Chinese Americans on tours to Guangdong to seek out their roots, and their emotional journeys

For nearly 30 years a non-profit has been helping Chinese Americans discover their family history in southern China – visits that can stir up strong emotions, reinforce participants’ Chinese identity and lift a veil on forebears’ sacrifices

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Cheryl Tien with villagers from her ancestral home in Guangdong during a trip with Friends of Roots three years ago. “My last name means so much to me,” she said after the visit. Photo: courtesy of Cheryl Tien

Bernice Chanin Vancouver

Published: 7:45pm, 22 Jan 2018Updated: 9:30am, 23 Jan 2018

When Jason Zheng was growing up in San Francisco, he wasn’t proud of being Chinese.

“I always had a need to fit into white culture and wanted to shed the Chinese part. I thought Cantonese sounded harsh, and Chinatown stinky. I just wanted to fit in,” he recalls.

But around the year 2000, he attended a presentation in college by Hong Kong-born Ruthanne Lum McCunn, who is half Chinese, half Scottish. The author of Thousand Pieces of Gold (2015) and Wooden Fish Songs (2007) talked about how she was proud of her Chinese roots, and how much she loved Cantonese culture and language. Zheng sat in the audience dumbfounded.

Ruthanne Lum McCunn, an American novelist and editor of Chinese and Scottish descent. Photo: Ruthanne Lum McCunn

After she finished signing copies of her book, he admitted to her he felt guilty for not feeling proud of being Chinese. McCunn put him in touch with Albert Cheng, a fourth-generation Chinese-American who ran a programme then called In Search of Roots (now Friends of Roots) that helps young people learn more about their Chinese heritage.

Albert Cheng (centre), the fourth generation Chinese-American who runs Friends of Roots, helps a young group member search village archives. Photo: courtesy of Albert Cheng

Founded in 1991 by Cheng and the late Chinese-American historian Him Mark Lai, the non-profit guides young people from 18 to 30 years old through three months of seminars before taking them on a two-week-long trip in July to Guangdong to visit their parents’ ancestral villages (most migrants to the United States in the 19th century were from this southern Chinese province adjoining Hong Kong).