Tales from Fujian || A translation

"Tales From Fujian" has been a a journey to discover myself both as a person and as an artist. My family has been a source of inspiration and support for all my life. The track has become something personal to me over the course of summer 2018. I was able to sit down with my grandfather and mother to record a story that has been in my family and a deep part of my grandfather's identity. My grandfather is a hero to my family and I wanted learn about what made him the man he is today. The track is meant to capture the story as it is passed from generation to generation."

credits

released August 15, 2018 Natalie Stepaniak, artist and composer Tucker Johnson, album art

Saovaluk Sima-Aree and Chatchawan Sima-Aree, voice recordings

The Story of My Family “Tales from Fujian” a Translation

The sample of spoken word in the track is a recording of my mother and grandfather. I made this recording while visiting my grandparents in Thailand. This is a translation of the dialogue from Thai to English:

[0:00 - 2:12]

Mom: “Gui Siea.”

Grandpa: “Mmhm.”

Mom: “What does Gui Siea translate to?”

Grandpa: “In… in Umpur.”

Mom: “In Umpur… So, Gui Sea means in Umpur.” Grandpa: “Gui Siea means Umpur.” Mom: “Oh, so it means Umpur.”

Grandpa: “We went to stay with grandma’s (his stepmom) family. With her older brother. I couldn’t stay the year, so my uncle who wrote to me came to pick me up when I was fourteen years old. … When I was thirteen grandma…”

Mom: “Step grandma?”

Grandpa: “Step grandma, died.”

Mom: “Step grandma died when you were thirteen?”

Grandpa: “Mmhm. Thirteen in Chinese years. I moved to Chenghai when I was 1 fourteen. While I was there, I was able to go to school. I stayed there for about … four years.”

Mom: “You were eighteen when you left?”

Grandpa: “I was seventeen. I was eighteen when I actually left China.”

Mom: “Why did you think about leaving?”

Grandpa: “I wanted to go to continue going to school. What to you call that next year up?”

Mom: “High school.”

Grandpa: “I couldn’t stay there any longer. There were some friends saying not to stay.”

Mom: “Where would you go then?”

Grandpa: “They said not to stay in China! To go back to Thailand. The communists were—“

Mom: “But these friends didn’t have family there?”

Grandpa: “No they were all in Hong Kong.”

Mom: “And their parent’s told them to get out?”

Grandpa: “Get out or they won’t be able to go to school. They would only stay at their village and farm! And then their parents had to get them out of there. But, we didn’t want to go to school there. ”

Mom: “Were you protesting?”

Grandpa: “Close. We didn’t want to stay there any longer. So we had to leave.

Mom: “During this time China was communist?”

Grandpa: “Already communist. It wasn’t easy to get out of there.”

Mom: “Who did you ask to help you get out? Do you remember, dad?”

[…]

[2:55 - 3:44]

Mom: “And you saw grandpa pass away?”

Grandpa: “I did.”

Mom: “When you were sick yourself? Did you also have a fever?”

Grandpa: “I had a cold with a fever because we didn’t have any coats for the cold weather in September. It was beginning to get cold.”

Mom: “Was it in the autumn? When the leaves start falling?”

Grandpa: “Yes. And when I had to go fetch water, the wind was so cold my skin began to crack.”

Mom: “You didn’t have any socks at all, then.”

Grandpa: “My skin would crack… tsk.”

[…]

[5:55 - 6:47]

Grandpa: “They didn’t mess around.”

Mom: “They didn’t know how it was going to be in time, did they? They didn’t know how it was going to be for you.”

Grandpa: “They could have easily forgotten about me. Easily left me on my own.”

Mom: “But they were good people, weren’t they?”

Grandpa: “Very good, in deed. And grandma from Hong Kong was also a very good person. When it was the evening time like this, she would stew some beef, like a soup for me to eat.”

Mom: “Really? When you were in Hong Kong?”

