So today I had to wake up really early in the morning to visit my dad’s hometown, city and province. My dad didn’t want me to forget my roots so he made sure my cousin brought me there. We drove to Taishan at 7am to my aunt’s place. We dropped off our stuff and my aunt joined us as we visited my grandpa’s old homes.
We first drove to the closer one in town. It was in an older part of town. The apartments there were built for teachers because my grandfather use to be a principal. It was where my dad grew up but no one has lived there in over 20-30 years… The place was really dusty and even the interior design was that of a different generation. At first I didn’t want to visit but I’m glad I did. There’s something about being there that was really special. It felt like I was a part of history and I was seeing what it was like in my parent’s generation. My aunt went about the Chinese ritual of burning incense and other motions while I just looked around. I found an old wedding picture of my parents. That was really special. We locked up the place again and honestly, I don’t know if anyone’s going to go back there for another really long time. It’s kind of sad to think about how empty it is now and how once it was filled with people. It makes me wonder about how much was left behind, the memories, the places, and the people, when my parents moved to the U.S.
Our next stop was in the rural parts of Taishan. Every Chinese person has a hometown and for my dad that was a town named 49. This is basically a little village on the outskirts of the city. Not that many people live there anymore but it’s a really beautiful place. As you drove through the gate of the entrance there was a yellow road through fields of tall grass. If you looked across the fields, it looked as if they extended forever into the mountains. The village itself is really old. A lot of houses were abandoned and left to time. Vines were growing through the rubble of some homes. The whole atmosphere of the place smelled of a past long gone. I would never be able to find my way here but my aunt knew the way so she brought us through the stone streets to my ancestral home. It’s quite a place. I think it was renovated when I was born so unlike the shorter homes around it, the place was 3 stories high with tall ceilings and rooms. But again, it was empty and dusty since no one had been there for a while. When I left, I felt both nostalgic and sad. I want to come back when I get married and visit again. This time not out of obligation to my father but rather for myself. I want to see how much I’ve changed, how far I’ve traveled, and how much I’ve achieved. But more importantly, I want to remember where my roots are and where they will always lie.