This is the story of a young man from Taiwan who crossed the sea to find his roots with his ancestral genealogy. He told his colleagues in Taiwan with his actions: Towering trees must have their roots; the water of huaishan mountains must have its source. Don't let the Mother River become a strange stream of water. Only by figuring out where you are coming from will you understand where you are going
Coming home is the best gift
——Taiwanese young Wu Zanxuan's Search for Roots
The first time he returned to his hometown, Wu Zanxuan (second from the left in the back row) took a group photo with local clan relatives in the zucuo brick court. (File photo)
The genealogy of the grandfather
According to the Fujian Daily, "How long have you not read the family tree, or have you not read it at all?" Where did your ancestors come from? When did it come? Do you know? It's hard to imagine that this is a question that the young Taiwanese who is less than 30 years old has been pursuing since he was a teenager. Wu Zanxuan is a native of Taipei, and his family crossed the sea from Quanzhou to Taiwan during the Qing Jiaqing period and lived in Taipei.
The first time I saw the family tree was when Wu Zanxuan was in elementary school. At that time, a school social science assignment asked everyone to talk about their family's history. Therefore, he went home and begged His grandfather (Minnan dialect: grandfather) Wu Xiangpeng to "talk about the ancients". He remembered that day Grandpa solemnly took out from his bedside table a thick yellowed, thread-bound booklet, in which Grandpa neatly wrote the evidence and corrections. "One of the reactions at the time was, wow, the words on it are so beautiful." It turned out that this was a precious family tree that recorded the changes of the Wu family for more than 200 years.
Grandpa Gong said that after the Wu family migrated to Taiwan, they mainly engaged in shipwright merchants and trade with the mainland, and their ancestors accumulated a lot of wealth. The family's Wu Yuanji boat head row used a Rongke boat, and the ship was parked at the third Watergate Pier in Wanhua, Taipei. When Wu Genming, the grandson of Zanxuan (Minnan dialect: great-grandfather), was a child, his family often took him to his own ship to "relieve his hunger", because every time the ship docked, it was always full of various goods brought from the mainland, of which naturally there was no shortage of delicious food. When Grandpa was about ten years old, he also returned to his hometown in Jinjiang with a boat once. Later, in a fire in 1930, everything in the family was reduced to ashes, and various changes occurred in the family business, and the only treasure passed down from the ancestors was the Wu family tree rescued from the fire.
As if inadvertently opening a door, since then, the "family story" has become the favorite topic of the grandfather and grandson, and Wu Zanxuan is also the most interested audience in the family for The Grandfather to "tell the ancients". In junior high school, one day Grandpa suddenly called Wu Zanxuan to him and solemnly handed over the Wu family tree to him: "This is the root and memory of our Wu family, and you must keep it well." ”
Teenage Wu Zanxuan held the family tree in his hand, as if he had a family code, and doubts also followed: What are the untold stories of Wu's ancestors who have crossed the "black water ditch" through countless hardships? Where is the "Brick Garden of Erdu Cizao Township outside the South Gate of Jinjiang County, Quanzhou Province" written on the family tree? "I remember when I was a child, grandma would always read this place name before every worship." This place that is so familiar and strange is the ancestral garden, and it is also the hometown that the young Wu Zanxuan secretly remembered in his heart, and he must go back to see it.
After Wu Zanxuan found his ancestral home, his joy overflowed into words. (File photo)
Look for brick courts
In 2010, Wu Zanxuan went to the mainland for a year of exchange studies as he wished. Travel through the great mountains and rivers, visit the Forbidden City, climb the Great Wall... The place names in the textbook became real in front of him, which made him excited. exhaust
In this way, the ancestral home on the family tree, "Magnetic Stove Township Brick Garden", is still the place where his soul haunts.
The following year, Wu Zanxuan prepared to return to Taiwan after the exchange study in Beijing, and good friends organized a "casual meal". During the banquet, he was introduced to a girl from the south, Wu Wanping. She introduced herself from Xiamen, and Wu Zanxuan, who loved to joke, responded without thinking: "I am from Jinjiangye, Quanzhou!" The girl said: "In fact, I am also from Jinjiang and currently live in Xiamen." Where are you from Jinjiang? Wu Zanxuan replied, "Magnetic stove." This made Wu Wanping
Rejoice because that's her hometown. So, they met next time in their hometown.
In the winter vacation of 2013, Wu Wanping issued an invitation to Wu Zanxuan, her family returned from Xiamen to the magnetic stove for the Spring Festival, just enough to take him back to his hometown to find his roots, Wu Zanxuan immediately booked a ticket, and the bag contained the Wu family tree. When they arrived at jinjiang railway station, Wu Wanping's family had been waiting for a long time. Unable to eat lunch, Wu Zanxuan asked them to take them to The Town of Cizao in Jinjiang. Listen to Wu Wanping's introduction, the town mainly fired export porcelain products, hence the name. Taiwan's Yingge porcelain process also originated from this. At present, it is still a village dominated by the Wu surname.