Grandpa: “Right, when I was in Hong Kong. She would bring it very often.”

Mom: “Really?”

Grandpa: “Mmhm.”

Mom: “And you didn’t pay her back or give her anything in return?”

Grandpa: “And what money did I have to give her? Haha.”

Mom: “Then she must have been such a wonderful person.”

Grandpa: “She really was a good person to take me in. Both her and her son were good people.”

[…]

[8:17 - 9:34]

Grandpa: “Xi Jin Ping is a terrible person. He knew. And when he went into power he began to make things worse. Haha. Some political opponents died as a result. Six or seven of them.”

Mom: “But this is a true story, right? This isn’t some sort of set up?”

Grandpa: “It is a real story. Oh, they are evil.”

Mom: “Right? They even look like evil people. But Xi Jin is the most evil then.”

Grandpa: “His political opponents wouldn’t even dare speak out against him.”

Mom: “And right now one of them is in jail, right? What about Bo Su Lai? He got thrown in jail too.”

Grandpa: “Thrown in jail, just like the others. Just a waste. His son is in America trying to get his father out of there.”Mom: “He must be living off his parent’s money then…”

Grandpa: “Uhuh. I don’t want any more.”

Mom: “Okay.”

Grandpa: “I’m going upstairs to bed.”

Mom: “Then I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

Grandpa: “Mmhm. Tomorrow I’ll be eating breakfast at seven.”

Mom: “Alright, then.”

[End]

Grandfather’s Story

My mother recently began to look into the history of her family. She became interested in learning about her parents’ stories because she wanted to be a able to share their story with her children, me and my younger brother. My mother wrote about their story in English for me and my brother to learn about our family and our heritage. This is what she wrote.

“My dad took us to the little village where he grew up when I was 12 years old. It was hard for me to imagine him, a seven years, trying to survive in a hard situation. I always appreciate what he has been doing for us, his children, and now for his grandchildren. He is not a talkative person. He hardly expresses himself. He seldom talks about how he feels unless we ask. Even that he does not like talking about his childhood. It seems to me that he likes to keep things to himself. Over the course of writing this, I had to ask him a lot of questions. He would question why I asked about his past. I told him that I’d like to one day tell my children about him.

My father had a very difficult childhood. In 1948, at the age of 7, he was taken by his father to Fujian, China from his home in Bangkok, Thailand. My grandfather had two wives. He was first married to a woman in an arranged marriage in China before he immigrated to Thailand. His first wife did not bear him any children. He hoped to take my dad and give him to her to be her son (technically her stepson). Traditional Chinese culture values the son. He would be the one to carry the family name, care for elderly parents and also pay respect to his parents after life.

At that time in Thailand, many Chinese labor workers were addicted to opium. It was unfortunate that my grandfather was one of them. He intended to quit opium cold turkey by putting himself in a place where it would be hard for him to find opium. He went back to his village in Yong’An, Fujian.

After my dad and grandfather returned to China, after about a month, my grandfather passed from smoking counterfeit opium. My dad witnessed the death of his father, He left my dad, a seven year old, orphan, with his first wife who had no love for him at all. In his own words, it was always cold and the drought hit hard in his little village with the communist party controlling every little patch of land in China.

He lived at the mercy his stepmother’s pity. She would eat before my dad came into the house and whatever scraps of food were left (usually plain rice soup, with no rice in it, orsimply broth). He was living as a farmer boy. Though, he went to school, he had to do the

house chores and farming before going to school. I always thought it must be very hard

for him with the language barrier, and second being utterly alone in a rural village

In 1953 his stepmother died of starvation and illness (In my belief in Buddhism, I have

always believed it to be bad Karma for treating my dad so poorly). My dad was around 13

years old and moved to live with his stepmother’s brother in Yong’An for 1 year. Then he

moved to live with his uncle (his mother’s brother), in Chenghai, Shantou, Guangdong. He

really enjoyed going to school. He said he was good at history, and basketball. As a young

student, he dreamed of becoming a history teacher.

