Family House / Fung Toy High School
An article written by Yen Ock Yee
The family is the most important thing in Chinese culture. Each family has to take care of their own well being.
Since we lived so close to each other in the village, we all pitched in when we had any project to do. We have
a saying, “Those with money will give money and those less fortune, with no money to give, if they are physically able will provide labor.” That’s how we did things in China. As a family’s population grew to more than a few villages after few generations, families needed a “Family House” to gather together.
If wealthy families wanted to honor a grandfather of few generations back, they built a beautiful Family House,
for meetings to discuss family affairs and for other events. One would be a date after the New Year with everybody on hand to worship and honor this grandfather. They would have a whole steamed pig with many other goodies for offering, and after all the celebrating was done; somebody would cut up the pig into small pieces and divide them amongst all the male members of the families. Sorry girls, you have no part in this, but you can wait for your brother around a corner and with nobody around, you can carve a few pieces of fresh cooked pork to enjoy with your brother. Mm-mm good!
The day of celebration is a very serious day for many elders, as they would have a meeting to determine who would run the family’s affairs this year and check the books. Questions were asked; arguments followed, and you would hear them yelling at each other; but things would eventually smooth out in time for the celebration. Some wealthy families would have a little fun with the older men. They were allowed to take as much meat they could carry over the (threshold) barrier at the entrance door. The doorway on a traditional Chinese house is built with a barrier threshold, so when the devils try to get in the house, they would stumble over the barrier. They would build that barrier over a foot high in a big Family House. It was hard for an old man to raise one foot high enough to cross over to the other side. If an old man could carry all he could and walk, run, or stumble over the barrier, his family members could catch what he had in his hands before he crossed over to the other side. They had nice name for this activity and the best I can translate it as “stumble cross over meat”. They had a very nice way of distribution. They would have all the names of the head of a household and the number of male members. When a name was called, a member of his family would get their shares. Many times a little boy with a basket in hand didn’t hear the call or forgot his father’s married name. You would hear some older cousin from their village yell out, “Hey little Joe, that was your father’s name, come up and get you share.” If little Joe had five or six brothers, he would have a basket full of meat.
Many Family Houses were built during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some were built big enough to
become a school house; and that was the result of the effort of many Gold Mountain sojourners. When those
coolies of our grandfather’s generation came over and saw the progressive Western civilization, they started to think about how and what we can we do to improve our mother country. Most of them thought, “We have to get rid of the empery system and educate our youth.”
We built the biggest Family House to honor our revered grandfather, Yee Jing in Tri-City Dihai in the early 20th
century. It was built with the money from the Gum San sojourners and the help of all the clans from all over the
Province of Guangdong. The project was so grand it took many years to complete. On the opening day celebration all the outdoor lanterns were lit up in all the Yee villages. Many Yee cousins came from many places for celebration on the opening day. Our grandfather, Ben Chong, was among the few who came in from San Francisco. Travel was difficult in those days as they didn’t have the luxury of a Boeing 747. It just shows how much enthusiasm he had about the house.
In its history, it was a grade school first and later became Fung Toy High School. After one hundred years of rain and wind, natural wear and tear; weathering the destruction from the Japanese occupational during the war; and even damage caused by our own people in the Cultural Revolution, it survived. The place was deteriorated and could fall down one day, so some thing needed to be done. One day in 2002, the mayor of Hoi Ping (Kaiping) was on a visit to Phoenix, Arizona. He was talking to our cousin, John M. Yee about the condition of our Family House. John asked the mayor if we tried to restore the building, can we get cooperation from the city? The answer was yes. It was a short conversation but the idea of rebuilding the Yee Jing Family House was born.
John M. Yee was an alumnus of the Fung Toy High School. He had donated lots of money to the school and he
wanted to build a new arch for it. It was in 2004 when he had many discussions about building the arch with the school principal. He asked the principal to have further contact with the city government for assurances that we had the cooperation of the new mayor in rebuilding the Family House.
In the meantime, John M. Yee had talked with many elders both in USA and Canada. They all supported the project.
John M. Yee proposed this project to the World Yee Convention meeting in November and was enthusiastically
accepted by the Hong Kong delegates. Three subcommittees were formed to study the project. They were the World, Hong Kong and Hoi Ping. It was the Hong Kong and Hoi Ping subcommittees who did all the work as they had to manage the cost and construction. They had to consult with engineers and experts in different areas. It took five years to complete this project culminating in a big celebration on March 28, 2010. From the pictures that I saw on the Fung Toy Monthly, the results are beautiful. I take my hat off to all the members of the subcommittees. You did a marvelous job. It was lots of hard work and all Yee family members are grateful for a job well done.
The whole project cost more than five million Hong Kong dollars (HKD). It was John M. Yee who rallied all the people in North America to donate more than one million HKD. His phone call to many cousins and friends did the trick; he and his wife alone donated $100,000 HKD. Our Yee family is lucky and proud to have a cousin like you; we will remember you always; because you are our hero.
