My Root

I wanted to write this topics from 2 years ago since I read the book The Root in Myanmar version. This book was written about the slavery system in US and one black man managed to find his root by asking his ancestors and by doing research on that area.
I always wanted to know where did I come from. The book "Yu Pa Nan Di" by Shwe U Daung also inspired me a lot to find out my roots. . In that book, the man know his ancestors since from the buddha age. The way to keep the list of names is quite simple. Each generation has to write down their family list and hand over to the next generation. Author Shwe U Daung claimed himself that he knows his ancestors from 4 generations ago.
How about me? How far I could know about my ancestors other than my grandparents. My grandparents from my father side are still a live. According to my father, my grandma was born in Yangon and migrate to Mandalay after she married to my grand pa. I don't have any information of my great grand parents from my grandma side except two photos at our Mandalay home. My grandma told us that those photos are our great grand parents and she always asked to worship them yearly as our Chinese tradition. The things made me feel more excited is how did they come to Myanmar from China from 100 years ago, Why did they leave their place, What are the things they left at China, Are there any relatives of them still staying at China, is there anybody whose face is look alike us, had they ever thought of leaving the generations . I have so many thoughts and questions in my head whenever I looked at their photos. They must have faced a lot of difficulties when they migrated from China. Eventually they made it. They managed to build up a successful family.
My grand pa from my father is considered as a pioneer within his family. We were told that he came alone from China to Myanmar when he was at 16. He was supposed to come to Singapore first and join to his other relatives in Singapore. But for some visa issues, he was not allowed to enter Singapore, then he took the same ship and landed at Yangon. There are still his relatives in Singapore and he had lost contact with them for so many years. I don't know how did he survive at his early days in Yangon. I have tried to put myself into his shoes when I come and work at Singapore alone. But I couldn't really think of how he manage to get success life in Myanmar despite of different language and different culture. He often say proudly that he build his current house with only 60000 kyats at 1960.
From my mother side, my grand pa passed away 5 years before we were born. His name is U Saw Phae and believe in Christ. The reason how his whole family became Christian is quite interesting. His father is pure Burmese and lived near Shwe Bo region. But his mother's race is not very clear. One of my aunt mentioned that his mother is mix of Thai and Burmese. I could guess by looking at my grand pa's photo. His face doesn't look like pure Burmese, fair complexion, straight Jaw and long,big nose. Their whole family changed their religion from Buddhist to Christian when the Christian commissioner come into Myanmar after Myanmar lost it's independence. At that time, everybody was suffered of poverty and no family can feed their family member very well. So Christian commissioner managed to convince a lot of Myanmar family easily to change to Christian by giving the support to them.
His wife, my grandma is also not the pure Burmese. Her race is Da Nu, a member of Shan ethinic. I also have no information how my grandpa and grandma met and happen to marry. But I guess their marriage could be engaged marriage by my grandma's guardian. My grandma's parents were dead since she was a kid and she has to stay with one of the relative until she married. Her sister has delivered twins and my mother inherit that genetic. My grandma stay with us until she die at her 92. When she was a live, she told her experience during the second world war. Amazingly she remembered almost all the people names. She also used to tell us about my grand pa's siblings. But I noticed that she didn't tell too much about our grand pa.
In fact I don't feel satisfy of myself for collecting informations about my ancestors. I should have more informations by asking my grandparents when they are alive. I still have chance to ask my Chinese grandparents and I believe they will be very happy of talking about their life experience and their relatives.
My grand parents from both side and great great grand parents have left our generation. . When I think of finishing this topic, I have only one question in my mind. From 100 years on now, there will be another generation from me and my brothers. Will they talk about us? Will they ask somebody about us? Will they curious about us? Will they speak the language as we speak now?
As my great grand parents never thought of these questions but they did what they are supposed to do. So I might be so curious of those questions although I am not supposed to be able to know. Anyway, I will be doing what I should be doing.