In a few days, the New Year will be over, and Chen Hanqin is busy with all kinds of small and small things at home. In addition to preparing New Year dishes, the work of worshipping ancestors and gods during the Spring Festival should also be prepared in advance. Chen Hanqin, who is over 60 years old, has long been accustomed to this busy time on the eve of the Spring Festival, especially in the Chaoshan region, where folk customs are exquisite and religious beliefs are flourishing.
On the day of January 29, Chen Hanqin read an article entitled "Family Affection Is Constantly Cut, Family Letters Are Worth Ten Thousand Gold!" Malaysian Chinese search for relatives in Shantou, Guangdong Province". Seeing that the handwriting of the letters in the article was so familiar, he pondered for a while and determined that this was the handwriting of the eldest brother.
「Guangdong Chaoyang」
The village of Shangtangzai, where Chen Hanqin lived, was in Chaonan District, Shantou City, and was under the jurisdiction of Chaoyang County (present-day Chaoyang District) before liberation. He probably did not expect that in Malaysia, thousands of miles away, there are still many Chinese tombstones engraved with the words "Chaoyang, Guangdong", including his grandfather Chen Shaozong, whom he has never met.
Chen Shaozong was not fully related to Chen Hanqin, and Chen Hanqin's father, Chen Heping, was succeeded by Chen Shaozong.
In the early years, the Chaoshan region suffered from the invasion of the Japanese Kou, the famine of the harvest every year, and the natural and man-made disasters, Chen Shaozong took his wife and daughter to board a red-headed boat and went to the Nanyang region to make a living. Because the Chaoshan region has a tradition of "leaving one at home to worship the ancestors", Chen Shaozong, who had no sons, passed Chen Heping from other clan relatives to his own house, and Chen Heping, who became the eldest son, was left to take care of the family.
Ipoh, where Chan and his wife and daughter live, is the capital of the Malaysian state of Perak and is now the fourth largest city in Malaysia after Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Johor Bahru. With a population of nearly 300,000 Chinese, it has one of the highest proportions of Chinese in Malaysia.
Most of Ipoh's Chinese residents have come from Guangdong to settle here, the Hakka account for a large number of people, but cantonese is widely spoken in the city, and it is also one of the cities in Malaysia where Cantonese is the main language.
Under this influence, most of Chen Shaozong's children and grandchildren can no longer speak Teochew dialect, but mainly speak Cantonese, but everyone can still understand the language of their hometown, and the customs of Chaoshan characteristics such as the Oban Festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the New Year Dragon Have not been lost at all, and continue to be passed down.
Chen Shaozong and his wife Yan Yuhua
Letter
Chen Shaozong and his wife Yan Yuhua are both from the countryside and made a living growing vegetables and fishing when they first arrived in Malaysia. Malaysia is in the tropics, with long hours of sunshine and abundant precipitation, and the harvest situation is not worse than that of the Chaoshan hometown. After slowly gaining a surplus, Chen Shaozong decided to settle in Malaysia and gave birth to three sons, Chen Fucheng, Chen Futai and Chen Fuli with his wife.
The couple has three sons in Malaysia
Since 1949, many countries in Southeast Asia have restricted the entry and exit of overseas Chinese and overseas Chinese, especially with Chinese mainland due to political factors. Chen Shaozong could only rely on letters to keep in touch with his eldest son, Chen Heping. In addition to sending money and goods, he would ask his three sons to send a New Year card to their eldest brother during the New Year's Holiday.
After the implementation of China's reform and opening up, domestic and foreign exchanges have become more and more frequent, and many overseas Chinese and overseas Chinese have also had the opportunity to return to their hometowns to visit relatives and friends, and even invest. In a letter written by Chen Heping to his parents in 1979, he expressed his expectations for the return of the two elders:
Since the (parents) went to Nanyang, the children have been thinking about it day and night, thinking that the adult has reached the height of the year, can not serve, very uneasy, only pray to God god to bless the adult outside, blessed and healthy...
Now Tangshan (China) is very good, but the adult has left his hometown for decades, did not meet with his son, and hopes that the adult will quickly apply to go home in the new spring and reunite with the family...
Chen Heping sent a letter to his family in Malaysia
Unfortunately, in 1983, Chen Shaozong died in Malaysia. His wife, Yan Yuhua, was too old to withstand the fatigue of the boat and eventually failed to return to her homeland, and died in Malaysia in 2000. Descendants carved the ancestral home of "Guangdong Chaoyang" on the tombstones of the two elders, leaving their nostalgia forever on the land of Malaysia.
"You are the light of the Chinese"
After the death of the first generation of xia Nanyang, the connection between the second generation and their hometown gradually became less. After the second generation had also passed away, the third generation found that they had completely lost contact with their relatives in their hometown in China.
On January 22, Chen Shaozong's grandson, Chen Guowen, left a message asking for help on the Facebook fan page of the headline searching for people. Three days later, the headline seeker published a family search article for him in the Shantou area of Guangdong Province, based on old family photos and old letters compiled by Chen Guowen.
In order to make the search for relatives get better dissemination, toutiao searchers made a short video on January 28, posted on the official account of Douyin, and used accurate regional pop-up technology to pop up the video of searching for relatives to the Chaonan area of Shantou to ask netizens for clues to find relatives.
TikTok video
For a time, Chen Shaozong's overseas search for relatives in Shantou became a big news in the local area. In the end, the headline searcher successfully found and contacted Chen Heping's son, Chen Hanqin.
According to Chen Hanqin, his father Chen Heping has been dead for many years, and everyone in the family knew that there were relatives living in Malaysia, but they had been missing for a long time. The police and villagers of the local police station in Chaonan District came to his home to inform him of the search for relatives. He recognized at a glance that the letter was the handwriting of his eldest brother Chen Hanxi, but because it had been too long, the letters and photos of his Malaysian relatives received at home had all been lost.
In order to further verify the family relationship, after communication, the relatives of China and Malaysia decided to talk over the ocean by phone first. To the surprise of Malaysia's Chen Guowen, Chen Hanqin not only said a lot of family history, but also accurately said the nickname of his grandfather Chen Shaozong," "Because of this, my grandfather was called 'Wild Uncle' or 'Wild Uncle' in Malaysia!" ”
Before the arrival of the Lunar New Year, finding relatives in China's hometown, although they could not return to their hometown for reunion due to the epidemic, Chen Guowen still praised excitedly: "Thank you for your help!" Headline search is really the light of our global Chinese! ”
This is the 37th case successfully found since the establishment of the Chinese Root-Seeking Project, and it is also the 506th douyin success case. Headline Search for Chinese Roots is a free public welfare project for Chinese people at home and abroad, which is released together with Malaysia's China News and Guanhuo News Network as media partners. If you also have relatives lost overseas, or you are overseas Chinese and want to find Chinese relatives, you can also contact us through The Facebook Fan Page (name: Toutiao Finder), Email ([email protected]), Douyin (name: Douyin Search), WeChat public account (name: Toutiao Finder), Weibo (@Toutiao Finder) to contact us.
(The mini program has been added here, please go to today's headline client to view)