Where It All Began: Visiting My Ancestral Village in Fuzhou, China's "Little America"| 美籍福州女孩的回乡之旅
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- Опубликовано: 14 июн 2024
- You've probably heard of Chinatowns around the world. But did you know that there is a "Little America" in China?
Grace was born and raised in the US but her family is from a village outside of Fuzhou, Fujian, China. Prior to this trip, she visited Fuzhou only once in her life, at age seven. It's her first time returning to her ancestral hometown with her partner in crime, Yongjian, on a heritage-seeking trip to visit each other's hometowns and learn about each other's families and local cultures. Join us as we take you on an adventure through the ancestral village of Grace's family.
0:00 Overview and Intro
3:31 Dad's Childhood Home
6:12 Village Walkthrough
7:30 Meet Tammy Yang
9:01 Yang Family Ancestral Temple
10:20 Hiking to Qing Zhi Temple
11:41 Ceremonial Hall
12:42 Mom's Childhood Home
14:12 Win a Postcard!
Read Grace's reflection about her Fuzhou Heritage Seeing Trip on Medium: tinyurl.com/yvx66mbh
Read the article “Little America” on Slate to learn more about the Fuzhounese Immigration Journey to America: tinyurl.com/2s4ef687
Email us: graceandyongjian@gmail.com
Follow us on IG: @sheisgrowinggracefully @chamantzin
Free Music for Videos 👉 Music by Izoki - SERENITY - thmatc.co/?l=8D5CEB03
Oh I loved this so very much! My family comes from Idaho, USA, and before that, from Britain, Denmark, Sweden, and Germany. I just love that you were able to visit your hometown and that so many buildings were still there to see and recapture memories with! Our family histories are so important , aren’t they? They give us a root, and help us to see the shoulders we stood on in order to be where we are today. I often think of my pioneer ancestors and I am filled with gratitude and awe for the hardships they lived through and the efforts they put forth so that I can be standing where I am now. I feel like we have a debt to pay to those ancestors, and we should try to honor their efforts by living good lives and being good people, so that our own children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren can be also live better happy lives. I don’t mean by money, because while that’s useful , I think family happiness is more important.
Thank you for this wonderful video ~ I hope your children and grandchildren will appreciate your efforts as well! What a lovely village and family that you came from. God bless you! ❤❤❤
I am so glad that you are willing to travel to your parents’ home country and made this amazing video ❤
Great document - thanks! I am Fuzhounese in Singapore. My dad was from the Gan’Jia village, literally Sugarcane village. I feel nostalgic when you showed the red yeast wine chicken. We grew up eating this yummy dish with mee’sua. Plus Fuzhou fishballs (with minced meat in them) as well as Yan dumplings. Yan, according to my mom, is pork, pressed down and spread out so thinly to dry on wicker trays. Upon drying, they are smeared with flour and is so thin and translucent. They are trimmed into oblong pieces, whilst the leftovers can be used as just strips to flavour and thicken soups. The rectangular Yan is further cut into smaller pieces to wrap more meat and made into Yan dumplings. And of course this comment wouldn’t be complete about my mom, who was a local Fujian girl, learnt how to make Fuzhou red yeast wine and lees… the indispensable ingredients for hearty bowlfuls of the renowned Fuzhou dish mentioned earlier… the Fuzhou red yeast wine chicken broth with mee’sua - including lots and lots of love, then, more love. Shalom, memories from a Fuzhounese descendant in Singapore
Seeing your grandparents' and mom's excitement serving you food, showing you the temple with your name, and their childhood growing up is precious ❤ Thank you and your family for sharing more about yourselves with us!! And I cannot believe your mom would sleep on a slab of rock!!! 🤯
Greeting from a 5th generation Fuzhouness in Malaysia
love the video! My family on my mom's side is actually from the same village, really cool to see all the progress the village has gone through. Thanks for sharing
I’m from a nearby village called MinAnTing, similar to your parents, I left there when I was very young. My children are around your age, but do not speak much Chinese. Your video is very inspiring, i wish to take them there someday and get them interested in finding their root!
wow feels like travelling to Fuzhow...i am 4th generation of Fuzhow from Indonesia.