Wu Zanxuan's first stop is the largest ancestral hall in the town, "Magnetic Stove Meixi Wu Clan Ancestral Hall". Wu Zanxuan remembered that the weather was fine that day, and the old people in the courtyard
He was playing cards, and because the local Quanzhou accent was very different from Taipei, he had to ask Wu Wanping's mother as a translator. After the old people found out his intentions, they suggested that he go to the Wu Ancestral Hall in another village to inquire. Walking on the land of my hometown, there are large and small Wu clan ancestral halls everywhere, which shows the importance attached to the concept of clan in the local area. On the way, many big red Minnan courtyards passed, many people dried handmade gold paper outside their homes, and the familiar rural sounds and the fragrance of kung fu tea followed all the way, "although it has never been, it feels so familiar."
When they arrived at the Wu Ancestral Hall in Xiaguan Road Village, the old people who were making tea and chatting in the ancestral hall heard that some Taiwan compatriots had come back to look for roots, and immediately surrounded them, and everyone took Wu Zanxuan's family tree to look at it and looked at it, and an old man suddenly said: "I know the brick court, I will take you there." "A two-entry courtyard, the hall is placed wu ancestral tablets, and an old grandmother is cooking. Wu Zanxuan stepped forward to inquire, the grandmother's name is Su Minzhi, who has lived here for most of her life. After her confirmation, this is the ancestral home recorded in the genealogy " Brick Garden of Erdu Cizao Township outside the South Gate of Jinjiang County, Quanzhou Province". The brick court has a history of more than 460 years, and a large stone at the entrance is still left over from the Ming Dynasty. The best wood was used in those days, and the top beam did not have a single nail, all of which were card tenon structures. Grandma Su Minzhi was excited
He said: "I heard before that there were branches going to Taiwan to make a living, and then I broke off contact, every year in the Qingming Dynasty, I went to the ancestral grave on their behalf to sweep the grave, hoping that the ancestors would bless them with all the best in Taiwan, and today the descendants of the Wu clan in Taiwan have finally returned home!" ”
Meixi in the hometown
After comparison, the first ancestor of Wu Zanxuan's genealogy, Jugong to the thirteenth ancestor ZhongzheGong, is completely consistent with the genealogical record of the Brick Court. "Grandpa, the genealogy you gave me is connected with the genealogy of the ancestral court of the mainland, and I have found the roots of our family." Wu Zanxuan bowed deeply three times to the ancestral tablet in the brick court. Leaving the magnetic stove, he deliberately left a copy of his family tree: "The Wu family cannot be less than our Taiwan branch." ”
On the way back, the car passed a river, Wu Wanping's father introduced that this is Meixi, the largest inland river in Jinjiang County, upstream of Meiling, named Meixi. "Plum Creek?! Isn't this the number of the ancestral tablet of my family? When I was a child, I never knew what Meixi meant, and it turned out that this was the mother river in our hometown. At that time, Wu Jinzhonggong, the ancestor of the Wu family, may have boarded a boat from Meixi and carried his bag to Taiwan. Did Grandpa go ashore from here when he was ten years old, and returned to his hometown to eat the last reunion dinner with his relatives? Wu Zanxuan quickly got out of the car, emptied the water in the kettle, and leaned over to load a whole pot of water from Meixi and brought it back to Taiwan. Since then, this pot of hometown water has been enshrined in front of the ancestral tablet of Wu Zanxuan's Taipei home.
In 2015, Wu Zanxuan graduated from graduate school and chose to work in a large enterprise in the mainland, and traveling everywhere became the norm. Passing through Fujian, he would go back to his hometown to see. Wu Bingkun is Wu Zanxuan's uncle in the magnetic stove, Wu Zanxuan returned home, he must set up a banquet, invite the local Wu clan relatives to a reunion dinner, and then drag him to his home to live. Minnan people have the habit of worshipping ancestors in festivals such as Zhongyuan, and Wu Bingkun does not forget to take photos and record videos to send to Wu Zanxuan. In 2015, the brick garden was renovated. Two years later, the magnetic stove Wu clan genealogy was revised, and the long-lost Taiwan branch was finally entered into the magnetic stove Wu family tree.
In addition to sharing family stories from both sides of the strait with relatives and friends, Wu Zanxuan also opened a special page on literature and history on Facebook to interact with netizens. He told reporters that some young friends in Taiwan may have never read their own family trees before, and their ancestors do not know where they came from. Through online communication, people slowly began to communicate with him the stories of their family's migration and change, trying to understand where their roots were. "I used to think that I had to return to my hometown in gold, so that Guangzong Yaozu could go back." I was young and went back alone with a bag. The elders of the magnetic stove told me, 'Going home is the best gift'. This touched me very much, and I hope to let more young friends in Taiwan hear about it. ”