointed to a big house high up on a hill with quite a few steps and a big front gate. The house used to belong to the confused man’s family. It was taken away from them after 1949, and became a grain storage house for a long time. Now, a dozen families had moved in. I took few pictures outside, thinking I could take a few pictures inside too. Again, the inside yard was crowded with new additions; it was a mess, so I did not feel like taking any pictures. All the Guans were pushed into one big courtyard and they too had to live like everyone else and share the very limited space. I asked Juting if our Guan had asked the local government to return those courtyards, since there were still three. He smiled and said “you have seen all those families live inside; they are as poor as we are; they could not afford to buy a place. The government gave it to them over 50 years ago, and they have been living there ever since. Guan’s descendants will not live there; it is run down.” Still, I hope that there would be money someday to restore it back to its old glory.

From a local newspaper printed on December 6, 2009, Xiong Yongzhi (熊永志)内江新闻网 had interviewed my aunt Guan Ju Pei (官举培) about how the Chinese liberation army came into town. She was eighteen years old at the time and lived in the Guan’s family courtyard in Bei Mo Zhen (椑木镇) in Neijiang. There were a lot of rumors in existence about how the Communist army would kill, rob, rape, and burn everywhere they went. On the evening of Dec 4^, 1949, there was gently knocking on their front gate. Whole families were scared, trying to find anywhere to hide. Ju Pei was scared to death. The man asked if they could come in to stay overnight; his voice was gentle and warm. After a while, Guan Ju Pei’s older brother peeked out and saw only one person outside, so he opened the front gate (朝门). About 120 soldiers then came in and settled down first. Next, they set campfires cooking with the food they brought with them. The next morning, the solders cleaned the whole courtyard, carried water, and filled up all the water storage tanks. They also chatted with her parents, which made all the Guans relax. The Guans decided to let them stay another night. The next morning, the solders cleaned the whole courtyard all over again and filled up all the water tanks again from the river (沱江). They sailed from there into the city Neijiang. Guan JuPei was seventy eight years old at the time of the interview; she said the Communist army was really good when they passed; they paid for everything and did not take anything; the first army came without looting. I was disappointed that the interview stopped right there. I wanted to know what happened afterward. How did the Guan family lose everything in the land reform?

I found an article about the Guan family courtyards. The article described the towering “Temple of the East King,” the railway to Chongqing on the foothills, layers and layers of black roof tiles connecting to each other, wells, square courtyards combined with other old houses, and rivers that led into today’s old town. All the square courtyards belonged to the Guans and it is still called “Guan’s family courtyards” (官家大院) to this day.

During the Qing Dynasty, Zhang and Den controlled most of the land in town and were by far the most powerful. The Guans were a big family that owned most courtyards in town. After the land reform and the Cultural Revolution, most of the old houses disappeared. Only the ones hidden away survived, about thirty in total.

The second Guan courtyard became a local, famous winery run by Guan descendants. The last one was run by a son-in-law with a Guan wife named Xuao (肖) until 2000. Today, all the equipment still lay in the courtyard covered with dust.

My cousin Guan Zhongwei was taking pictures at Guan’s old winery

Another local article talked about the three Guan family courtyards again. One of them was mostly destroyed in 1981’s big flood that complely submerged this courtyard. Even so, the stone walls and steps show how big the courtyard used to be. The front gate’s stone steps connected the steps all the way down to the river. There were over eighty rooms, three gates and five wells. The Chinese words left read “四水归一”、“礼、乐、忠、孝,” which means “four rivers united into one” and “Manners, Joy, Loyalty, and Filial Piety.” What a profound message to his descendants I thought; I was moved. There were four rivers in Sichuan and our first ancestor, Yuen Hui from Fujian, left four sons in Sichuan in 1724. He would want the four sons united always.

 The third Guan courtyard on the highest ground was preserved the best. It became a grain storage warehouse after 1949 until 1979. Now 24 families had moved into the courtyard to live. I only took a picture from the outside, inside was such a mess with many additions, which caused it to completely lose its original appearance. Four generations of Guan lived there until the land reform. They were forced to live like everyone else in one or two rooms. The local people who live in the Guan’s courtyard clearly said there were still a lot of Guans living in town. Still, the authorities said no one knew if the courtyard belonged to those with the surname Guan or the official Guan name, since both are pronounced and written the same.

We told the taxi driver our change of plans, but said we would pay him the same amount of money, not going as far as my grandmother’s fortress, Dou Wan Zhei. He was, however, complaining about the rough dirt road to the farm damaging his car. My newfound uncle’s name was Guan JuTing (官举廷); he was in his 60s.  We traveled along the river called Toujing (沱江) to the Guan’s farm.

He told us that their grandfathers had at least six wives each, so they had to build three family shrines. The first one (上祠堂) was for the upper class first and second wives and their children and family. The middle class (中祠堂) consisted of the third and fourth wives and their children and the lower class (下祠堂) consisted of the fifth and sixth wives. They still had about twenty Xuan (选) generations from younger wives still alive, but quite a few of them had blue-ringed eyes (central iris heterochromia). I thought my grandfather’s brothers had too many wives, with two to three wives each. Our Xuan (选) generation was long gone before I was born or when I was little. Their Xuan (选) generation was as old as my oldest uncle and my mother. Few of his generation Ju (举) were actually younger than me and I was not about to call them uncle or aunt. At the same time, I found one who was of the Xiao (孝) generation (my children’s generation) older than me, with her grandchildren in the Zhuen (尊) generation.

We reached the site. We could see the San Yan Tar (三元塔 Bogota) on the top of hills on the other side of the river. The Bogota was built in the Tang Dynasty, destroyed in the late Ming Dynasty and rebuilt in 1805 by the Qing Dynasty. The Guan family farm is on the riverbank with houses scattered in between farmland. It was amazing to see so many Guans there, 2000 of them, and we all shared the same great- grandfather who lived nine generations ago. 



