Peasant roots

This is my (extended) family in our ancestral village. We were Chinese peasants. I was literally born on the streets. China was poor in the 1970s. I nearly died because of bad health conditions as a toddler.

My family immigrated to Canada 43 years ago today (17 April 1979). We are not a “tiger family”. No one in my extended family went to university (other than me). None of us played musical instruments or had tutors. None of us are doctors or engineers. I was arrested twice as a teenager and mostly raised myself. We were part of the Cantonese immigrant underclass in Canada.

Although I left the village decades ago, I still have many vivid memories of it, including the day that my hamlet got its first (communal) black & white TV. The world has changed a lot in the four decades since my family emigrated from our country of birth. China is now prosperous and I live a privileged life crisscrossing the world. Nevertheless, the village – now a part of greater Guangzhou — remains basic and a throwback to a bygone era, a reminder that development is neither uniform nor universal.