My Family's stories

Dragon's gate is the name of my hometown village. This is where my forth fathers born. I was privileged to visit this town. Anxi is 72km from Xiamen. It is a very small town in Fujian and famous for its Oolong Tea. As we were going through the mountains on the way to Anxi and I understood why my father built one of his restaurants near Temple's Park in Malaysia. He was home sick and wanted to feel the atmosphere of his hometown that he missed so much.
The original house is now being vacant but it is still under the name of my uncle (my father's younger brother). It is situated inside Dragon's Gate village near the Bridge of Light and Righteousness. This bridge was built for the people so that they did not have to cross the river the old fashion way. My uncle working together with my father in Malaysia at that time help organised the fund raising projects to build this bridge by contacting Anxi Chinese overseas.
The house has 4 very special trees planted by my great grandfather, grandfather and my father. The fourth one was the tree planted after the death of my father to commemorate him.
During the time when Kuomintang was recruiting soldiers to fight against the communists. They would "encourage" one young man from every family to join the army. Fearing of being recruited by Kuomintang, my father fled to Malaysia with the help of other relatives in Singapore. My uncle was too young to join the army during that time and he was spared. Time was tough for the family; my father was to try out his luck to make a living in Nan yang (South Asia) to help to support the family back home.

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My grandmother was quite sick at that time after my father left China. My uncle was desperate for help; the family went to the temple to pray. A remedy was given to get 27 water snails near the river. The family members started scooping for water snails near the river. They finally got 27 snails after working non-stop from 10pm till 4 am. But grandma died. My uncle was crushed by the incident and decided to become a doctor to help people.

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With my father working in Malaysia, my uncle studying in the medical school at interstate; my uncle has got no choice but to send grandpa to Malaysia so that my father could look after him. At that time, my father had established himself with the Lam Tai restaurant in Rawang, Malaysia. Grandpa also died 2 years later after arriving in Malaysia. I had never heard stories like this before I came here.

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I've met some interesting people today. Some people were old friends of my father. One man came in and told me that he was my father's student. He remembered when he was punished by my father for misbehaving. The man was old; if my father is still alive he would be 81 by now.

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The feeling of coming back to Anxi was very surreal. In many ways I was glad that I made this visit. It has opened my eyes about my heritage and many things about my father.