Which Generation Are You?
For the Guan clan (关氏, Guān shì), the answer lies in a 32-character generation poem (字辈诗, zìbèi shī) — a naming system carried across the Pacific, preserved across seven centuries, and shared by every branch of the family from San Francisco to Singapore to Sydney. Unlike a family tree, the poem…
Genealogy
For over 150 years, the Wuyi region (五邑, Wǔyì) of southern Guangdong — the five counties of Taishan, Kaiping, Xinhui, Enping, and Heshan — has sent more overseas Chinese across the Pacific than any other place on earth. Today their descendants number in the millions, scattered across North America, Southeast Asia, Australia, and Latin America.…
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The Zhang Surname: From Bow Makers to Gold Mountain — A Taishan Clan's Global Journey
Every surname is a held breath. Before it is a census statistic or a genealogy entry, a name is a story waiting to be released. The character 张 (Zhāng) means "to draw a bow" — to pull back, to…