DAY 1: JENNIFER’S FATHER’S VILLAGE
July 6, 2017: TOISAN // WORDS FROM JENNIFER
I got to know my dad through legend.
He was the second of five children — four brothers and one sister. In the midst of the Cultural Revolution, he and my sam sok (3rd uncle) left Toisan and made an escape — one they had practiced many times in the village fish pond. Since the main roads were all patrolled, they hiked through the rural land until their feet blistered. Nice weather meant visibility so they went in the night when the skies were unkind. Once they got to the shore, they dove into the South China Sea, risking being shot by guards or drowned in the waters. My sam sok swam to Hong Kong and my dad swam to Macao. My sam sok made it, but my dad was caught, punished, and later somehow willed a second attempt. He succeeded.
Immigrant parents don’t just get to be our creators; they are our champions.
My dad passed from colon cancer when I was eight years old, just 12 days before my ninth birthday. He was 51. In the 30 or so years since he made that swim, he started his own construction company, built the house I grew up in, and fathered four children: Bernadette, Nina, myself, and Jason. Meanwhile, my sam sok settled in Maryland, my dai bak (1st uncle) in San Francisco, and my say sok (4th uncle) in Columbia. I didn’t know my aunt existed until I became an adult. And I didn’t know she still lived in the village until I joined Roots a few months ago.
When we got to the Wong village, I stood on the ground of our 400-year-old ancestral hall, doing what I’d been doing for the past 15 years. Finding my dad. Since he’s not around to be with me in the places I go, I figure I can meet him across time in the places he’s been.
Somehow, the ancestors delivered. I saw a stout woman with ear-length black hair appear at the threshold of our ancestral hall. I’d only ever seen one picture of my gou ge. I hesitated to believe it was really her, the aunt I never met, until she walked towards me with open arms and squeezed me into her long lost embrace. All at once, we broke into grief and belonging.
“When I look at you, I see my brother,” she said as she wailed into our sacred air.
I met her cries for her brother with my cries for my father. Even though her siblings lived on my side of the globe, I still hardly ever felt I had anyone to grieve with. It’s been almost 50 years since she’d seen my dad take off for the oceans. I wondered who she had.
In that hug, I felt like my pain and her pain had finally found their kin.
She then eagerly took my hand and led me to the house where she and her brothers grew up. It has since been rebuilt and now includes an altar just for my dad. She helped me pray to the gods, the ancestors, my yehyeh (paternal grandfather), and my dad. At my dad’s alter, I placed a framed photo of my dad’s final portrait. We prayed to him with the Budweiser and bird of paradise I brought in my luggage (that is his drink and flower of choice). My auntie gave me an empty red envelope that now holds grass from my dad’s grave in Southern California, as well as a letter I wrote to him in red ink. I placed this red envelope on my dad’s altar as my final addition to the Wong home. I hope he receives it all fondly.
When it was time to go, I walked hand in hand with my auntie to the bus. The Toisan official, Mr. Yang accompanied us and explained to me the importance of keeping the overseas connection alive. With the security my dad earned for his family in the states, it’s important to leverage the privilege I have as progeny to give back to the generations before me.
With that, Mr. Yang told me one final thing. That I should not worry. "Your dad has come back. Your dad has returned to Toisan.”
I thought, “so has his daughter.”