Map of the Guan family's Ancestral Hall (老祠堂), across the river was San Yan Tar (三元塔 Bogota) , from Guan family over 100 years old Zhu Pu, it was amazing to visit the site over 100 years later where most of our Guans still live.

The upper family shrine is on the upper slope; now a Guan family lived inside. It did not function as a family shrine anymore. He pointed out where the lower family shrine used to be, but it was taken apart over the years. The middle shrine was abandoned after a child from the Chen family set a fire by accident. I could see that the front stone steps had already turned green from moss growing on the stones. There was an old tree trunk blocking entry to the central hall. On the side, black scorch marks still showed, but overall, the structure stayed strong. In the center of the courtyard, there was a stone structure for water storage. On the left side of the house, there was a little shed for animals, except it was empty. On the end of right side, there were still good portions of the house standing where one of Guan’s surviving wives was still living. Overall, the whole courtyard was ruined and abandoned, which made me feel very sad. 

Noble Guan Family Houses Along the TuoJiang: from the Neijiang News Network reporter Xiong Yongzhi (熊永志) 矗立在沱江岸的官家​豪门 【发表时间：2012​-05-11 16:21:44 来源：内江新闻网】

“Larger traditional Ming and Qing style buildings of ancient courtyards are rare. Large ancient residential buildings built by any family in Sichuan are even scarcer. But inside the city, there are three ancestral shrines (3座飞檐翘角、风火墙高耸、四合院层叠), encompassing a total area of over 10,000 square meters, within an area less than 600 meters in diameter along the Tuojiang River (沱江) bank. Now, nearly one hundred families live there.

The buildings were built since the middle of the Qing Dynasty (清中期). In chronological order, they are the Old Ancestral Hall (老祠堂), the Middle Ancestral Hall (中祠堂), and the Lower Ancestral Hall (下祠堂). Outside the Guan family, local people usually call them the Guan’s Grand Courtyards. The Guan Grand Courtyards were built along the Tuojiang River (沱江), located in Dongxing Creek Town’s Republican Village across from Neijiang Sanyuan Pagoda (三元塔). Guan ancestors were blacksmiths who built the Old Ancestral Hall (老祠堂). It was located in front of a pond, which was about 120 meters long, 35 meters wide; you can see new houses and bamboo forest behind the hall, lined with green tiles of the old house. This Old Ancestral Hall (老祠堂) was 80 meters long and 40 meters wide. Only the black stone courtyard’s shape remained, most are now beyond recognition. The left wing of the hall was destroyed by fire. The right wing is still intact, and includes 8 tall wooden doors, a room with a central patio, and an alley connecting the backyard. 84-year-old Guan Zhongzhi (官忠志 which is my generation) has been living in the Old Ancestral Hall. He is in my generation of Guan descendants, although he is three years older than my mother. He said our ancestors, two brothers, settled in Sichuan from Fujian, were skilled blacksmiths. Their business and fortune grew, so the brothers bought large tracts of land, built the Old Ancestral Hall (老祠堂) and the sugarhouse. Guan Zhongzhi (官忠志) heard from his elders that between the end of the Qing Dynasty to the beginning of the Republic of China Period, the Guan family had a modern private school (洋学堂), offered modern Chinese, Math, and Science lessons to over one hundred students. The school was free of charge for non-Guan family’s children; they only needed to pay for their own books. The Guan Ancestral Halls subsidized the teachers’ salaries (the same tradition Guan Fortress did). Yang (洋) means “overseas and foreign,” 洋学堂 means “foreign school,” not traditional Chinese school. My grandmother used to call a lot of things yang (洋), such as yanghuo (洋火), which means “matches,” and yang qiang (洋枪), which means “foreign gun.”

After the Communists took over in 1949, especially after Land Reform, this Old Ancestral Hall was given to sixteen 16 Guan families as their residence.

The Middle Ancestral Hall (中祠堂) was built by Guan’s business fortune. After you enter the door (朝门), you cross the black stone courtyard, which is 30 meters wide, then go up a flight of stairs containing 13 steps. Each step was built with a 3 meters long, 0.4 meter-wide stone. In front of an area of 100 square meters courtyard, there is a 6 meters high, 15 m long screen wall (照壁). Then, along each side of the wall, 13 more stone steps lead to another door (朝门), and you enter the Middle Ancestral Hall, which includes a front hall, main hall, living room, east and west wing. The building has four entries and 10 courtyards, about 100 m wide and about 50 m deep. The 73-year-old Guan Juzhi (官举治) said, after the ancestors built the Old Ancestral Hall, through the efforts of the later descendants, farming, and doing business, they finished the Middle Ancestral Hall (中祠堂) 10 years later in Guangxu (清光绪年). Guan families owned land and real estate in a ten-mile radius. When the country was in turmoil, in order to guard against bandits, they poured silver from the storage house (库存) into the Pond and buried them in mud (same trick Guan Fortress used). The 65-year-old Zhou Qilu (周期禄 ) said his father used to rent the land from the Guan family. After 1949, he received part of the Guan’s Middle Ancestral Hall, half of the main room and a bedroom. The main room of the building is 9 meters high, the walls from the floor up to three meters high were all wood panel siding. Behind the wooden wall in the main hall is a hallway of width of 0.8 meters, where the women and the maids could peek through to see the Guan family man’s business world in the main hall. This Middle Ancestral Hall housed more than 30 families since 1949, and the complex also included the grain storage warehouses, local leader’s office, dining hall, and the shop. In the early 1980s, a fire destroyed the hundreds of square meters wide right wing. Now, most people work outside the home as China’s cheap labor force called migrant workers; only six families still live here; it is extremely quiet and lonely. 

