Finding roots in rural China
published November 25, 2002
written and photographed by Harry Mok / San Francisco
Barefoot and ankle-deep in mud, she trudges forward in a stoop, grabbing handfuls of greenish-yellow stems topped with a precious reward.
Rice. The woman I'm watching is harvesting it in a rural village in China's Guangdong province. With swift strokes of her sickle, she cuts bundle after bundle of the rice stalks. The air is thick with humidity and the temperature is high. I'm sweating, and all I'm doing is standing, watching the woman do her backbreaking work, work that is just one step in the process that produces rice.
Southern China is where my parents--and the ancestors of my eleven traveling companions--were born. We are in China as part of the In Search of Roots genealogy program, a yearlong research project that includes a trip to Guangdong in July.
The farms, the villages, and the people of China are what the Roots interns are here to see. As part of the first generation to grow up with MTV and the Internet, the past of their parents and grandparents can be as alien as this rice paddy. Most of us don't speak any Cantonese, Guangdong's dialect, another hindrance to connecting with grandparents and other relatives who may not speak English.
Rice harvest