Hunan Family Reunion

Guest blogger Yvonne Wu (Yo's older sister)

Ping, Yo, and Yvonne loving the bus we took around the Hunan countryside with our relatives

Our visit to Hunan has been meaningful and memorable beyond expectations.  Connecting with our cousins and their families, and with our ancestral roots, was an unforgettable experience shared with Yolanda, Neil, Oscar, Ruby, Ping, Chris, and with my Maddy, Lindsey and Clara.  Some things we learned about our family:

·       Although I’ve always known that the Wu family assigns each member of a generation the identical middle name, based on the corresponding word from a Chinese poem, I now understand why this practice is so crucial.  When we visited our rural ancestral village in 石门, a 6 hour drive from Changsha, we were met by a crowd of relatives who explained that everyone on each side of the mountain is part of the Wu clan in some fashion.  Thus, when people meet each other, they introduce themselves first by saying what generation they are from, which thankfully is easily communicated by saying one’s middle name.  How else would one keep track of who everyone is?  

First grade classroom at school in Shimen, where our dad donated a science wing

Oscar, Ruby and Clara joined the Young Pioneers

Autograph time

A.   A random peasant at the side of the road while waiting for the bus turned out to be . . . a relative of course!  I’ll let Yolanda tell that story. 

One of many meals we had in Hunan

Night market in Shimen

·      The Wu family has a strong gene for athletics, energy and zest for life.  The athletic gene kept popping up everywhere.  Following a 20 hour train ride from Kunming to Changsha, Shu Shu (my father’s brother) played ping pong for 2 hours, then met us at the hotel where he introduced himself to our teenage girls by doing 10-20 push ups on the floor, with his legs propped up on the couch.  At 80 years of age!! 

Shu shu connecting with his grand nieces

     We later watched him move like a sprightly 25 year old while out-slamming all sorts of brawny young men at ping pong.  When asked how he keeps so fit, he goes into great detail explaining the complex set of exercises that he himself devised, to be practiced 364 days a year, all the while showing off his hula dance-like moves.  When asked how many years he has been doing these exercises, he claims “Since I was about 20”. 

My cousins Xiao Guang and Xiao Yun are both “quite the specimen”, put so aptly by Chris. Yo and I both admitted to having a crush on them when we met them in 1979 as teenagers (Chinese men can have muscles like that?!)。 Xiao Guang at age 61 is ranked 5th in the nation for his age group in freestyle swimming, and 8th in the nation for back-stroke.  Since you are no longer able to compete after age 65, due to government concerns over safety, he is trying hard to improve his rankings in the coming years.  Somewhat to our teenage daughters’ and son’s dismay, he showed up at 6 am at their hotel room, waited a whole hour until he heard someone stirring, then knocked on the door.  When Lindsey emerged bleary-eyed, he exclaimed repeatedly “let’s go for a run!”  Both he and his brother swim daily, including in freezing water during the winter, which they claim cures everything from high blood pressure to diabetes, and to which Xiao Guang attributes the fact that he has never been sick in his whole life.  In fact he does not know what it feels like to be sick.  

Chris, Xiao Guang, Xiao Yun, Ping, Ruby and Clara

The kids loved swimming with them at an Olympic size pool that their friend opened privately and filled with fresh water just for us, and they especially enjoyed kayaking and swimming in the YiYang river.  Of course, the brothers own their own kayaks, are known for their kayaking skills that they demonstrated for us while flipping over and over in the river, and they often lead group trips down challenging rapids. In fact, I learned from Lindsey that Xiao Yun is ranked “Number 1” in the nation among all age groups for kayaking.  The “Water Bird” device that Xiao Guang demonstrated deserves a blog post of its own—he was the only one who could “fly” on the water using this metal device that defies description.  Oh, and by the way, both brothers are avid mountain bikers, nationally ranked in badminton (we cheered them on in competition, and of course they both won), basketball stars, and the list just goes on and on. 

Xiao Guang was the master of this aquatic pogo stick

The number of athletes in our family is quite astonishing -- it can't be just by chance!  This relative is a nationally ranked ping pong player, and the best player in all of Ningbo (Fa Shen’s oldest daughter); that relative claimed first place (broke records?) in high school track events (Xiao Peng’s son); I felt a major connection with Xiao Ting who runs every morning after dropping her daughter off at school, and who was feeling out of sorts from not exercising enough in Hunan (an invigorating run in Olympic Park together with Xiao Ting, Ping, NaNa and myself was restorative for all); and NaNa is surely the most athletic, beautiful, energetic and fun-loving niece I could imaging having in China.  An extended wait in front of the hotel for a lingering relative would often turn into a multi-generational volleyball session, something our bus driver said was a first for him in his many years of driving a tour bus. 