Grand-scale Lower Ancestral Hall (下祠堂). After the two ancestral halls, the Guan’s descendants continued to work hard, at slightly lower terrain, from the present site of the Middle Ancestral Hall (中祠堂), about 250 meters away, and then spent millions building the Lower Ancestral Hall (下祠堂). Although it is gone, there are traces of the Lower Ancestral Hall, old houses, the old grayish black brick wall, firewall, stairs, patios, suites, front hall, rear hall; compounds, courtyards, front yard, backyard. The original layout is apparent but devastated. According to 72-year-old Guan Juqian (官举谦), the front of the Lower Ancestral Hall (下祠堂) was 120 meters wide, about 45 meters deep, and contained at least 100 rooms, where the sugar house and oil mill were. After 1949, five to six hundred villagers lived in it. In 1981, the flood of the Tuojiang River’s water reached the 3^rd step out of 10 steps in front of the first big gate (大朝门).

Today, this run-down scene of the Guan family (官家豪门) makes one feel the ancient “feng shui,” the traditional concept of architectural aesthetics and culture, from which we roughly derive the stories of the rise and fall of immigrants into Sichuan.

This was the house my great-great-grandfather Rong built after he married Chen. We are his second wife Tong’s descendants. When he died at age 50, his youngest son from Tong was only 10. He died at age 35 leaving two sons who left this farm for Gongjing’s salt well business in the 1800s.

This was the first house our ancestors built when they moved into Sichuan from Fujian. It was very similar to the houses in San Dou Zhei in Zigong; the house was simply set lower on the ground. At the back of the house, the path was as high as the roof. Two of our ancestors’ tombs looked as if they were embracing the house, unsure of which was which, since the tombstones were long gone. Maybe the tomb maps in our family history book could give us the answer.

The rest of the family tombs were on the higher slopes of Mt. Omei (Emei Shan). Guan JuTing asked if I was interested in seeing the Guan tombs on the slope of Mt Omei; I told him yes. Immediately, we started to climb the hill; I was eager to see the other tombs. After a short while, I realized that my little sister was not around, so I turned around looking for her; my poor sister was still far behind on a lower part of the hill. I yelled down to see if she needed any help, she said, “you guys go ahead, I will take my time.” It was my mistake to forget about her and only focus on the newly found Guan.

The tombstone of our first generation YuenHui’s (云辉) wife Zhang (張氏), was not readable; YuenHui’s  (云辉) youngest son Ning (濘) and his two wives, the third generation of Guan in Sichuan was readable after I applied red ink.

I could see one of the tombs sitting on a half circle of land with a tombstone; unfortunately, the words had disappeared. My companions all thought it was YuenHui’s (云辉) wife Zhang (張氏). Nearby the tomb was another one with clear words. It was YuenHui’s (云辉) youngest son Ning (濘) and his two wives, the third generation of Guan in Sichuan. I took a picture, but the words did not show up because the paint had long faded. There were many other Guan Tombs there. I had reached the Guan’s family plot.

Our presence quickly drew a crowd of Guans. It was a shock to see this many Guans there and find out they were able to recite our generation poem:

朝庭选举, 忠孝尊荣, 武功丕显, 新体昭明,长思世德, 大振家声.

“I am a Xuan (选) generation, I am a Ju (举) generation, I am a Zhong (忠) generation, and I am a Xiao (孝) generation.” They all knew who they were and where they stood in the family. Two-storied single homes one next to the other, housed 2,000 of them. They were all the Guan in this small, lost world.

Please wire your donations to ancestor' s tomb restoration payable to: 

Guan zhong pu (官众仆)
新修内江官氏祖坟外地捐款帐号：   中国工商银行四川内江支行玉溪路分理处

                                                      官众仆 621723 2307000080724

(由本人负责管理海内外捐款，保证每一分钱都用到修祖坟上。重申：人民币1万以上刻碑面、1千以上刻碑阴、100以上记入族谱）

Tenth generation: Wen Gung (文光 1662-1738), former name Xian Gung (獻光), courtesy name Yao Yuan (耀远)'s tomb still need money to restore, thank you all.

The eleventh generation (1699-1775) grandfather Guan Yuen Hui ' s tomb restored: 修复的内江官氏祖坟-云辉公墓

走进三座“官家大院

矗立在沱江岸的官家豪门

英国利物浦大学博士到内江寻根

官举培

Sichuan_ Neijiang, introduction videos-驚鴻一瞥話內江

古装言情剧《大祠堂》





The Trip Back to China: Looking for Our Hakka Roots

I found that there were many descendants of the Shangguans and Guans in Fujian and Guangdong provinces. I had been trying to locate our ancestors’ home in Fujian for my visit, but it was to no avail. I called a Shangguan who lived in Dingzhou, Fujian. He told me there was no Dragon Gate Village in Dingzhou, but a Dragon Gate far away at the source of the Dingjiang. We had lost all of the words of the original Hakka language, except for what we called our grandparents and what my mother and uncles called their mother and father. I told him what we called our elders. This Shangguan came to Dingzhou after we had already left. I asked him what he called his mother and grandmother. Surprisingly, he did not refer to them the same way we did to mother or father, but we share some words. No one could tell me why we called our elders: Mei (Mother), Ba (father), Jia Jia (grandmother), Da Da (grandfather), or TaiBa (oldest uncle), SiBa (second oldest uncle).  My grandfather's younger brothers were called uncles just like others; we used Yao ( 幺) for the youngest one.  We call my youngest sister yaomei (幺妹). See China’s Disappearing Dialects.

         On Saturday, I was able to talk to a Guan in the big Guan Fortress, and asked him for directions to get there. He said I needed to take a plane, then a train, and finally a bus to get there. Since it was located on a mountain road, it would take a little longer than expected, even though the road was only 60 kilometers. To my surprise, I finally figured out my mother's tongue; they referred to their elders exactly the same way that we did. They still spoke the same Hakka language (the younger ones knew Mandarin as well), but we lost it completely in our generation. Even my oldest uncle could not communicate with his elders. We only kept the same way of referring to our mother/father, grandmother/grandfather, sisters and brothers; then we stopped even that in our generation. I have continually wondered since childhood why my friends laughed at the way I referred to my grandmother; no one used the same word that I did. No one knew in my family why we referred to elders that way; we simply followed the previous generation. Now I had found my roots and I could not wait to go see them. I would go to Dingzhou (长汀古城) Fujian, three hours away from Xiamen (厦门), and see if there were still some who referred to their relatives the same way we did, then I went to see my lost cousins in the Guan’s fortress. I was so excited. They had our family history back to the Han and Tang Dynasties. We just needed to connect our family history to theirs.

