21 June 2019

After I had set my intention to visit Kinmen Island, Taiwan, I read up more to prepare for the trip.

I would fly from Singapore to Xiamen and from Xiamen, ferry to Kinmen Island, Taiwan.

The song, 漂洋过海来看你 (Crossing Oceans & Rivers to See You) by Jonathan Li had been running inside my head for months.

My motives for flying and ferrying were simple: First to see Houpu (后浦), the place that my grandma spoke about all the time. Second, to visit an ancestral shrine that bear her family name or surname, Weng (翁) which she had fiercely guarded without much success against mispelling and mispronunciation in her lucid days.

This trip was my way of assuring her that in Kinmen her surname is pronounced accurately, and it’s always present even if she’s absent.

As shrines built to honour ancestors are mostly Asian constructs and not exactly tourist attractions, information on them in English was scarce.

For my friends who read Chinese, ancestral shrines are called “cong zi” (宗祠). It is an alien vocabulary for me given the state of my Chinese proficiency.

I just learnt this year that a shrine that’s dedicated to forebears sharing my grandma’s surname is called 翁氏宗祠 in Chinese. It took me forever to identify and pronounce these 4 magical characters accurately and in the right order.

Having done the above, I smugly thought my search should be more productive. Unfortunately all the googled materials that surfaced after I typed in the magic formula were in formal Chinese. Too difficult.

I felt the frustrations of an illiterate person. And now I realise that access to any language in any form is really a privilege.

Humbled, I took to trolling on older users of Facebook who share my grandma’s surname in hope of knowing more.

I figured FB posts in Chinese might be more accessible. And if I could just communicate with one FB user who was even remotely related to what I was searching for, I would be Queen.

And as Providence would have it, sometime in late March this year, around the ancestor honouring period of Ching Ming (清明), one of the few older FB users that I had been trolling off & on, Mr Weng (翁文奥), posted a photo of an ancestral shrine on his timeline! And of course, it had to be a Weng (翁) shrine!

In my best broken Chinese, I wasted no time in privately messaging him about who I was and my reasons for visiting the shrine. (I did feel a bit shady reading his posts all these times without introducing myself).

Mr Weng replied immediately with the address of the village where the Wengs (翁）live and where 4 ancestral shrines are located.

His reply made me feel as if I had won a ticket to Bhutan!🤣

By the time I got to Kinmen Island on 13 June I was able to recall & pronounce the Chinese words related to my purpose with less awkwardness.

Due to my own language inadequacies, I didn’t make any transport arrangements or contact Mr Weng beforehand about my plans.

But the Universe is benevolent and knows my limitations.

It sent Wang Ling from Local Teahouse in Houpu (后浦) to introduce taxi driver, Yuan（袁 ) to me and guide us to the places I needed to see & more.

I would realise later on that I had read about Yuan in my pre-trip preparation. I even highlighted his details. But at that time the thought of contacting him in my near non-existent Chinese seemed daunting.

I would also find out after this trip that Yuan has a Masters in Minan Cultural Studies from the Kinmen University.

It probably explains why he didn’t just drive & leave us at our locations, but took the effort to walk with me happily and point out details to me.

Yuan drove us to the village, “Pan Shan” (盤山）where my grandma’s people originated. And the first shrine we stopped by had just been restored not long ago! My grandma’s surname Weng 翁, was painted in a fresh coat of brilliant gold!

Holding her oxidised silver belt in my palms, I paused prayerfully at the shrine entrance.

“See, your family name is brighter than ever now, so don’t fret. It’s all good,” I told my grandma.

After Yuan learnt that my male ancestors also hailed from Kinmen Island and belonged to the Ong clan, he was very determined to take us to the village where the earliest Ongs from Kinmen began. This was a bonus for me.

We arrived and stood at the Ong village entrance of “Dongsha” (东沙) where a Flame of the Forest Tree was in full bloom. Yuan told us the flowers are called 鳳凰花 (feng huang hua/ phoenix flower) in his part of the world.

Under the bright blue summer sky and sheltered by the flowers of fire cracker red, I smiled and breathed in the fragrant embrace of my long forgotten forefathers.

On our quiet taxi ride back, I gave thanks for the series of events that have unravelled since last year and for the people sent to facilitate my intentions the moment I decided to make a trip to Kinmen for my grandmother.

19 June 2019

On 14 June 2019, 28 years after her demise, I finally arrived at Houpu (后浦), the birthplace that my grandma pined for all her life, but never got to return to.

“Gua si ongg. Gua di aw paw cu xi. Gua si kim meng lang,” my grandma would chant these 3 sentences depicting her origin in Minan language to just about anyone who would listen.

“我姓翁. 我在后浦出世. 我是金门人.” (Mandarin translation)

“My surname is Ongg. I was born in Houpu. I’m a Kinmen person.” (rough English translation)

She held on to the above 3 expressions for dear life and was able to tell us who she was right to the end, even when dementia rendered her incapable of recognising her own grandchildren.

