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  Wong Shin Chiang and Pang Len Yin's Children

She spoke Hakka not Mandarin as 100 years ago during China's 'Old Society' there is no such 'Mandarin' like the Chinese are using today. Mandarin was only used as 'Official Language' in Beijing.

I do not know much about her school days, what she learned in school. But around 1971-1972 in her house in Taman Luyang, Malaysia while during a casual Chet  about 'Kiu Sie' 舊時 she mentioned very briefly her school days.

"........ Dekget muksu gao nai tan-kim.................." 德國牧師教我弹琴.

But I could not remember precisely whether it was a 鋼琴 or a 風琴.

A few names Phang Len Yin often mentioned :

骆润牧师

蘇佐洋牧師

Pang Len Yin visited her youngest brother Pang Vui Siong  for the first time in London

7th Sept 1973

LANCASTER HALL HOTEL
35 CRAVEN TERRACE, LONDON W2 3EL, UK

Left to Right:
Tet xxxxx (son of Vui Siong), Tet  ???, Pang Vui Chau, Wan Set Fui, Pang Len Yin, Pang Su-Fui, Pang Vui Siong.

Pang Vui Siong owned a small restaurent in London. Wikipedia stated that "...Most of the Chinese restaurants in the United Kingdom are Hakka owned..." .

Pang Len Yin's trip to USA - Phoenix, USA 1973

 

It was 1973 that Pang Len Yin took  her first ever trip to the west to meet her migrated brothers. She traveled with her elder brother Pang Vui Chau..

......In the year 1964 school holiday  Grandma Phang Lien Yin brought me and Fook Foong to Beaufort for a few day visit to Wong Shui Hiong family. On the returned train journey from Beaufort  a big green grass hopper cling on the grass window panel as the train travel.  Grandma noticed the present of this grasshopper and stared to it constantly.  I was a curious child then and mentioned the insect to her and point to it. She smiled in return and told me not to disturbed it and said something like ".......Nam Suk-Gong jon lok................Nam Sok-Gong gen na-dau jon...." (Granduncle Nam returned home......Granduncle Nam follow us home...... .)

"Uncle Nam returned home......." is a familiar notation when I stayed with her as she mentioned the same thing a few other times in different occasions.  Uncle Nam is Wong Kee Nam who passed a way several years  before and whom I never met.       What has this big green grasshopper any thing to do with Uncle Nam returning to home ?.......

After more than 40 years, a more convincing answer was given to me (by National Geographic) : Traditional Chinese believe 3 places a human will go after dead : 1) Heaven 2) Hell and 3) Return to this world as a animal or insect.

There was really a big green grasshopper whom Grandma said wanted to follow us the long rail journey home though it did not made the final part to the wooden house where we lived and where Nam Suk-Gong often came to play Ma-Jiong.

Those days, in 1964, when Chinese tradition thinking was still strong, perhaps Grandmother really shown feeling to that green grasshopper as this little creature could be Uncle Nam wanted to ".......Return to this world as a animal or insect........."

(There is a program in Astro -25th February 2008 National Geographic Channel (10:00 to 11:00 PM) 'SPIRIT TALK' )

Phang Len Yin (my grandmother) was born in 1889, about 20 years after the boxer revolution 太平天国（1851年－1864年).  Her parents (my great grandparents)  were born during the boxer revolution.

After the fall, many leaders and followers of the Boxer Rebellion look toward the West for guidance and enlightenment.  These including learning scientific knowledge and seeking spiritual (Christian) inspiration.

Only 2 years ago,  I found out that  my great grandfather (my grand mother's father) was a priest of the Basel Church.  His name sound like "Pang See Loong"

Search : Theodore Hamberg

On 13 October 2007, some one from Kuala Lumpur typed "Theodore Hamberg" in the search box. Among the 16,000 results Google returned is a page written by me titled 'Pang Lien Yin', my grand mother...

Theodore Hamberg is not related to the Wong family, then what link between "Theodore Hamberg" and "Pang Lien Yin" ?...

It was while I was primary 5 or 6 that one afternoon Pang Lien Yin Grandmother shown me, for only several seconds, an old thick small hard cover exercise book and told me that this is a HAKKA DICTIONARY hand written (hand copied) by my grandfather in Jesselton (now Kota Kinabalu).  What she wanted to show me was the neat and beautiful hand writing, using Chinese brush and ink, of my grandfather as a proof to me that grand father can 'write'...

It was this 'HAKKA DICTIONARY' that was closely linked to "Theodore Hamberg", a name she never mentioned and probable she never ever knew such a person exist...

It was in 1965/1966 that one day Phang Lien Yin, my grandma opened took a small but thick booklet to show me. I remember pieces of what she said to me "......your Ah Kung (Grandfather) copy by hand..........copy little by little......good handwriting......using Roman's Words to pronouns Hakka...........German Priest..............."

That book was a glossary of Hakka words with Chinese characters follow by  English alphabet to pronounce it.   The whole book was hand written in neat hand writing.  In those day printed books were few and expensive. Copying a book is common in those.  (A late as my secondary days in the 1966-1970, we spend a lot of class period copying note from blackboard)

40 over years later, as I search in Google in the Germany missionaries works in China, I was excited to learn that there was really such a Hakka Dictionary in China initiated by the German priests.

".......Theodore Hamberg......worked out a draft of the first description of the Hakka dialect, which provided the foundation to D. MacIver's Hakka dictionary."     Hakka Dictionary' : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Hamberg

It is uncertain where that HAKKA DICTIONARY is now. 

HAKKA

Chappell, Hilary & Christine Lamarre (2005). A Grammar and Lexicon of Hakka: Historical Materials from the Basel Mission Library. (Collection des Cahiers de Linguistique: Asie Orientale, 8.) Paris: Ecoles des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. <Sinitic, Sino-Tibetan>

[This volume presents the first English edition of a Hakka Grammar and Lexicon, originally compiled by Basel missionaries who lived and worked in Guangdong province, China, during the second half of the 19th century. The Kleine Hakka Grammatik (1909) is in fact the earliest known grammar of a Hakka dialect, while the Kleines Deutsch-Hakka Wörterbuch für Anfänger (1909) is an abridged version of a larger dictionary manuscript in circulation, acknowledged to be the basis of MacIver’s 1926 Hakka-English dictionary. The authors identify the variety of Hakka reflected in these two works as being the Sin-on e° variety, as spoken some one hundred years ago in the Hong Kong area. This volume provides first-hand data to facilitate diachronic and typological comparisons with other Sinitic languages. ISBN 2 910216 07 1 [HC]]  

Wong Shin Chiang 黃承青 the husband of Phang Len Yin

email : wongchunxing@yahoo.com

INDEX : Wong History

Friday, October 22, 2010 09:16:56 PM