         My sister and I finally made our journey to China for a visit. First, she flew from Atlanta, GA and I flew from Boston. We met at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport and flew from New York to Beijing non-stop. The flight took about thirteen hours. Beijing airport had been renovated since 1996, the last time I visited China. It was an amazing, grand new airport.

We stayed with our parents for two days and then took a bus to Zigong, where I spent the first ten years of my life. The first stop was the salt museum; it was the same as I remembered. I had actually written to the curator only a month before, hoping they could help me find anything about the Yan and Guan families’ salt business. To my disappointment, they told me the old records were stored, but not cataloged that well. They would not even know where to start and they had only few staff members. To try to compensate, I bought all the books related to Zigong’s salt merchants and salt wells from the museum, hoping to find something after I returned.

The next stop was to visit my grandmother’s and youngest aunt’s graves. My mother had my sister and I bring some paper money and incense to burn in front of their graves. I was actually surprised that my mother finally followed the old traditions that were only used at local farms. I did not believe it. Still, we did as she asked. The funny part was that my mother gave us six sticks of incense, three for each, and we broke two. My sister went with me to my grandmother’s grave and she thought we should burn three of them for our grandmother. I did not object, so she lit three. One of them kept going out, however. We had to give up on that one. In the afternoon, my sister did not want to go to my youngest aunt’s grave, so my oldest uncle took me there. I burned the rest of the paper money and two incense sticks, including the one that first refused to burn at my grandmother’s grave. I thought that was funny, unless my grandmother was thinking about her youngest daughter on the other side of the town. I was grateful for my oldest uncle’s great foresight, to keep our grandmother’s ashes so we could come to visit her today. 

The next day, my sister and I went to visit the small town called “Xian Si”(仙市古镇), an old salt trading port next to the Fu Qi River (釜溪河畔) from where salt was transported. It had over a 1400 years history; the port is called “The first salt port of China” (中国盐运第一镇). Boats loaded with salt passed from Fu Qi Jiang to Tou Jiang to Yangzi Jiang (沱江进长江). We found the two famous palaces in the area. Guangdong (南华宫 built in 1862) and Fujian (天上宫 built in 1850) palaces were practically built together. They shared a wall like a huge town house; the two next to each other shared the same entry doors. There are still very strong beautiful wooden buildings where my ancestors gathered and prayed. I could feel my heart very heavy there. My sister and I knelt down in front of the same Guan-Ying statue as my ancestors had before us. I felt their influence there and we prayed for our families and our children, hoping our ancestors would watch over us. We dropped some cash in the donation box for repairs before we left.

We then went to San Du Zhei (三多寨), where the rich salt merchants’ hiding place was during wartime. It was said that every time the carriage bell rang, Yan’s wives started complaining because the silver cart had arrived. It was the wives’ duty to count the silver, since it came in loads and loads. It was a hard job just to keep track of it all. Their whole bodies were sore after counting loads of silver money. A rumor said they even turned away some silver carriages, saying they were not theirs. Inside, there were special support beams for the floor, since the silver was so heavy.

Today, San Du Zhei is a small town without any salt merchants. The old defensive walls, houses, streets, ponds, and farmland are still used by people who live there now. There were two important structures closed to the public, so we took pictures from outside. There were two dragons on top of the roof of one of the buildings; this must have been a family shrine or important meeting place. The other one was close to a cliff, like a command center or watchtower.

San Du Zhei (三多寨), where the rich salt merchants’ hiding place was during wartime

I showed the pictures to my oldest uncle at night after dinner. He said that as a small boy he once went to a similar hiding place on his mother’s side called Dou Wan Zhei in Neijiang (内江高梁镇斗碗寨). There was only one way up: very steep stone stairs. It was flat on the top where few families lived; there was everything up there from small farmlands to water. They only lived up there if there was a war down in the flat plains, where most of their farmland and houses were. My uncle remembered that the soldiers helped themselves to livestock and cooked the meat in a big pot. He could only smell it cooking from closed doors where they hid inside. The meat smelled so good that he wished he could have a bite. He did not know who they were, but they certainly got up to their hiding place on the top of the mountain.

The night before we left Zigong, my uncle gathered all the Guan family members in a restaurant for dinner. I remembered some of them; one caught my eyes right away. My oldest uncle’s cousin (my mother’s as well) shared the same grandfather. His name was Guan Ju Kai (官举锴, #12 in boys); he had unusual blue eyes that had a dark center, then brown, then a bright blue circle (called central iris heterochromia). It seemed that no one in my family ever noticed his eyes. My sister went to talk to him again, just to look in his eyes. She was surprised that she never noticed his eyes before. He is number twelve in his generation and my oldest uncle was number ten. I asked him if he had this blue circle since he was a boy; he said he did and very few ever noticed his whole life. I asked around if anyone remembered what their grandfather looked like; they said their grandfather was like nobody alive today, but a little similar to this number twelve uncle of ours, Guan Ju Kai (官举锴), only taller with a much bigger build. They did not remember much about him, since he died so early. I finally accepted my oldest uncle’s statement that he really did not know what was going on in our salt business, since he was too young and not in a position to know much. He said his father, Si-Ba, and his oldest son, Tai-Ba, knew the most. My grandfather was in such a bad position that he was lucky to be alive and cared for by the family.

