Day 31 - Village visits and Back to Guangzhou

I woke up today around 7:30am to the view of the river and the sun rise through my hotel room window. It's so incredibly smoggy here as well. I packed up and went downstairs for breakfast. I had fried noodles, salad with some creamy sweet dressing, and a bunch of desserts. It was all really good.

The first stop was my mothers village in Toysan (i have not idea how to spell this) and my mother's cousin brought a sucking pig to buysun (another Chinese word that has no real translation but means to pay respect to your ancestors by giving food, liquor and money offerings). I think that I'm related to him because my great grandfather on my mother's father's side was his grandfather's brother. Yes, its very confusing. I'm still confused. But nonetheless, we made it back to the village. First we went to his grandfather's house. It was huge and no one lived there anymore but it was well maintained. I then met a bunch of people that were supposed to be my cousins and we headed to my great grandfather's house. Family still lives there which is good. It was originally one storey but they recently put a second storey on it. It's crazy to see how these people live. They live off well water, use a hay burning stove and have no heating in the winter and the entire structure is made of stone. It's a culture shock that's for sure. Beside the washroom which was a squat pot was a bunch of goslings that I think were being raised for food. There were chickens, dogs and geese running all over the streets.

The architecture is amazing as i think this village is protected as a cultural heritage site. Most buildings are between 2 and 4 storeys. Apparently what happened was they were built as fortresses so that people lived on the 2nd floors and above to protect them from attacking parties. We went up to the top of one building owned by a family member and from the rooftop you can see the beauty of the village and the old preserved buildings. I was absolutely beautiful. I wish I had more time to stay here but we were on a tight schedule and went to my father's village to see his Sai Ma.

His village is called SunWoi (can't spell again) and is about a 45 min drive from Toysan. This area looked way more run down than Toysan. We were greeted by a family friend to go and see Sai Ma. I cried when I met her. I don't really know why because I've never met her before but I felt some kind of connection to her. She was really happy to see me. It was weird as I entered her home because there were photos of me and my family all over her walls. I walked into my grandmother's old room and it was full of old furniture including her old bed and dresser. I buysuned all over the house and then they set off firecrackers in the alleyway for my return.

We ended up having lunch in a village restaurant. In the back they had caged live animals for consumption. There was a raccoon, white fox, some rabbits and a creature I could not identify. It looked kind of like a really big blue-eyed hedgehog like thing. They also had a pool full of fish. For lunch we had eel, goose, vegetables and some little catfish looking things that apparently not catfish. Everything was very good. I was given 2 lucky red envelopes for both myself and my brother. It was weird to have someone call me by my chinese name but nice aswell. Sai Ma told me she was really happy to see me and that it was great that dad had made the trip last summer to see her and that it was my brother's turn. I said my tearfull goodbye and sat in the car and opened a red envelope. Inside was $50 HK and 1 RMB. For some reason I think this amount is significant to her because its been 51 years since my father moved to Canada at the age of 7.