The Root

Now, the Tse's are (or will be) scattered around different part of Australia, Canada and China. Our hometown, however, is in Kaiping (開平), a county-level city in the Guangdong province of Southern China.

Kaiping

Kaiping has a long tradition of sending their people to work overseas, in particular the North America. At the end of the 19th century to the early part of the 20th century, Kaiping was poor and had a serious problem of banditry. Hence, people went to work overseas and send back money to support the families.

I think this explains why we have been in Canada for so many generations.

In the old days, we were a landlord in the village. Because Great-Great Grandpa and Great Grandpa worked in Canada, and sent money back to support the country, we were able to survive a number of political turmoils at the turn of the 20th century. But of course, we finally fled to HK like many others did in the 1940s-50s when the communist party came in to power.

Diaolou (碉樓)

One special feature of Kaiping is the thousands of Diaolous (see the picture). A Diaolou is a fortified multi-storey tower. Those worked overseas sent money back to build these towers, and also brought back the western architectural style. Apart from being a beautiful house, it also has a defensive purpose. See the balcony in the middle? Mom said there are holes on the floor, so that those standing on it can shoot through the holes thieves or other invaders underneath.

In 2007, Kaiping Diaolou and the village is added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Our Cho Uk

So, are you wondering why my mom knows this little feature of a Diaolou? It's because our real "cho uk" is a Diaolou itself. The picture in this page is not from a tourists website nor from the UNESCO homepage, but our "cho uk". That means, when Goo-ma, Dad and the older uncles were still kids, they actually LIVED IN a world heritage site!

When I was a kid and Sara was still a baby, we were there once. All I can remember now is that the house was dark and full of cats! (Scary!) Mom said the stairs at the time was half broken and my feet then were way too short, and hence I had a hard time climbing the stairs.

Around our "cho uk", there's a gate made of good quality steel. When China was at war, the gate door was taken away to produce weapon. (There're different versions here. Mom said the gate door was taken away by us to support China at the Korean War in the 1950s. But I think I had heard Grandma saying that the door was taken away by the Japanese army during WWII.)

The Dialect

We Kaiping people speak a Taishan dialect (Taishan is another city next to Kaiping). Even today, when the older ones want to discuss something that don't want us to understand, they talk in the Taishan dialect. I don't know if they have ever realized that the Taishan dialect is actually not very different from Cantonese. I at least can understand 99%, if not 100%!

P.S. Sara had suggested right from the beginning to include this post in the series, but I had tried my very best to avoid it, cause I don't know much about our hometown. But since Rose had sent me this picture, I might as well give it a try.

Extended reading:
Kaiping in Wikipedia -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiping
Diaolou in Wikipedia -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaolou
UNESCO World Heritage -- http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1112