As usual, the whole family did not think I could find our family shrine and the books my uncle had burned in the Cultural Revolution. They did refer me to see our aunt Guan Ju Liang (官举良, #9 in girls), who lived in Neijiang (内江) all her life teaching. We could go see her; maybe she could find someone to accompany us to Bei Mu Zhen (椑木镇), a town thirty kilometers away from Neijiang (内江), where our Guan family shrine used to be. She had been there many times in her life and had asked around many times, but said that there was no family shrine anymore.

We took a bus the next day and went to Neijiang, which was on the way back to Chengdu. We stopped at my aunt Juliang’s (举良) place first to unload our belongings. She was a retired teacher; she had spent all her life there teaching. Again, she said she had been to Bei Mu Zhen (椑木镇) many times and asked around about our family shrine, but nothing was found. We did not put much hope in finding anything. My plan was to go to the Bei Mu Zhen (椑木镇), take a few pictures, then visit my grandmother’s Dou Wan Zhei (斗碗寨), since the place still existed, but far away from the city in the mountains. We also asked if we could see the Liu family’s big complex, where my great grandmother lived before she married to my great grandfather (东兴镇七拱子刘家三重大院) and where my uncle’s high school had moved during the Japanese bombing -- sadly, it was gone now. We booked a taxi for a short stop in Bei Mu Zhen and then a ride to Dou Wan Zhei.

Hakka Culture, Great Family Network

The Hakka family tradition saved our family. The Guan family went through a very painful process. After 1928, the Guan family must have finally woken up and tried their best to clean up their act and their children stopped dying needlessly. It was too late, however, to save their business. No sons were old enough or strong enough to take on the business. Yan was right there, another Hakka, even though he was without our surname. My uncle said that we were all related somehow. First, the Yan family went down; the Guan family held onto it until Yan was up again. When Yan's offspring needed jobs, the Guan family took them in. Then, the Guan family went down. Yan came back again to help the Guan family. They truly tried their best to help each other in those destructive times.

My great-great uncle had to hire Yan as a Hakka obligation. The Yan family came along, returning after they had learned their lessons. By 1936, our family was at the lowest point of the crisis. My great-great uncle was over fifty years old with three young children after losing four from his first and second wives combined. The whole salt industry was at its lowest point; he just could not run it, as he would wish. They lost their wells and refineries and many Guans’ sons went to work instead for the Yan family. 
        My oldest uncle went to the private Yucai (育才小学) grammar school founded by salt merchants. In 1941, he went to the Neijiang boarding school (沱江中学, now 内江二中). My grandmother’s older brother, Xia Yue Jiang (夏月江), was in charge of the school. The school almost closed because of the Japanese bombing. His uncle moved the whole school away from the city to silkworm farm courtyards that he had rented from the Liu family (Tin Liao 官廷僚公, my great grandfather’s wife’s side 东兴镇七拱子刘家三重大院). The three courtyards had hundreds of rooms, and later became a place for grain storage after 1949. It no longer exists today. His grades were so good that the high school waived all its fees and he graduated with highest honors. He was accepted by the Department of Chemistry at Sichuan Technology.School. He did not go, however, because his uncle backed out from supporting him.

In 1944, my oldest uncle was seventeen years old and needed a job to support his family.  His uncle told him to go work for the Yan family. He was serving tea, lighting cigarettes, and cleaning up after all the guests who came into the office in order to get to know the Yan family’s inner circle and make connections. My grandmother had a very hard time accepting that her son had to go through the family’s servant period. For her, it was humiliating to her and her family, even through very soon he was in charge of the salt well food account and became their headmaster. He then went to the salt well. He started with a job making inventories and tracking salt shipments, eventually becoming an accountant until 1949. He worked for Yan Xin Yu’s (颜心畲) fourth son Yan Fu Chu (颜复初) and Yan Xian Yong’s (颜宪阳) son Yan Ji Yong (颜继阳). He even stayed overnight in Yan’s Mansion, Fu Tai Shan (富台山别墅), because it was too late for him to return home. The next day, a carriage was provided to take him back home. 
      The salt industry was falling apart slowly after Japan’s surrender. Eventually the Yan family could not even pay my uncle for the last few months; he received about 1000 lb of salt as payment. In 1958, he went back to studying chemistry, which was his wish, and joined the management of the largest chemical company in Zigong.
     My oldest uncle refused to marry even though a lot of matchmakers came to see my grandparents. He wanted to send his three sisters and his younger brother to college before he started his family. When he turned 30 years old, my mother and her sister had graduated from college already; my grandma felt really badly and went to a matchmaker for help. The matchmaker brought a girl name Zhou who was 28 years old. My grandma said, “she came with a few changes of clothes wrapped in her scarf, and sat at the front gate of the courtyard all by herself. When I married into the Guan (官) family, I was 15, youngest of ten children and the only girl in my family. My Xia (夏) family came along with loads and loads of goods marching into Guan’s house. She was not only poor but old too (she was almost 30 years old).   I took her in because I felt sorry for her.  My grandma always felt she was in debt to my oldest uncle. She was sorry that her son had to marry a poor, old girl. No matter how much the girl did, she would never match her son. Her most loving and handsome son could have done so much better if her husband was not sick in bed.  To my grandmother’s disapproval, Zhu’s lifelong devotion to Guan contributed the last true Guan descendant in my family, the only great grandson with the surname Guan. Wu Zetain (her family was Zhou) must have sent Zhou over to Guan for rescue when Guan was really in need. Zhou was such a wonderful mother; she could make anything out of nothing and took such good care of her family, my grandparents, and her nephews and nieces in the summer. I still remembered her meals, which we used to fight over. Zhou's older sister and her husband Hou (贺) had died, as well as their only daughter. Hou (霍 and 贺) sound the same, but are spelled differently. I was surprised that their daughter married a husband with the surname Guan. And the Hou’s son from a previous marriage also married a Guan. The two Guans did not know each other and we were not related as far as they knew. All my life in China, I traveled to many places. I had never encountered another Guan who was not our family’s relative. Hou married them all, yet did not have a child to carry Hou’s name. Hou’s daughter gave her Guan husband a son, then died from heart failure. The Guan married to Hou’s son had a daughter. Hou’s son was helping to take care of my Uncle Guan and his wife. I found out that Shangguan Jie and Hou Go were actually buried together even though one killed the other in Moling (茂陵 霍光, 上官桀墓). They must have worked out their differences after lying there together for thousands of years.

