Coincidentally, a cousin had recently visited Xiamen in search of our roots and with the help of some descendants of our clan there, managed to locate our paternal grandpa's village and house before he came to Ipoh to settle down. It was a thrilling experience for my cousin and this was followed by a return visit by some of our descendants to Ipoh. Of course when you're part of a tour group, there's no time to go wandering on your own. It would have been very interesting to take a look at my grandpa's house, but I had no choice but to stick to our itinerary. Here's a picture of my grandpa's house in Xiamen (compliments of my cousin):
Being on a Chinese speaking tour is of course a disadvantage for us who could not speak Mandarin. So most of the time, what our local Chinese guide said was incomprehensible. At times we saw him laugh, gesture or talk in elated tones, but all was Greek to us. Fortunately, the other members of the tour could speak Mandarin and they were kind enough to translate for us but mostly things like what time to get up the next morning, what time the bus is leaving, where to have breakfast, etc. I guess we missed some of the more exciting parts of the tour guide's narration. The tour guide, incidentally, was a cheeky young man, in his thirties, who delighted in teasing my aunt. He could speak some Hokkien but his was slightly different (Amoy Hokkien I think) but we managed to understand him. Because of him, we had several moments of laughter which boosted our endorphins and made the tour more enjoyable!
(To be continued)
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