An old page I found about my family history.

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Going back to our roots. By Chan Soon Meng.

Our pioneering ancestors Mr. & Mrs. Chan Kwan Seng sailed from China in a junk boat and landed on the banks of the Klang River in 1880 where they settled down in Kuala Lumpur.  It never dawned on me that I will be the only Chan to do the opposite of what my great grandfather did……

In 2005 my husband Kok Peng was offered a teaching post in Yang En University in Quanzhou in the province of Fujian, China.  He had retired from IBM and our children had grown up.  Cynthia had married and settled in Australia and David also tied the knot and working in Vietnam.  Our "birds" have flown off and there was an "empty nest" or emptiness left behind without the kids. We felt a need for some changes in our lives.

 

At first I was quite reluctant to go to China.  Never in my lifetime had I ever wanted to visit China. However I do recollect that sometime in the spring of my youth or early married life I had wished to go abroad and live as an expatriate in a foreign land in a western country.  My dream finally seemed to have materialized much later in my autumn years!  But it was to go to China, the land of my forefathers!

Well, I had prayed to God for a change in my life and God responded.  I did not mention to God what kind of new lifestyle I wanted or which country I would like to go.  I should have been more specific in my prayers.  Anyway, I decided to give it a try as Kok Peng said it was a yearly contract and we can always return home when the contract ends.  It turned into five years of living in China!  Every year we renewed the contract and thanks be to God it has been five wonderful years of a changed lifestyle.

 

I fell in love with Yang En University as soon as I arrived.  There were beautiful majestic mountains, green hills, valleys and lakes surrounding the University.  Farms planted with  various types of fruit trees and vegetables are nearby  in the countryside. There are lots of mango and longan trees all over the campus.  At night one can see the twinkling stars and a bright shining moon up in the sky making it so enchanting and peaceful.

 

Nearby is the Majia village, which is like Pudu when Ah Poh and Ah Koong were alive and used to live in the 1960s.  There is a beautiful government controlled Church situated on a hill which I have to walk a distance uphill and downhill passing through pigsties, chicken and duck farms if I wanted to attend the Chinese Church service. I regretted I didn't learn to speak mandarin when mother engaged Chinese teacher Mdm Wong to our house in Cheras years ago to teach us when we were young.  Everyone in the village and campus communicate in Chinese and some spoke Minnan which is the hokkien dialect.

I got to know many University students and local teachers when I started to occupy my time conducting free English classes and Scrabble sessions to the many eager students who wanted to learn English.  The students are so friendly and they love to speak to foreigners.  In the mornings when I go for my backward walks, some students follow me around in the stadium so that they can practise their oral English.  They invited me to their homes and  gave me gifts of scarves, tea sets, and exotic food such as chicken and duck feet and duck necks!

 

This will be our fifth year stay in China having had an opportunity of living in a new environment.  We have gained new experiences and exposure of life different from Malaysia, Australia or Vietnam.  It has been a satisfying lifestyle living in the land where our ancestors came from. Soon we will go home to where we were born and bred, where our ancestors took their first bold step into a foreign land which we now call home sweet home in Malaysia.