Note: Natalia Perez is a Chinese girl of third generation in Costa Rica, Central America. In the middle of this June, she paid a visit to Guangdong, the southern province of China where her grand-parents came from, with the delegation of Chinese youth from Central America. It¡¯s her first trip to China and to her ancestral village in Enping, Guangdong.  She enjoys and cherishes the experience very much.You could find and share her excitement from the message she wrote here below.

Visiting China was not anything of I was expecting. It was much better. This trip gave me a better unsderstanding of family traditions. I could realize how hard was for my grandmother and my grandfather to adopt  another language, another country, another way of living in the continuos searching of a better life for us.

As Napoleon once said: China is an asleep giant. China is now awake and all the world is knowing its greatness. Commercial exchange that took place in Guangdong, Shanghai and Hong Kong makes me confirm how great is the Chinese people. The keeping of customs and philosophy of thousands of years shows an unified and proud China that will expand its heritage around the world.

Thanks to all of you I had the possibility of meeting my family for the very first time. That means that my family on masculine line was finally together and my ancestors souls can rest in peace now.

Right now I only can say thank you very much for showing me the country of my ancestors, the things that Marco Polo once wrote, the land of my family heart. All the things that I have heard from my grandparents and now I have seen with my own eyes make me more proud every day for being a Chinese descendant, an overseas Chinese that has returned home, to discover my family, my past, my roots.

Natalia Perez

Costa Rica

Editor: Jiuion                                                                 Source: OCAG