Fujian village prepares for return of one of their own

ZHANGZHOU, Fujian - Residents of a village in eastern China's Fujian province are expecting the arrival of Philippine President Benigno S. Aquino III, who is on a state visit to China and will visit his ancestral home on Saturday.

Hongjian village in Fujian's Zhangzhou city is believed to be the hometown of Aquino's Chinese ancestors when - more than two decades ago - his mother, the late Philippine former president Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino, traced her roots there and said she was a daughter of the village.

Corazon was a fourth-generation Filipino-Chinese descended from Xu Yuhuan, a Chinese immigrant from Hongjian village who settled in the Philippines in the 1860s.