Shaoguan | 韶关 广东
We took an early morning high-speed train from Guangzhou | 广州 to Shaoguan | 韶关. Shaoguan is located in northern Guangdong, bordering Hunan to the northwest and Jiangxi to the northeast. To be honest, I’d never heard of this city before and probably would have never traveled there on my own. When we exited the railroad station, we quickly boarded a double-level bus that provided an interesting vantage of the surrounding landscape. Our destination was Mei Guan Pass | 梅关 , located in the Meiling Mountains | 梅岭 , which forms a natural border between Jiangxi and Guangdong provinces.
Mei Guan Pass | 梅关
Mei Guan Pass | 梅关 dates to the Qin dynasty (221 BCE - 206 CE) and most of the fortifications and brick paving the pathway were constructed during the Song Dynasty (960 CE - 1279 CE). The route was the shortest distance between the Yangzi River and the Pearl River systems and became a gateway to the southern provinces for people migrating from the central plains of China. The majority of people with connections to the Pearl River Delta region can trace their migratory history to this area.
As I hiked Mei Guan Pass, I thought with near certainty that some of my ancestors stood on the same road as they migrated through the pass to Toishan (Taishan) | 台山 in the Pearl River Delta. This wasn’t my first time being in places that were over 1000, 1500, or 2000 years old. But this was the first time I could connect myself with a specific geographical location and long timeline.
Our destination was a gate situated on the border between Guangdong and Jiangxi towards the top of an ascending road lined with plum trees, shrines, tea stands, and wooden signs carved with poetry about plum blossoms. Every so often during my ascent I would hear whispers of American English from people of Asian descent. I didn’t think much of it at first— perhaps they were members in our group I hadn’t met yet. (Tour Segment 2 started only a few hours earlier that same morning) . As these hints of conversations became more and more frequent, I soon realized it was another group of Chinese Americans.
At that point, I knew I was at a place considered a pilgrimage site for Chinese Americans researching their roots, especially for those who have personal connections to Guangdong. When I mentioned what I noticed to our guide, he told me that at a certain point along Mei Guan Pass, he wondered how our group had suddenly gotten so large.
Zhujixiang Heritage Village, Nanxiong | 珠玑古巷南雄
After lunch, we headed to Zhujixiang Heritage Village | 珠玑古巷 in Nanxiong | 南雄 , located about 19 miles south of Mei Guan Pass.
Nanxiong originated during the Tang Dynasty (618 CE - 907 CE) and was a key point in the exchange of goods and cultures between the central plains of China (considered to be the origin of Chinese civilization) and what would have been known as a frontier territory at the time, Guangdong. It was one of the first places people settled after migrating through Mei Guan Pass.
I learned that Zhujixiang was known as the “first neighborhood of Guangdong”. In fact, there is a Zhuji Road in Guangzhou that was named to commemorate ancestors of many of the city’s residents. It is said that almost anyone from the Pearl River Delta region of Guangdong can trace their lineage to Zhujixiang.
We were given a map of Zhujixiang Heritage Village with a listing of ancestral halls during lunch. We had the opportunity to visit our respective family halls, where one could make a donation and find out more details about their particular clan lineage. Many of the major family clans had a presence in the heritage village and were represented by a range of structures. Some clan houses had full scale buildings with elaborate facades and detailed inner courtyards, while others simply had an exterior altar above a gate. The type of structure was often determined by the amount of monetary contributions given by the family clans. Local residents who live in the village maintained the clan houses.
Zhujixiang has become a destination for those interested in researching their ancestral roots. The alleyways seem designed as if you are walking on the same road as your ancestors. Equipped with this understanding, vendors lined the narrow passageways selling incense and firecrackers to visitors from afar to use as offerings.
Many of us broke into smaller groups while wandering the heritage village as we searched for our clan houses. I headed to my paternal clan house LEE | 李, which was located in one of the outlying areas, and planned to drop by my maternal clan house LUO | 羅 on my way back towards the village entrance.
Along the way, I found what looked like a residential home but there was one thing that immediately caught my eye—the character for LEE | 李 in bold golden colors shining through in the distance. 李 has always been the one character that I immediately recognized, so it was comforting to see—it seemed to call out to me.
I had, in fact, stumbled upon the LEE family clan house in Zhujixiang, which was a one-story packed earth and brick house comprised of a series of small connected rooms. I met an elder woman there who was the caretaker. She gave me a few sticks of incense to use as an offering and invited us in to explore the rest of the clan house that also served as her home. It was a bare structure with a bed in one room and small chairs and tables in another room surrounding the altar area. I later learned that this smaller building was the original LEE clan house while the listing on the map was the active and current LEE clan house, which I later visited.
Being in Zhujixiang made me think about the power of creating a connection to a geographical place—even in a heritage village that is made to look and feel historic, and even if it is only a symbolic connection.
The physical ritual of making an offering was like extending a hand into the past and seeing if it would be held. It felt both foreign and familiar.
Zhujixiang is also part of an origin narrative connected to those who can trace their lineage to the Pearl River Delta region. There was an incident involving the Song dynasty concubine Su/Hu Fei, which brought fear of persecution by the imperial court and caused many officials and their families to flee southward and resettle in the Pearl River Delta region.
This event is considered to be the last large scale migration of those whose ancestors came from central China and ended in the Pearl River Delta region in southern Guangdong province.
Him Mark Lai tells of the Zhujixiang legend in Becoming Chinese American:
One of the most famous tales in Cantonese tradition allegedly occurred toward the end of the Song dynasty. In the year 1273 (one version gave the year as 1131), an imperial concubine with the surname Su (or in some versions Hu) incurred the emperor’s wrath and fell into disfavor. She fled secretly from the palace and at a ferry she met a wealthy merchant, Huang Zhuwan (or in some versions Zhang Zhuwan), who was shipping grain to the capital. Attracted by her beauty, Huang took her back with him to his home in Nanxiong (Namhung) in northern Guangdong. Later the emperor discovered the concubine’s absence and ordered a search for her. But after trying for a year, officials reported to the throne that they could not find any trace of her. During this period Huang (or Zhang) had punished one of his servants. In revenge the disgruntled man leaked the news of the presence of the imperial concubine in the Huang household. The information soon came to the ears of the officials, who, in order to cover up their previous failure, concocted a report of a bandit disturbance in the Nanxiong region. The plan was to dispatch troops to wipe out the population in order to seal their lips forever. When the news was leaked to Zhuji Xiang (Jü Gei Hong, “Pearl Lane”), a village in the region, the population was panic-stricken. Ninety-seven families met and decided to pack their belongings and flee to the south. They embarked on bamboo rafts and floated down the North River. Their journey ended at Xiangshan, where they scattered to settle in various places in the then relatively undeveloped Pearl River Delta. Many leading clans there today claim descent from these pioneers and the tale is as well known among Pearl River Delta Cantonese as the story of the Mayflower is among Anglo-Americans. p.9. ■