Taizhou, March 3 (Zhongxin Net) -- "Sister, welcome you back to your hometown, your family misses you very much. How is the whole family? In Nantang Village, Jiheng Town, Wenling City, Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, several elderly people hugged each other tightly with tears in their eyes. The above is the scene when Zhang Xiangjuan, a Taiwanese compatriot from Wenling, recognized her relatives in front of her cousin Zhang Guanfu's house.
It is a tradition of Chinese to be cautious and pursue the distance, and worshipping ancestors on Qingming Festival is a common custom of compatriots on both sides of the strait. On the eve of the Qingming Festival in 2023, Sheng Hanwei, a Taiwan compatriot of Taiwan Dachen nationality, president of the Youth Taiwan Chamber of Commerce of the Taiwan Association of Taiwan and deputy supervisor of the Ningbo Taiwan Business Association, and a group of 6 people arrived in Nantang Village to carry out activities to find roots and find relatives and worship ancestors.
Zhang Xiangjuan (second from right) with her relatives. Photo courtesy of Wenling Taiwan Affairs Office
"Dad, Mom, I'm back to our hometown now. I miss you very much and will definitely fulfill your wish to find your relatives. Talking about her deceased relatives, Zhang Xiangjuan's eyes were red. She said that she did not expect that the Taiwan affairs offices at the Taizhou and Wenling levels were so efficient in searching for relatives, and it didn't take long to help her find relatives in her hometown.
It turned out that on November 2022, 11, the Wenling Municipal Taiwan Affairs Office received a letter from Taiwan compatriot Zhang Fuhua (Zhang Xiangjuan's brother), hoping to find relatives in the mainland. According to the information he provided, the Wenling Municipal Taiwan Affairs Office immediately contacted relevant departments to integrate local resources, and helped them find their relatives in less than 2 hours.
On this trip back to their hometown, Zhang Xiangjuan and her husband Sheng Mingyou visited some relatives and friends of the elders, and went to the Global Geopark and National Scenic Area Changyu Dongtian for sightseeing. Afterwards, they took a ship to their birthplace, Dachen Island, to deeply feel the new face of the economic and social development of their hometown through personal experience and camera recording.
"We have been looking for our relatives for many years, and we have never given up." Sheng Hanwei said that he has been going to the mainland to start a business for more than 20 years, and in his childhood memories, his grandfather's authentic Wenling dialect can always evoke his infinite reverie across the strait.
Sheng Hanwei recalled that when he told his grandfather the news of starting a business in Ningbo, his grandfather was very happy, feeling that he was "returning to his roots" and returning to his hometown.
The return of Taiwan compatriots to their hometowns to seek their roots and worship their ancestors shows the most basic fact -- compatriots on both sides of the strait share the same roots, the same language, and the same race, and are a family linked by blood, and their common national and cultural identity is innate, and they can withstand the storms of the years, and no one or any strength can change them.
The relevant person in charge of the Wenling City Taiwan Affairs Office said that the local government is willing to actively create conditions and provide all kinds of assistance for Taiwan compatriots to return to their hometowns to find their roots and relatives, and also welcomes the vast number of Taiwan compatriots, especially young friends, to return to their ancestral hometowns to take a walk and take a look, understand family history, and feel the roots of their souls. (End)