In my primary school days, one of her favourite activities was to show me her S’pore Citizenship Card issued on pink vanguard paper. She had it bundled up with other important documents with a handkerchief which she tied the four corners together to make it into a folder of sorts.

She would unknot the handkerchief and remove her citizenship card like a cherished mandate. Then she would direct my eyes to the romanised version of her name, “Ang Gaey,” handwritten in blue ink. She would also remind me that it had been wrongly translated. The cadences in the Minan language by which she was named had no corresponding sounds in the English Language.

In my teens, instead of becoming more understanding of my grandma’s insecurity about her poorly translated name on government documents, I became annoyed with her for boring me with such dated & inconsequential details.

But now in my aging years, and as a teacher of language, it hits me extra hard that my illiterate grandma having been separated from her birth family at age 7, must have been so desperate to preserve whatever bits of information pertaining to her origin. And to have her adoptive country, Singapore, getting something as basic as her name wrong on official papers must be very unsettling indeed.

Perhaps repeating her details to me was the only way she knew how to protect her identity & stay connected to her roots.

The fear of forgetting looms in a person like some invisible illness that those with means to documentation may find it hard to empathise with.

As I strolled the streets of my forefathers, “Houpu (后浦)” is no longer a strange sounding word repeated by a neurotic old woman. And I deeply regretted the times when I was dismissive and cruel even, towards an old lady who couldn’t stop talking about her surname, her birthplace and her island.

Had I the compassion & intelligence to listen more and judge less then, I might have helped to mitigate her unspeakable sense of loss and loneliness.

On this trip, strings of red lanterns with the characters Houpu (后浦) written on them swayed lightly above me in the cool summer breeze as if saying to me & my grandma, “Yes, yes! This is Houpu! And you are home!”

As I stopped to greet the ancient Banyan tree whose branches rose to touch the window of Houpu Tea House (后浦 泡茶间) above, I felt a sense of peace & grounding even though I wasn’t born there.

After this visit, I feel that my grandma is no longer that frightened little girl who was made to sail from Kinmen to Singapore, and then spent her whole life trying to find her bearing. Far from being lost, I think my trip has helped her gain back her footing and now she has two places to call home, Houpu (后浦) and Singapore.

Thanks to her persistence in talking about Houpu (后浦) despite the sniggers she received, a whole world of new experiences has opened up for me, many years after her life had ended.

So I wish for all my friends, the tenacity of my grandma to keep talking about what we love & believe in, be it a name, or larger topics such as gender equality, animal welfare, good governance etc, even when no one seems to care. Because one day, someone is bound to pick up your message & thank you for it. 🙏

14 June 2019

Wudao City God Temple (浯岛城隍庙) is located in Houpu (后浦）the birthplace of my grandma. “Wudao” is the old name of Kinmen Island. A “city god” in Taiost beliefs is a protector deity of the city, ensuring its environment and inhabitants live in harmony.

The temple dedicated for this purpose of peace & protection for all is more than 300 years old. In fact it just held its 339th year of celebration on 22nd April this year.

One of its recent temple celebratory activities was to organise a name conferring contest for two otter pups in order to highlight the challenges faced by the Eurasian otters that share the waterways of Kinmen Island.

Stepping into this temple was like stepping back in time. I know that the furnishings in the temple and architecture have been renovated many times, but the space where my grandma and her family members would have visited is still the same.

In the sunny afternoon with beams of light filtering in from the openings above the temple, I walked about and imagined what it might have been like a 100 years ago in that space where I was.

As I rested my tired legs, wafts of incense fragrance mixed with the familiar smells of joss paper offerings made me feel homey and at ease. When I touched her silver belt which I had kept in the pocket of my denim jeans, I connected with my grandma across time.

At the Protector Deity seated in the centre of the altar I gave thanks for His protection & blessings on the 7-year-old child bride who was born in Wudao in 1914, grew up to become my grandfather’s wife, became my dad’s mom, was widowed and became my grandma before passing on at 77 in 1991.

14 June 201

Yesterday towards evening we decided to head to Mofan Street which was part of the old city, Houpu, where my grandmother was born.

On our way there, a man stopped to give us freshly baked bread for free and a lady who overheard our destination discussion offered us a ride to Mofan Street.

The moment we arrived at Mofan Street a red lantern with the chinese characters 后浦 (Houpu) caught my eye!

I felt very warm inside as my travel mate took pictures of me standing under the red lantern. So this is really my grandma’s town.

A few steps ahead, a lady offered us some freshly made egg rolls to try. We ate them and thanked her for her generosity.

I asked for her name.

“叫我阿宝就可以了” she said. (Transl: Just called me Ah Bao) “Bao” usually means treasure or precious.

I asked for her surname.

“我姓翁,” she replied and went on to describe the strokes that made up the character 翁 (pronounced as weng in Mandarin).

It turned out that she had the same surname as my grandma.

It was then I felt my grandma’s long overdue homecoming has really happened.

“阿嬷我们真的到家了,” I said in my heart to the little girl who left this old city nearly a 100 years ago.

(Transl: Grandma, we’re really home)