MOUNTAIN OF CRANES AND MEETING OF FOUR DIRECTIONS
A senic pond in front of the Wongs Village
After the VIP Chi Kung Course, Tony, Anton and his girl frined, Mr Leung and his daughter, and I went for a most memorable trip to return to my father’s and mother’s ancestral homes in Heshan and Sihui in Guangdong Province.
Guangdong Province is very big, and it took about 3 hours on expressways to reach Heshan from Zhencheng where my hotel was. Both Heshan District and Zhencheng District are in Guangdong. Heshan literally means “Mountain of Cranes”. In my young days my father used to joke that in the evening cranes of all types would return to the mountain in our ancestral district. But when I visited the district the first time, I was surprised that it was quite flat with a lot of lakes.
We turned off from an expressway and very soon arrived at the Village of Huang Dong, or the Caves of the Wongs. I was pleasantly surprised to find the village quite modern; certainly it was not consisted of caves.
My Leung, who was the chairman of the executive committee at Er Long Shan where we had our courses, and co-driver with Tony of the multiple-purpose vehicle that took us there, suggested that I could phone up some relatives. I phoned Wu Lip Xin, who was my grand nephew whom I had not met, but my wife and youngest son had met him when he visited Malaysia for a holiday.
He was at that time at Saping, the capital of Heshan District . “Ah, sookgung (which means grand-uncle), so you are back home. I’ll come immediately.”
The houses in the Village of Wongs were built with bricks and dried mud, but the lanes between the houses were very narrow, just about five feet wide. However, the road in front of the village was wide, about forty feet, and there was a large beautiful pond or lake surrounded by trees in front of the village. I recalled my father saying that in front of our village there was a large fish pond.
There were, however, no one in the village, except a woman in a distance and a man walking down a lane. I told the man that my ancestors were from the village. He asked me to go to the office of the Wongs to find out, and he kindly showed me the way.
On the way to the office, we passed a group of elderly people, male and female, in a community hall playing cards or just chatting. The office was newly built and imposing, with a flight of steps leading up to the entrance.
An officer at the office checked a book with records of names of the Wongs, but he could not find my father’s name. However, he found the name of my cousin, Wong Kiew Ying, who had left this world many years ago. By then, Wu Lip Xin had arrived.
I suggested to the officer that I would like to pay my respects to the ancestors at the Ancestral Temple, which was located in front of the village. He led me there, opened the door of the temple, and I paid my respects. It was heart-warming to recall that my father and grand-father were there a century ago.
The officer suggested that I might like to see the same house where my father and my grand-father lived. He said he would get the key to the house from a member of the community. The key holder was my relative, called Auntie Seng, and her husband, Brother Seng. They were about 60 years old.
Auntie Seng, who was very cheerful and agile, told me that Wong Kiew Ying’s family used to come back to the village and stayed in her house. She said he would contact Wong Kiew Ying’s son, Wong Kin Keong, who is my nephew whom I had not met before, but whom my wife and eldest son had met when he came to Malaysia for a holiday on a separate occasion from that of Wu Lip Xin.
My grand father’s house was relatively big, with two sections, one where my father lived and the other section where Wong Kiew Ying’s father lived. Auntie Seng told me that many years ago my father sent money back to China to repair the house, an occasion I had forgotten. Wong Kiew Ying’s son, Wong Kin Keong and his family sometimes stayed in the house when they returned to the village.
That night I hoisted a dinner at a modern restaurant just outside the Wongs’ Village for my family relatives, like Wu Lip Xin and his wife, Wong Kin Keong, his wife and his sister, Auntie Seng, Brother Seng and a few others. It was great to be with relatives whom I had not seen before. It was most memorable. After dinner we stayed at a hotel in Saping, not far from the Wongs Village.
The next morning we travelled to other places of Heshan. I was impressed with its senic beautify. There were a lot of lakes with villages scattered around.