Now spelt in Pinyin as: Fuzhou. Used to be spelt: Foochow. These are exonyms, in Mandarin, in that that's not how they refer to themselves in the Fuzhou dialect. In the Fujian (Hokkien) areas further south, who speak the Minnan dialect, we refer to Fuzhou as: Hockchew.
Thanks for these amazing videos, Grace! It's clear how much heart and effort you put into each one, and they just keep getting better and better.
- bleu
It's really stories of all over sea Chinese, individual story may vary, life were sure hard in China for many generations before and we all span out to all over the world but our roots are deep and our drive resolute!
Not forgetting where you're from ground us even if we manage to achieve our individual accomplishment all over the world!
We're all Chinese and we all share same heritage even many generations apart and may not understand each other dialect!
Very interesting. I just have seen a minute ago the video in wich the blogger Ryan Lin tell his story. Lin was born in a village near Fuzhou, lives in NYC and after ten years he returned to visit his family in that village, missing old times. It's amazing that his video shows two images similar to this video...
WOW...love this..i had a student tenant once from Fuzhou. Never did ask him much as he was busy studying and we were busy with our jobs, Only when i met my wife's friend whose ancestors were from Fuzhou did i noticed her culture were a little different from ours. They love the noodles made with red wine. I had a chance to taste the fuzhounese sausage. It was really tasty. I am a hokkien mself and never visited Fujian myself. Perhaps one day we will visit our ancestors' village in Xiamen.
I loved hearing about your story! There must've been so many changes to the village throughout the years
Hi Grace, thank you so much for sharing your story. My dad immigrated from Fuzhou to the US in the 90s and I visited when I was 2. I don’t really know much about my Chinese heritage but I’d love to be able to visit with him someday to explore my story.
What an awesome video!! So inspiring to see you follow your passion traveling and getting to connect with your roots! Keep up the awesome work! ❤❤
wow, thank you for sharing your story. i feel like i was able to learn so much about your family history.
please continue to share and storytell ❤️
I'm so glad you enjoyed hearing about our family's story! We will def keep up the storytelling format! 💞
I love this!! So cool to see the preservation of the Fuzhounese villages! Until I make way back to Fuzhou, I’m living vicariously through your travels ❤️❤️
So glad you love it! I agree, isn't the village being preserved so well? When was the last time you went to Fuzhou and what was it like?
Congratulations! To you and your family. An insightful present so wonderful to learn in our biased and uninformed world about China, thank you! Please continue to honor, enjoy, and share your heritage with an exceptional bicultural perspective......for years to come...........
My parents are from fuzhou. Love to visit the province myself some day
Thank you for sharing your story and family’s history. I’m also from FuZhou and grew up in a very similar situation. I can’t wait for the opportunity to go back and visit where my family originated from.
Amazing video! thank you for sharing your family's story! Such an insightful and uplifting story that will resonate with many, including myself!
In the bad old days as far as several centuries ago due to war and famine in China. Many people along the coastal provinces migrated to overseas mainly Southeast Asia. my forefather was one of them from Zhong San Canton. He went to Singapore and my father was borne there and so was I. My hunch is, with the development of a more affluent and stronger China as we have seen in recent decades. I think more ethnic Chinese living overseas will pay homage to their ancestry land ! Enjoyed viewing your video. Thanks.
An amazing story to tell !
Grace: May I suggest you are very lucky your parents are proud enough of their heritage to speak the Fuzhou dialect at home, so that you and your brother can also speak it. Your trip to your ancestral village has more meaning to you than the children of Chinese parents who choose not to speak to their children their own tongue. I see many many case here in Australia: Chinese parents speaking only English to their children. Many, I suppose, are not proud to be Chinese.