I understood why my grandmother said she was in debt with her son so much that she could not ever pay it back in this life or the next. My grandmother never taught her daughters or me how to do anything in the house; she had people doing chores for her when she was young. She wanted her daughters and granddaughters to enjoy the life she had and keep the same social status. Even though this status was long gone, she hoped it would return someday. She combed and braided my hair every morning, because someone else combed and braided hers. She told my teacher on the first day of school that I was not to do any cleaning, because I had not learned how up to that point and I should not learn now. She wanted to keep her family’s traditions alive.

It did not matter what my uncle had to do for Yan. The fact was that his earnings at age seventeen could support two of his younger sisters to go to the most expensive private primary and secondary schools, then college. He could also pay the medical expenses of his two younger siblings, his parents. That was a miracle through the Yan’s mercy and my greatest Great Uncle Tai Ba’s help considering how much trouble my grandparents had. Without their help, none of us would be here today. Their investments in our family did pay off. My oldest uncle, the 10th son, became the next headmaster of the Guan family. Both my mother and her sister went to college to study geology; their brother studied electrical engineering. My oldest uncle went back to school for chemistry. My youngest aunt became a teacher. The grand comeback plan was on the way.

The Yans and Guans finally just happened to end up meeting in a hospital around 1978, a small hospital (now Children's Hospital) in the capital city Chengdu. There were dozens of hospitals in Chengdu and many rooms in the same hospital. Yan's mother waited there for months, held her last breath, and waited for my grandmother to show up in her room in the next bed to her in critical condition. This way, all their children could come. Although my mother and aunt did not know the family, my oldest uncle, who came by overnight train, was surprised to see her sons there in the same room. It must have been our ancestors’ spirits’ last try. They wanted our two families’ children together again, since we had not had any contact since 1951. Only my uncle talked to the Yan children briefly; he did not introduce us to them. Their mother died the next day. My grandmother walked out, but ended up back in the hospital again a few months later. She was not even listed as being in critical condition, so none of her children or grandchildren were around when she died. She went quietly, just like her husband, without anyone noticing.

I remembered that my mother and my aunts, maybe my grandmother too, talked about what a coincidence it was that we could meet again. My mother told me that the Yan family was in trouble after the Communists took over, the Communists had asked our family to testify against the Yan family for exploiting us. Our family refused. The Yan family was grateful, but unfortunately, this meeting was not designed for reconnecting. It was a final goodbye. We never saw them again.  I was able to connect with a Guan who married Yan's daughter recently.

When I called my uncle, considering he is 83 now, he did not remember that he met the Yan family in the hospital thirty-two years ago. He did remember that my grandmother walked out the first time when he came and died the second time, so he ended up returning. He had already said goodbye to them. My mother was even worse. She only remembered that all my uncles came once after my grandmother died. My younger aunt and I remembered because I thought about the family; my grandmother had complained a lot back then. I did not have a clue about salt history. I did not have a clue that the Yan family was one of the Four Giant Salt merchants. I was on my grandmother’s side; the family had taken advantage of our family.

Three Christian Churches in Zigong

Nuwa (女媧 Ruwa) was the earliest description of the goddess who started Chinese creation. She had a "human head and snake body." Comparing Chinese and Hebrew creation and flood myths, Nuwa and the God of the Hebrew Bible look different, but the Chinese and Hebrew creation myths have a number of points in common.
Noah - Two Mountains and Chinese Origins!

Fuxi (male) and Nuwa (female) (伏羲女娲)

Nuwa stopped the biggest flood on earth by filling the leaks of the sky with 5-colored stones. Hakka around the world still celebrate this day (天穿日around Jan 20th) every year.

see more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BCwa

Also see:Egyptian Babylonian and Hebrew Mythology Comparison

Chinese Angel in Da Yuen Yuan (大云院) in Shanxi (山西) built in 935 AD (Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period)

     Christianity existed in China as early as the 7th century A.D., strong for hundreds of years, disappearing for hundreds of years, and then reintroduced. For example, see Matteo Ricci (1552 – 1610). Although it has taken more than 400 years, the sainthood cause of Jesuit Father Matteo Ricci, the 16th-century missionary to China, appears to be back on track. Inculturation: The case of Matteo Ricci .

 

Matteo Ricci's grave (利玛窦墓) in the backyard of the Beijing Administrative College (北京行政学院, formerly the Beijing Communist Party School), off Chegongzhuang Dajie.

     See more close-up photos of the tombs of Ricci and other early Christian pastors in the backyard of the Communist party school. This place is well protected and remembered by the Chinese today. In 1589, Matteo Ricci built a mission house, the first ever Jesuit mission in Shaoguan (韶关), China. He stayed in Shaoguan for a few years and built his connections that allowed him to move north, to Nanchang, Nanjing, and Beijing. I was searching for our Guan’s family information when I came across this CCTV’s short video on The Secret Guan Fortress (神秘的官家围楼). It is also located in Shixing, Shaoguan ( 韶关,始兴县,隘子), where we have over 8000 distant cousins live today.

Joannes Terrenz (邓玉函), Giacono Rho (羅雅谷), Nicholas Longobardi (龙华民), Johann Adan Schallvon Bell (汤若望), Ferdinand Verbiest (南怀仁), Giusppe Castiglione (郎世宁). 

See More on list.

 

The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception (圣母无染原罪堂), also known as the Xuanwumen church (宣武门天主堂) or Nantang (南堂) to the locals, in Beijing. It was built in 1605, the Baroque style today was built in1904. The present Archbishop Joseph Li Shan, installed in September 2007, is one of the few bishops openly recognized by both the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church and the Vatican.
大故宫( 宫外三堂)

St. Francis Cathedral (圣方濟主教座堂/南堂) in Xi'an. It was built in 1716, expanded in 1884, closed in 1966 and reopened in 1980.