Soon we arrived at the Disctrct of Gulu, and at the Memorial Garden of Leung Chan, who lived in the 19th century, and was known as the Wing Choon King, as he was excellent in Wing Choon Kungfu. I was pleasantly surprised that Leoung Chan, the Wing Choon King, was also a native of Heshan. Leung Chan, who was also a Chinese doctor, was the teacher of Yip Mann’s teacher, Chen Hua Soon. There was a commanding statue of Leung Chan in the Memorial Garden. There was also a wooden dummy, a common symbol of Wing Choon Kungfu, and a long wall depicting the life history of Leung Chan.
Nearby was the house where Leung Chan lived. There were many exhibits showing Wing Choon Kungfu. There was also a movie going on which showed Yim Wing Choon, the founder of Wing Choon Kungfu, learned from Ng Mui, the famous Shaolin nun, and how Yim Wing Choon defeated a local chieftan who wanted to force her into marriage.
We had lunch at a special restaurant by the side of a big river, called Xi Jiang, or Wsst River. This restaurant was special because it had pavilions jugging out from the main building overlooking the river. There was even a private washroom for each pavilion.
In my early writings, I might have mixed up Xi Jiang with Zhu Jiang, or Pearl River. I mentioned that when our first patriarch crossed a big river, he changed his name at the Shaolin Monastery, which we did not know, to "Jiang Nan", which means "South of the River". It could be Xi Jiang, and not Zhu Jiang, that he crossed.
Next we visited Sihui, which is my mother’s ancestral home, and which means the Meeting of Four Directions. We arrived at Sihuicheng, or Sihui City, the capital of Sihui District. I was pleasantly surprised that it was a big city with many modern buildings.
I phoned a cousin on my mother’s side who owned a hotel in the city. A receptionist told us to arrive at the Sihui Hotel, which was a grand hotel in the city. When we arrived, Mr Leung phoned the receptionist again, and she told us that the hotel my cousin owned was just down a street nearby.
The receptionist told me that my cousin was away in Hong Kong, but a relative known as Ng Kor, or Fifth Brother, would like to meet me. Ng Kor lived in the same village, known as Tall Pavilion Village, where my mother came from, and he could show me my mother’s house. Ng Kor sent his son to fetch me. As it was getting late, I told the others that I would go alone to my mother’s village and the others could spend their time in Sihui City.
Ng Kor was a hospitable person, and he could remember my mother’s name. He also told me that my mother returned to Sihui for a visit many years ago.
Tall Pavilion Village, my mother’s village, was like my father’s village, the Caves of the Wongs, except that the frontage was not as grand and beautiful as the latter. The lanes between the houses were narrow, and there were hardly any persons in the village.
Ng Kor took me to my mother’s ancestral house. I remembered my mother telling me that her house was the only one made of bricks, and all the other houses were made of dried mud. But the house was quite broken down. Ng Kor told me that my mother stayed in the house when she returned to the village for a holiday many years ago.
We then spent some time going round the village. I met some elderly people and they were happy to see me return to the ancestral village. At the end of the village was a well, with a small opening. I asked Ng Kor how did the people in the past get their water as there were no water-pipes then. They had to carry water from the well, came the reply.
Behind the village was a beautiful lake. There were some ducks swimming in it.
My visit to my mother’s ancestral home was a rush affair. I had to rush back to Sihui City where the others were waiting for me. It took us about 3 hours on expressways to return to Zhencheng, where for dinner we intended to have the best brief brisket noodles, for which Guangdong Province was famous, in a small restaurant in an old part of the city. But the brief brisket noodles had been sold out. The other noodles we had were still very tasty.
The next day, Mr Leung and another co-driver, Mr Lai, took me to have a brief visit to Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong Province, and had about 18 million inhabitants, before I boarded a plane home. Guangzhou had changed tremendously since I last saw the city about 20 years ago when it was still classical, and had a lot of bicycles on the streets. Now there aren’t any bicycles but only cars and cars, and tall buildings.
The China trip was most memorabl
Grandmaster Wong Kiew Kit,
12th October 2016.
My mother's village in Sihui
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