Volleyball break

·         According to Shu Shu, the first “Wu” came 10 generations ago from Hubei while fleeing a famine.  Our ancestors on both sides were mostly land owners, scholars or government officials.  We visited the library room dedicated to my grandfather, and spent a long time scrutinizing all the photos (Maddy was in one!), the family tree, and all the calligraphy and paintings. We learned that even my father’s mother, who died when my father was about 3, came from a relatively wealthy family of land owners.  Thus, given all the political upheavals of the past generations, the following:

·        Our family is a family of survivors (that is, all except for our grand aunts who were butchered by the bandit He Long, who later became a communist hero, and whose enormous statue we visited in Zhang Jia Jie).  The survival stories are unforgettable.  How do 3 siblings ages 9-13 in Xing Jiang (pretty much a massive desert) survive on their own with nothing to eat for three years, while their parents are taken away to an unknown fate?  They climb trees to find birds, catch snakes and fish with their own hands, while doing everything they can to fill their stomachs 2/10ths of the way full, which is all that is needed to go on.  How does a 14 year-old boy abandoned by his family make his way in the world?  By walking day and night out of the countryside into the city, and then on to another city, until he is picked to join the red army; then despite the lack of higher education, through intense reading and self study, eventually by becoming a prolific and intellectual writer and poet.  If only I could understand the two poems he wrote to commemorate and honor our family reunion this summer.

My dad and his younger brother, our shu shu, in 1979

·        China is a country of superlatives.  Everything is “Number 1”.  Zhang Jia Jie, admittedly one of the most astonishingly beautiful mountainous regions in the world, was described on a welcome sign as a “National AAAAA Tourist attraction”, where you can ride the “Number 1” tallest elevator in the world (admittedly a very tall elevator).  My favorite stalagmite within the enormous cave that took 2 hours to walk through was the “Number 1” tallest stalagmite that is “Insured for 100 million RMB” according to the accompanying sign.  

Zhang Zha Jie inspired Avatar

Neil and the Chinese masses

     The unforgettable evening musical show with the massive lit-up mountains as backdrop was over-the-top impressive, moving, gorgeous, stunning... as Neil says, “only in China.”  The show depicted the age-old love story about a “foxy lady,” and made me fall in love with the TuJia minority folk songs, which our relatives subsequently sang in the bus and restaurant. 

·        Speaking of singing, Karaoke was a blast.  Everyone from every generation and cultural background got into the act, including 80-year-old Shu Shu who belted out a revolutionary Mao Ze Dong song.   As for unexpected connections, Clara ran over to me afterwards to tell me that she had to sing that song every day at Chinese language camp last summer in Minnesota.

Shu shu singing the East is Red, with Shen Shen looking on

·        Our family, like most Chinese families, worships our ancestors.  We visited our great grandfather’s gravesite, now sitting amidst sweet potato and cornfields.  The firecrackers were so loud we had to cover our ears, so I'm sure they succeeded in waking the spirits.  By coming all the way from America with our husbands and children to pay our respects to our ancestors who will now watch over us all, Yolanda, Ping and I have brought good fortune, safety and well-being to our entire extended family.  After fleeing to Taiwan, my grandfather desperately longed to return one day to his homeland.  He even sketched pictures of the village he had come from, and could describe the exact location where each of his ancestors is buried.  As my father explains, our pilgrimage has helped to fulfill my grandfather’s dreams. 

Younger generation in the library dedicated to their great grandfatther

There is so much more to tell.  I will always remember my conversations with Xiao Pei (turns out parenting a teenage girl is equally challenging in all corners of the earth), and with her mother who sacrificed her career for her family.  Fortunately, Yo, Ping, Neil, Chris and the kids have all been telling their own stories, and contributing to our collective memories.  I invite everyone, young and old, to submit their beautiful emails, blog posts, diary entries etc. to me, and I will try to put them together into one large “memory book”. 

I am grateful to Yo and Neil for inspiring us to come to China, and to my parents for enabling us to maintain and strengthen our connections with our relatives in China.  Our host and big sister Xiao Qing gave an emotional good-bye speech on the bus during our final night.  This strong and capable cousin, an impressive orator and Vice Mayor of the city (not to mention strongest tree climber and swimmer), expressed her extreme gratitude to my parents for all they have done for her and her family over the years, since we first met up after China’s opening in 1979.  The amazing hospitality she and her extended family bestowed upon us was largely an expression of their thanks, and was instilled by a profound sense of family connection that I believe every one of us shared on this trip.  She implored us, especially our children, not to forget our roots. 

Saying goodbye was sad

When we first came to China in 1979, I had a vague sense of how attuned my parents were to learning family histories and re-establishing connections, while I was mostly interested in playing Frisbee and cards, and going swimming at the Friendship Hotel.  With the blink of an eye, I have now become my parents, soaking up all that I can about my family, listening with interest to anything and everything being told to me.  Our kids are surely more mature than I was back then—they maintained interest in much of what was going on, and asked questions to seek answers that I could not provide.   I hope they will always maintain this interest in staying connected to their roots, and to their relatives in China.  When they come back to China with their own children one day, they will surely continue to spread the narratives of our remarkable family and heritage. 

Na Na and parents seeing us off at the airport