Day 3 of our trip took us to Fo Shan or, in cantonese, 'Fatt Shan", another ancient Chinese city, famous for being the hometown of "Wong Fei Hung" and other kung fu masters like Ip Man, thekung fu master of Bruce Lee, who by the way was born in Shunde and trained with Master Ip Man in Fo Shan......
We started the morning with a good 'yam cha' breakfast hosted by yet another distant cousin and nephew at the Crowne Plaza Hotel (huge and impressive place). It was a most enjoyable dim sum meal - we love the 'black sesame paste' pau......
..after breakfast we were whisked off to the hair salon owned by the nephew's wife. Everyone had their 'extreme make-over' done and came out looking years younger......so they say!
After that was the "must go" trip to the 1000 year old temple complex to see the museums showing Wong Fei Hung, Ip Man and Bruce Lee exhibits.......so much history, great architecture and very interesting.......
After that, came another round of 'house visit' to yet another distant cousin's house - in the 'Loa Chun' village again..... It's never boring, especially when you look out for interesting aspects of the Chinese way of life......like
- every house in the village will made use of whatever available land next to it to grow vegetables and fruit trees to ensure a constant supply of FOC greens.....
- every house has the ubiquitous display of door gods, couplets and what not..........
- most houses will have their own well to ensure a constant supply of FOC water (no PUB bills...)
- every village house will have a living room, complete with the "must have" family alter.....
- when you come visiting, you will be offered lots of goodies piled onto the table - apples, mandarin oranges, longans, sweets, melon seeds and ...........always, their favourite - 'carrot and chestnut drink'.........
- dinner time for the kids means sitting outside on makeshift stools and 'table' with one bowl of rice and whatever is available for that day.........
No wonder xiao di is having a headache....or is he thinking of a McDonalds meal....?
- after dinner, it's school homework by the table lamp.........and they do study hard (with no tuition.....)
Later that night, we were hosted to dinner by the 'Loa Chun' set of relatives.....again, there were too much food and drinks and we ended up having to 'ta pau' again.....
After the dinner, we went to yet another 'house visit', another distant cousin.....I lost count already.....
Good thing that was the last of the 'house visits'.......we went back to the hotel and collasped onto our beds. Only to wake up at 6.00 am to go to the bus terminal to catch the coach to Baiyun Airport in Guangzhou...........
All in all, a most interesting trip - fast paced, tiring but enjoyable. It was great to see how happy everyone was to be able to re-establish family ties and to feel the genuine and warm kinship that the trip had generated.
Time for dinner and each table had their ample servings of nasi lemak with crispy chicken, egg, ikan bilis, etc. The nasi lemak dinner was specially catered by 'Madam Tan's Nasi Lemak' from Maxwell Market and everyone gave their 'thumbs up' for the delicious meal.