Copyright 2011 - Yee Fung Toy Association of Detroit, MI
The family is the most important thing in Chinese culture. Each family has to take care of their own well being.
Since we lived so close to each other in the village, we all pitched in when we had any project to do. We have
a saying, “Those with money will give money and those less fortune, with no money to give, if they are physically able will provide labor.” That’s how we did things in China. As a family’s population grew to more than a few villages after few generations, families needed a “Family House” to gather together.
If wealthy families wanted to honor a grandfather of few generations back, they built a beautiful Family House,
for meetings to discuss family affairs and for other events. One would be a date after the New Year with everybody on hand to worship and honor this grandfather. They would have a whole steamed pig with many other goodies for offering, and after all the celebrating was done; somebody would cut up the pig into small pieces and divide them amongst all the male members of the families. Sorry girls, you have no part in this, but you can wait for your brother around a corner and with nobody around, you can carve a few pieces of fresh cooked pork to enjoy with your brother. Mm-mm good!
The day of celebration is a very serious day for many elders, as they would have a meeting to determine who would run the family’s affairs this year and check the books. Questions were asked; arguments followed, and you would hear them yelling at each other; but things would eventually smooth out in time for the celebration. Some wealthy families would have a little fun with the older men. They were allowed to take as much meat they could carry over the (threshold) barrier at the entrance door. The doorway on a traditional Chinese house is built with a barrier threshold, so when the devils try to get in the house, they would stumble over the barrier. They would build that barrier over a foot high in a big Family House. It was hard for an old man to raise one foot high enough to cross over to the other side. If an old man could carry all he could and walk, run, or stumble over the barrier, his family members could catch what he had in his hands before he crossed over to the other side. They had nice name for this activity and the best I can translate it as “stumble cross over meat”. They had a very nice way of distribution. They would have all the names of the head of a household and the number of male members. When a name was called, a member of his family would get their shares. Many times a little boy with a basket in hand didn’t hear the call or forgot his father’s married name. You would hear some older cousin from their village yell out, “Hey little Joe, that was your father’s name, come up and get you share.” If little Joe had five or six brothers, he would have a basket full of meat.
Many Family Houses were built during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some were built big enough to
become a school house; and that was the result of the effort of many Gold Mountain sojourners. When those
coolies of our grandfather’s generation came over and saw the progressive Western civilization, they started to think about how and what we can we do to improve our mother country. Most of them thought, “We have to get rid of the empery system and educate our youth.”
We built the biggest Family House to honor our revered grandfather, Yee Jing in Tri-City Dihai in the early 20th
century. It was built with the money from the Gum San sojourners and the help of all the clans from all over the
Province of Guangdong. The project was so grand it took many years to complete. On the opening day celebration all the outdoor lanterns were lit up in all the Yee villages. Many Yee cousins came from many places for celebration on the opening day. Our grandfather, Ben Chong, was among the few who came in from San Francisco. Travel was difficult in those days as they didn’t have the luxury of a Boeing 747. It just shows how much enthusiasm he had about the house.
In its history, it was a grade school first and later became Fung Toy High School. After one hundred years of rain and wind, natural wear and tear; weathering the destruction from the Japanese occupational during the war; and even damage caused by our own people in the Cultural Revolution, it survived. The place was deteriorated and could fall down one day, so some thing needed to be done. One day in 2002, the mayor of Hoi Ping (Kaiping) was on a visit to Phoenix, Arizona. He was talking to our cousin, John M. Yee about the condition of our Family House. John asked the mayor if we tried to restore the building, can we get cooperation from the city? The answer was yes. It was a short conversation but the idea of rebuilding the Yee Jing Family House was born.
John M. Yee was an alumnus of the Fung Toy High School. He had donated lots of money to the school and he
wanted to build a new arch for it. It was in 2004 when he had many discussions about building the arch with the school principal. He asked the principal to have further contact with the city government for assurances that we had the cooperation of the new mayor in rebuilding the Family House.
In the meantime, John M. Yee had talked with many elders both in USA and Canada. They all supported the project.
John M. Yee proposed this project to the World Yee Convention meeting in November and was enthusiastically
accepted by the Hong Kong delegates. Three subcommittees were formed to study the project. They were the World, Hong Kong and Hoi Ping. It was the Hong Kong and Hoi Ping subcommittees who did all the work as they had to manage the cost and construction. They had to consult with engineers and experts in different areas. It took five years to complete this project culminating in a big celebration on March 28, 2010. From the pictures that I saw on the Fung Toy Monthly, the results are beautiful. I take my hat off to all the members of the subcommittees. You did a marvelous job. It was lots of hard work and all Yee family members are grateful for a job well done.
The whole project cost more than five million Hong Kong dollars (HKD). It was John M. Yee who rallied all the people in North America to donate more than one million HKD. His phone call to many cousins and friends did the trick; he and his wife alone donated $100,000 HKD. Our Yee family is lucky and proud to have a cousin like you; we will remember you always; because you are our hero.
Copyright 2011 - Yee Fung Toy Association of Detroit, MI