Woman shifts to China, gets shocked to discover family’s writing legacy

A reporter, who was based in California, moved to Beijing. One day, she found a bunch of well-preserved letters in her parents' garage and learnt about her family's legacy as writers in China.

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Do you love reading old letters? This story will fill your heart with glee. (Source: Thinkstock Images)

With instant messaging on our smartphones, jotting down letters seems to be a thing of past. Even though it has made our lives easier, the old world charm is lost. So when Te-Ping Chen found a bunch of well-preserved letters in her parents’ garage in China, she couldn’t resist reading them. Chen, who had spent all her life growing up in Oakland, California, had to shift her base to Beijing in the year 2014 to work as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal.

Unaware of her family history or anyone in the country, Chen never expected that her decision would lead to a huge revelation about her family history. In a Twitter thread, Chen shared the entire journey of her discovery and how delighted she was to know about her family’s writing legacy in the country.

Read the Twitter thread here.

1/ I wanted to share a story about something kind of wonderful that happened yesterday. Backstory: I grew up in Oakland, Calif., not knowing really anything about my mother’s family — she was an only child (born in NYC) & my grandparents died before I was born.

— Te-Ping Chen (@tepingchen) April 2, 2018

2/ I moved to Beijing in 2014 to work as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. At the time all I knew dimly was that my great-grandmother was supposedly from here & had apparently lived in a traditional courtyard home. Not much to go on.

— Te-Ping Chen (@tepingchen) April 2, 2018

3/ This Feb., I was back home helping my parents clean out the garage. In one corner, piled with old boxes and other detritus, was a trunk full of old clothes, furs & a cache of letters written by my great-grandmother (L) to my grandmother (R) from the 1930s to the 1950s. pic.twitter.com/kRDpjpiMze

— Te-Ping Chen (@tepingchen) April 2, 2018

4/ The letters are delightful, containing details about ice-skating in Beihai, the price of cabbage and electricity & changing fashions. Also talks about her husband’s obsession with poetry — he’d written hundreds of verses, she says. pic.twitter.com/Fymqtic8Bg

— Te-Ping Chen (@tepingchen) April 2, 2018

5/ The envelopes had an address, 57 Shijia Hutong. Astonishingly, given the vast majority of Beijing hutongs have been destroyed, not only does it still exist, but it’s one of the city’s best-preserved. pic.twitter.com/1GgSW7AxCx

— Te-Ping Chen (@tepingchen) April 2, 2018

6/ I went yesterday for the first time. It’s just over a mile from where I live now, have biked by many times without knowing. There’s a museum there that catalogues the lives of past residents, including artists and writers such as Ling Shuhua. pic.twitter.com/qC7TQn0F9y

— Te-Ping Chen (@tepingchen) April 2, 2018

7/ The museum is small & didn’t yield much, but one of the staffers had a book she shared. It had an address-by-address breakdown, including a section on my great-grandparents, whose Chinese names I’d literally never known. They are 梁秋水 and 罗红庄.

— Te-Ping Chen (@tepingchen) April 2, 2018

8/ As it turns out, my great-grandfather Liang Chiu-shui was one of China’s earliest newspapermen, a journalist w/the English-language 北京导报, or Peking Leader. He wrote poems including 冀东兄弟行, about brothers on opposite sides of the civil war who meet on the battlefield.

— Te-Ping Chen (@tepingchen) April 2, 2018

9/ According to the book, Woon Kyau Lo studied in Honolulu (which explains the English letters). Based on the tone of her writing, she was warm, critical & funny in the way so many Beijingers are — the voice sounds very familiar today, even nearly a century later.

— Te-Ping Chen (@tepingchen) April 2, 2018

10/ Still so many questions. I’d like to know where they’re buried and learn more about their lives (& read Liang’s poetry!). And I would love to meet any relatives. But for the moment, in a city where so much history has been obliterated, very grateful for what’s been preserved.

— Te-Ping Chen (@tepingchen) April 2, 2018

11/ PS: the letters mention two books of my great-grandfather’s poetry were being safeguarded by neighbors for family in America, one by “Miss Tsui’s No. 2 Sister” and a “Miss Yu.” Not surprisingly, so far no luck trying to track them down, but am continuing to ask around… pic.twitter.com/XHeok6JZn9

— Te-Ping Chen (@tepingchen) April 2, 2018

It looks like Chen had visited this place to find beautiful “secrets” of her family. Isn’t it amazing? Share your thoughts in the comments below.