To Southeast Asia

Life is a gamble. Every decision or bet that we make can be risky to our future. Even so, we must work in great efforts in order to change our life, especially when adversity strikes. As a matter of fact, Chinese people who suffered from wars, poverty, and hunger, were like trapped wolves may risk any chances to fight for survival. Therefore, when the labor boom rose from Southeast Asia and passed down to China, it dragged the hopeless people into madness and eager to travel to those European colonized countries to seek a better life. Despite of how the labor boom might have changed other people’s lives, it significantly affected my family because that was where my family history began.

From my grandfather’s memory, his father was the first man in the village who went to work for a European colony in Southeast Asia in 1925. My great-grandfather who knew practically nothing but farming, had three young children, not counting those that passed away because of food shortages. There was never enough of food to share, even the seeds were limited. Consequently, when the news that European colonies in Southeast Asia was offering good pay for labor, he, without a doubt, stood up immediately and joined. Unlike in his hometown, working in the foreign land paid good money, provided enough food, and even offered plenty of farming land. That was unbelievably attractive to a man who was always wanted to be wealthy and be a landlord. He, along with other thirsty dreamers thought that many people joined the workforce and there must be plenty goods in return. In fact, they never realized what would really be waiting for them. As the saying goes, “Six out of ten died, three stayed and only one returned.”

My grandfather, who was the youngest son of my great-grandfather’s new family in Indonesia, knew only a little about his family. At that time, there were many Chinese laborers that settled down and got married or remarried because it was the only way they granted their identity as legal residents and allowed for reentry into the country. In addition, children were required a birth certificate which served as a travel passport. My grandfather was four years old when his father took him back to China to visit the “first wife” who was very sick. That was the first time he traveled away from home and the last time that he saw his mother. So that she would save her husband and presumably revenge to her husband’s betrayal, the “first wife” burnt away my grandfather’s birth certificate. Without this document meant that he would never be able to return to Indonesia again. Moreover, he totally lost contact with his mother when his father got sick and died shortly after. At a young age, my grandfather could barely understand the great distance from China to Indonesia. And his only thought of his mother was a person who feed him food. Eventually, he did not know where his mother was and could no longer remember his mother’s face.

My family, including myself, my mother, even uncles aren’t really sure about our family history. These are incomplete stories that have only half been told. Then, I sometimes thought that I might have a foreign trait in my blood, because my grandfather’s high nose bridge and medium brown hair was from his foreign mother. As I was always one of the listeners to my grandpa’s story-telling, I noticed that he rarely talked about his early life or his mother, and I was afraid to ask. I was afraid my curiosity would make him recall any sad moments of his childhood. My mother once replied to me that grandpa was too little to understand and no longer remember what happened. Therefore, as my grandfather passed away years ago, these stories remained broken in pieces.

The gold rush had given Chinese families hope and the labor boom likewise provided sensational opportunities for the hopeless people in China to fight for a better future. As in my family, this event was a dramatic turning point that made my family unique compared to the others at the time. However, it also affected my family that it left behind a blank section of memory of the family history. Although my great-grandfather had not become wealthy, he brought us a precious memory even incomplete, and a family extended from Indonesia to China. More important, I should keep a family history book which I can share with my children in the future, in memorial of where our family came from.