The Sacred Heart Cathedral (洪家楼耶稣圣心主教座堂), it was built in 1901 Jinan (济南).

Our Lady of the Rosary (圣母玫瑰堂) in Shanxi was built in 1914

     Christianity began to take root during the Qing Dynasty and although it has remained a minority, it has had a significant impact. More and more missionaries arrived as a result of contact with foreign powers. After the First Opium War (1842), Christian missionaries and schools played an important positive role in China.  The British Protestant missionaries came to Zigong after the Battle of Peking (1900).  

One Catholic converted to join the British church in Zigong.  Then American missionaries joined the British around 1918. Pictures of Old Churches surviving in China today and best one around.  See List.

Han Da Hui (韓大輝) Roman Catholic archbishop in Hong Kong.
Christianity and Chinese Salvation

My oldest (should have been second oldest) uncle Guan Ju Jin (官举晶, #10 in boys) was born on January 16, 1927. He was sent to save our family. His style name was Su Liang (蜀樑). He was in the Church’s care when he was little (婴儿保育会). There were three Christian churches, one called Gongjing Fuyingtong (贡井福音堂), on Hou De Tan Si Ba (后抵炭市坝) street with only a few classrooms and a few residential rooms. The second one, called Ai Ye Fuyingtong (艾叶福音堂), was located on Ai Ye Street (艾叶横街子) with few classrooms as well. My uncle went to the third one called Shangqiu Fuyingtong (上丘镇福音堂), which was located in Ci Ba You (磁巴坳) and was the largest. It had a large, two-story high church hall; there were western oil paintings hanging in the hallway, a stage for plays, and a crucifix. There was a garden in front, a few classrooms, and a few rooms where family members could wait. Behind the church, there were rooms for pastors and staff, plus childcare and kindergartens. Mass was held every week for anyone who came.

The upper part was what was left from the original Church where my oldest uncle used to go in the 1920s. We could only see a tip of the stone structure and upper walls from far away 

After my uncle, the next four children came along fine. They came while my grandfather's business and health were declining; then the business was gone and he could not get out of bed. Five children waited for what my grandmother would feed them. I could not believe that my grandmother, with her bound feet, was able to do everything inside and outside of the house. She must have been in pain with each step that she took. Bound feet were for the rich; those who did not need to do daily work. I asked my grandfather’s living children, my oldest uncle, my aunt, and my mother about their memories of their father. They all said that he was disabled at home, nothing more. I knew my grandmother, my aunt, and my mother all loved my oldest uncle, because of what he did for the family. I just discovered how much my oldest uncle loved his mother and his little brother (who was the smartest and suffered the most); he could not understand how his mother managed. He felt very bad that his mother had calluses on her hands; she had to learn to make shoes, weave, and make school uniforms. Boys’ and girls’ scout uniforms had to be green in color, so she went up the hills nearby her home to collect plants to dye the threads green, which she weaved into green cloth, and then made the uniforms herself. She felt very bad her kids’ uniforms were not as fine as the others (machine-made).
      We thought he had buried my grandmother’s ashes next to my grandfather’s remains back in 1978 when she died. We all received a share of the money (1.5 times of my mother's monthly pay) from selling her belongings in the treasure chest. She once opened the big chest by her bed to show me extraordinary embroidery on silk she did when she was young before she married. She could not embroider anymore because of her failing sight since I asked her to teach me how. She also showed me all of her gold, silver, and jade jewelry and some fine China. She wanted to carry the chest full in her coffin when she died. I did not care that much for her jewelry because they all looked old and boring. I did admire so much the embroideries on silk. They looked so beautiful and delicate. I asked who could teach me to do that. She said none of her daughters learned because they all went to school. When she was a girl, only boys went to school; she stayed home and learned the art of embroidery. 
     My grandmother told me a long time ago that she didn’t want to be cremated. My grandfather had his coffin made when he was very sick. I was never able to go to the porch because I was afraid of the coffin there.  My grandfather wanted to save his coffin for my grandmother which was the only thing he had.  He said my grandmother was afraid of fire; he did not have anything else to give her. My grandmother kept a lot of jewels, china, and silk in one of her chests hoping to carry them with her in the coffin. In her later years, especially after she moved in with us in the big city, she realized that it was impossible to be buried. There just weren’t any plots available. She told me that she was scared but since my grandfather was cremated, she would follow him, hoping that he could guide her.
     We did not know that my oldest uncle kept her ashes at his home until he could buy her a proper burial plot in the 1990s. I went to his home in 1986 before I left China to say goodbye. I did not know my grandmother’s ashes were right there at his home. I assumed that we could not find them anymore, since the hill was replaced with high-rise buildings including a church. He just said that they could not find my grandfather’s burial place anymore, since my grandfather was buried without any mark, under a tree on the hill in 1968. After 1949, there were really no burial places for sale. City people really did not have a formal burial place available to buy. Some scattered their ashes, some took them back to their farm, and some kept them at home. I was grateful for my oldest uncle’s great foresight, to keep our grandmother’s ashes so that we could come to visit her. We went to visit a new Catholic church in the area on a steep hill with hundreds of stone steps leading upward. My grandfather’s ashes were also on the slope somewhere. My eighty-three year old uncle climbed all the way up with us, as if he was sorry to lose my grandfather’s ashes. I felt the hill was a good resting place for my grandfather, since the church was nearby. Still, no one could explain why the only Catholic Church in the area just happened to be built there and not anywhere else.