So many Fuzhou pioneers here. I'm also from Ma Wei District though it seems from another neighborhood because there are high-rise condos there now. My neighborhood is near the Min River.
great videos made my grandparents happy...... im actually like one of your third cousins.......salute to a job well done
all very sweet ~ Thank You!! Good for our heart(s)
It looks like a small town rather than a village. It is still considered new if it was built in the 1950s. My ancestral village building in kaiping, Guangdong is over 150 years old.
So awesome! I'm also from the Mawei, Fujian!
very nice video
im from Ting Jiang
Chang an village
Wowow amazing 👏🤩 great job friends!
Thank you, Jonathan! What was your fav part?
Thank you. A Hakka from Peru.
Hakka people values his Hakka identity more than his Chinese identity, I have seen that in Indonesia as the museum built was called the Hakka museum in Jakarta, not called the Chinese museum or the Fujian /Guangdong museum (their source)
My family’s ancestral homes are actually close by in shan tou and chang an. My grandparents now live in guangtou for convenience sake but it was an experience seeing the ancestral homes and seeing the actual city of Fuzhou in how different they are. Overall huge culture shock visiting from America, I always wonder what life would be like if my family stayed in Fuzhou
That's so cool! Your family's ancestral homes are not too far away from mine! I agree, it is definitely a surreal experience seeing our families' ancestral homes and I often wonder as well what my life would have been like if my family stayed in Fuzhou
I love Chinese people. There's a lot of Chinese-Filipinos whose great grandparents were from Fujian, China. I myself is a Filipino with around 1/8% Chinese blood but I hate how China treats its neighbor countries. I just hope and pray that China will be nicer to its neighbors because after all most its own people are living all over the East and Southeast Asia.
You have a very misinformed view of the Chinese, mostly propagated by the West. For example, if you think China is being aggressive to Taiwan, then you are taking the view that Taiwan is an independent country. Taiwan is part of China, deliberately kept apart by the Americans. Over the last 70 or so years, because of their separation, the Chinese in Taiwan developed a local identity - considering themselves Taiwanese. If you speak Taiwanese, you are speaking the Hokkien dialect. Your Chinese ancestor probably came from Jinjiang (Chin Kang locally) would be speaking close to Taiwanese.
You should learn about the history of China's first transoceanic ships which were also the world's first, they aided many countries, including the Philippines. At the time, China was the only country with ships capable of sailing on huge areas of open sea; if you don't believe this, check into how Ming Dynasty China had massive sail ships sailing all over the South China Sea when no other countries could; Europeans hadn't learned to build transoceanic ships until China taught them!! This is widely documented and supported by international historians. Wherever Chinese ships went to, the ship men never invaded any local people; they brought Chinese goods to exchange with the locals. Some sailors stayed behind and did not return to China, instead settling down among the locals; perhaps this is how your Chinese ancestors landed in the Philippines. Don't be fooled by the Philippines and U$A governments; what they accuse China of is false.
@@Anonymous------ but that doesn't mean China owns the entire South China Sea. They just travelled there, they don't own it.
CHINA IS SUCH A HUGE COUNTRY. WHICH PROVINCE; CITY; TOWN; VILLAGE.
hi, I am from Ting Jiang
👍Found your family village 长柄村 on Google map. 👏👏👏
You and your friend Tammy are probably related. If you do a DNA test, you’ll probably see you share the same great grandparent or great great grandparent.
You might want to consider using the Chinese dialog unless you want to limit your audience to those of English speaking.
USED TO CALL FOO-CHOW//////
Fu-kinese took over Cantonese dominated NYC Chinatown in the late 80s. Sigh - that was the end and down fall of the Chinatown we all know.
Fukien was a monstrous transliteration of Fujian in the olden days. If you ask a local in Xiamen(Amoy) or Quanzhou(Chuan Chew): "Excuse me, are you Fukienese?", he won't have any idea what you are talking about.