In 1958 when he turned 17 years old, he read about over-seas Chinese who lived in China

and were able to get out of China through Hong Kong. He asked his friends who had

parents working in Hong Kong at the time to be his sponsor. So he could stay in Hong Kong

before moving back to Thailand. One of his friends had a mother who worked as a maid to

a rich family in Hong Kong. She accepted my dad’s request to be his sponsor while he

stayed in Hong Kong. She gave him a place to stay during the night and brought him food.

Even though the food she gave him were left overs from her employers, it was much better

than plain rice and broth. He has been grateful to this day to his friend and his friend’s

mother. He even told me and my siblings to never forget this act of kindness from his

friend’s mother who actually was a stranger. She was the one who had given him a new life,

or we would have been in the tiny village in China. We also called his friend’s mother A-Ma

(grandmother).

During his stay in Hong Kong, he read about immigrating to Australia. He started reading

and studying the Chinese-English dictionary. He went to English class at night which

offered by the city of Hong Kong for a month while working during the day. He told his

mother that he wanted to move to Australia. But, his mother told him to go back to Thailand

first. Though, she never really want my dad to move to Australia. My grandmother was a

single mom, and worked hard. She sold charcoal in the streets to support her family. That

time in Thailand, every household used charcoal for cooking. Her business was good

enough to raise my dad and his siblings. She had to send money around 50 Hong Kong

Dollars per month to China for my dad during his stay for 10 years. She was a very strong

woman and I have so much respect for her, even though we had never been close.

My dad went back to Thailand after a year of living in Hong Kong. He was living freely and

worked with his mother about a year before the Thai government called on those who camefrom China to be in confinement for further investigation of his status. During that time in

Thailand, the Thai government was an American ally and anti-Communist. My dad had to

prove his origin of birth which, of course, is Thailand. My grandmother did not register any

of her children when they were born. All of them were born at home, with no midwife. (The

story of how she gave birth were gruesome scenes). So, my dad had no paper work to

prove that he is Thai. It took about a year before he was able to prove that he was born in

Thailand.

In this confinement, the office building of Special Branch Bureau (a police station in

Bangkok), he met his future wife, my mother. They were introduced to each other because

his mother went to visit him and met her relative, my mom’s grandmother. My parents are

third cousins. They have the same great-great grandparents. What a coincidence!

My dad never attended a Thai school. When he first came back to Thailand in 1959, he

could not read, write or speak Thai. He taught himself to read, write and speak Thai from his

brothers and friends. My dad has been working hard all his life. He is my hero.Whatever he was lacking during his childhood, he always tried his best to provide better opportunity for us. For him, the most important thing in life is education. He values education and always wants us to succeed.

To me, for a man who started out with nothing and presently having what my dad has achieved, is amazing and an inspiration."

- Written by Saovaluk Sima-Aree and edited by Natalie Stepaniak

Thank You

I want to take some time to say thank you to all the people that were involved with my

project. I am so humbled and grateful for the opportunity I had to record my grandfather and mother sitting together and talking. I learned so much about my family and appreciate them even more than I have before. This was a journey of looking into myself to find my identity and why I choose to make music.

My family has always been a great source of support in my life and I understand that not every artist has that relationship with their own families. They have always been there for me to support me and my work. I don’t know how far I would have made it if my mom didn’t support my art. I really appreciate her sharing such a personal part of her identity and story with me. She’s been such a strong woman in my life and I will be happy if I become just a fraction of who she is to me.

My peers are amazing people and it’s difficult to find such a supportive community in as competitive of a field as music. They have leant me their knowledge, their experience, and their support. I want to thank the Creative Music Intensive at Arts Letters and Numbers. The summer of 2018 was a summer fraught with grappling with my identity as an artist. The community of musicians and performing artists really have pushed me to new heights. I only hope to give as much as all of you have to music.