The only new Catholic church in Zigong was built where
my grandfather’s ashes were buried in the 1960s

 I was brought up without any religion, although I visited both Dao and Buddhist temples as a part of sightseeing. It really did not bring much interest to me. When my grandmother was dying, I hoped to find some belief or superpower to save her. At the same time, I had just finished a comic book about how an ancient young scholar used a magic bag to scare all the ghosts who came to take him when it was time for him to die. He drove them away again and again by simply saying “magic bag, magic bag, collect all the ghosts and throw them far away.” He lived a few hundred years. When the ghosts came back again, he asked them if they wanted to go in the magic bag. They simply left. I did not have this magic bag and I had not been taught any beliefs. My grandmother was the person in my life I loved the most and I did not want to let her die. It was so despairing; I closed my eyes and imagined that I had the magic bag and said the magic words in my mind by my grandmother’s bed and even far away. I drove the ghosts into the magic bag. I prayed for her to get better and it worked. She was better. I blamed myself for not praying hard enough the second time when she was in not in critical condition but died.

I was alone for a year in Syracuse struggling. My husband (who has British, French, Italian and Polish blood) grew up in a strong Catholic family; he started as an altar boy and attended Catholic schools all the way to college. Then, he was a temporarily a religious brother and taught in schools in Liberia (Africa) and New York City, then changed his mind. We met on his first day of graduate school (a year after I arrived) as if he had a mission to help me. When I expressed interest in the Church, he introduced me to Catholicism. When I went to Church for the first time, the paintings on the walls really caught my attention, especially the angels blowing long horns. This reminded me of Tibetan monks blowing their horns. Also, the collars of the priests reminded me of the traditional collars worn by Chinese men, except the priest's collar was white and missing a button. Finally, the idea that Catholics ate the body of Christ to become immortal reminded me of how the evil ghost wanted to eat the body of the Tang-shen (唐僧), in order to become immortal, in the classic Journey to the West.   

Tang-shen (唐僧)

Journey to the West painting in Summer Palace 颐和园

When we moved to Melrose in 1993, many of our parish were Irish immigrants. I felt alone there, then I noticed an old Chinese lady who sat behind us, and we instantly became good friends. Her Cantonese husband taught at Tufts University until he retired. She was working for a biotech company until she retired. They did not have any children. Coincidentally, she was born in the same year as my mother, and she treated me like her daughter.

   After my second son Richard graduated from high school in 2012, she sent a check and I decided to sent her some cookies and dessert from the graduation party. Like Dr. Hu, she loved my desserts. I had been to her place a few times, but always in her kitchen. This time I was in her living room, I noticed a picture of this Chinese Bishop shaking hands with the Pope Benedict, so I asked her who was this Chinese Bishop. She said, “oh, that is my brother Msgr. Ignatius Wang, a Bishop in San Francisco. He was appointed by Pope John Paul II. He was the first Asian American to be appointed to the office of bishop and the first Chinese Catholic pastor in San Francisco. 
     After I told her about my search for my family roots two years ago, she was really depressed for awhile. She told me that she was a Manchu and her Manchu family name was changed to the Chinese surname “Wang” like all other Manchus in Beijing. She did not know her real family name or anything beyond Beijing. Their parents were relatives of a Manchurian Emperor, the rulers of the last Chinese dynasty. She and her eight brothers and sisters were living in a home next to the Summer Palace. As old as she remembered in her childhood, she was running for her life with the rest of her family. They ran from north to south, she went to Japan, Taiwan, and eventually came to America. Unlike my mother, she experienced hunger and fear when she was young. 
       My oldest uncle then took me to the old house at Young Tong Salt Well (永通井) where I used to stay with my grandparents for my first 5 years, an old Chinese courtyard house where there was a huge entry door with two very high wooden doors that were closed at night. There was also a high wooden panel across the doorstep to prevent leaves or dust from blowing in. I had to climb over the wooden panel since my legs were too short.  A few steps down from the gate, on the left side, there was a peach tree that my youngest uncle planted when he was young. The peach blossoms were so high that I could not reach them. There was a little creek running down the hill on the left, to right in front of our house, to a pond not far from our house. There was a Buddhist temple on the hillside, my grandma never took me inside.  I used to be afraid of the huge Buddhist statue and it was very dark inside.   Next to the temple, there was a tailor shop where my grandma used to take me to get my dress done. The tailor was a skinny old man with old glasses almost falling down from his face; he looked at me not through the glasses, but over his glasses. He was always telling me how pretty I looked in all the dresses he made for me. The road to downtown was on the right. On the other side of the road were fields and fields of crops.
     The old place Young Tong Salt Well (永通井) was nothing like my memories; we met a seventy-five-year-old woman named Zhou who claimed to be the wife of a restaurant owner close to the house. Her husband had died many years ago; my grandfather’s oldest brother Tai-Ba used to own the entire land and properties there, including her husband’s restaurant. They used to pay rent to him. Tai-Ba had to donate everything to the government after 1949. Tai-Ba died in his home in Young Tong Salt Well (永通井) in 1960. She pointed out the house where I used to live, where the temple was, and where the pond used to be. They were all gone except the old roofs, since they covered dense smaller houses and sheds. The old courtyard was gone. The pond was filled; small houses were now built on top of it. Now the highway went through this area; it looked like the current buildings would soon be torn down very soon for high-rise buildings, like elsewhere in China. 

Mrs. Zhou in the middle was telling my oldest uncle on the right where our Guan family properties used to be

My grandfather is in the middle row to the left of my grandmother who is in the middle. Next to my grandmother is the 3rd wife of his oldest brother, next to her is the second wife of his 4th brother and their children and grandchildren. This photo was taken after the land reform, and my grandfather was the only of his generation still around. He became the head of our Guan family.

大故宫( 宫外三堂): Four Catholic churches located in South, North, East and West side of Forbidden City from Ming to Qing Dynasty still exist today.

Mystery of Fuxi Temple / 01

Mystery of Fuxi Temple / 02

Biggest Catholic Churches | Catholicism in China

ON CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME by Pope Francis

BBC around the world in 80 treasures of the world : Journey from Jordan to Ethiopia