Baihe, Kaiping, guangdong | 百合镇 开平广东
Day 12 | 第十二天
During the 19th and mid 20th century, almost all remains of Chinese who died abroad were processed through the Tung Wah hospital in Hong Kong. It is estimated that close to 100,000 sets of bones made their way back to China over the first half of the 20th century; the majority coming from California, Canada, and Australia.
Baihe town | 百合镇 served as a key location in the WuYi/Szeyup area to receive the remains of overseas Chinese.
The families of many Chinese immigrants adopted the custom to repatriate their relatives’ remains and rebury them in their hometown graveyards so the graves could be near their ancestors and cared for regularly. After death, first burial involved placing a body in a shallow grave, and then exhuming after five, seven, or ten years, depending on tradition. After exhumation, the bones were cleaned, counted, and arranged in a box before being shipped to China.
However, some remains were not claimed. Those remains stayed at Tung Wah hospital or in charitable organizations of the deceased’s home district. These organizations buried the unclaimed remains in charity cemeteries—sometimes in mass graves and sometimes in separate graves with individual markers.
Dr. Selia Tan guided our group through Baihe, and pointed out buildings of former organizations that supported the process of bone repatriation—a temple, ancestral hall, and church. Today, Baihe is a quiet town with a number of abandoned buildings. But if you look closely you will see remnants such as pillars of a pier that was once used to receive the bones of those returning home.
Fallen leaves return to their roots. ■
For more information about bone repatriation:
Guangdong Kaiping Diaolou Tourism Development Company on Bone Repatriation