back to the roots

several weeks ago, while my parents and sister were visiting, we took a short trip up to China to my dad's old village in Guangzhou.

it was a pretty amazing experience being in the rural village and in the actual tiny little house where my dad was born and lived as a young boy with my grandparents and all my aunts and uncle as young kids. my ancestral home! the village was a farming village, a total countryside village, where living standards, amazingly even in this day and age, were still at its absolute basics. where brick coal-burning stoves were used. where you step into houses that are tiny 35'x35' square boxes. where the idea of garbage disposal was simply to toss your garbage on the grass in front of you. where rice fields and sugar cane fields were part of the "front lawn" scenery. where life was poor and simple, but the people were still friendly and welcoming.

incredibly enough, we met several people in the village who were actually related to us. my sister and i met two distant cousins in their early 20's who share the same great-great-great-great grandfather as us! talk about distant relatives! but we are related, nonetheless. we share the same blood, no matter how tiny that drop of blood is. how cool is that?!

not only was it me and my sister's first times to dad's village, but it was also the first time my dad brought my mom there as well. my dad even joked to the villagers, "i've brought back my new bride to see you all!". heehee!