Digging up the family roots

Ethnic Chinese from overseas are traveling to China in search of their history, but while the trips can provide a sense of closure, they can also lead to disappointment and dismay, as Zhao Xu reports.

William Fong, a historian and third-generation Chinese-Canadian, felt he'd completed the thousands of kilometers covered by his grandparents during a four-week ocean voyage, not at the end of a 10-hour flight, but with the first whiff of steamed fish, the signature dish of a particular part of Guangdong province in South China.

"Both my paternal and maternal grandparents left their home in Guangdong for Canada at the end of the 19th century. Born in Canada, I grew up with my ultraconservative paternal grandfather, who maintained his allegiance to the fallen empire of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) until the end of his life, and my grandmother, who made sure I knew how steamed fish tastes," Fong said.