I know little of Chinese culture and history, so this exploration of one man’s roots – though in truth it is far more than that – is utterly fascinating.
Not content with exploring the tensions between a present day son brought up in the British culture and his withdrawn father, Kwong Chun Ji, who left China in 1921, F.G. Kwong, one feels, is also on a journey to understand his ancestors. So does it work?
Definitely.
The writing is excellent, the meticulous revelations of a culture unknown to him, and a father similarly unknown to a son is recorded with empathy and sympathy. So let me lead you into this extraordinary autobiography, biography or is it a history? Perhaps it is all three.
Kwong Chun Ji was ordered by his father in 1921 to leave their ancestral home in semi-feudal China and head to the West to save the family from starvation during the civil wars that erupted, following the fall of the Last Emperor of China.
Landing in Liverpool Kwong Chun Ji found he had not actually escaped the turmoil he had fled. There it still was, in the shape of Triad gangs who were waiting to target disembarking Chinese immigrants. He managed to evade them, settling elsewhere in the area. At the age of 38 he was instructed by his father to marry by proxy a much younger bride from a neighbouring village who joined him in Britain, and together they produced a family. All the while Kwong Chun Ji still continued to support this family back in China – as befits a dutiful son.
So, it was all ‘happy ever after’? No.
It transpires that there was a huge unexplained gulf between Kwong Chun Ji and Frank, his first born; the author of this absorbing book. Why did his father treat Frank with a diffidence bordering on hostility? What was it that Francis had done? Or was it not his fault? If so…
This is a book to be read carefully, one which will introduce the reader, not only to the culture and upheavals of an increasingly powerful China, but take them on a quest into Frank’s ancestral past, a quest into the secret of his father’s near hostility, and then the quest for peace and reconciliation
Read The Ancestral Quest, it is a momentous and brave search for truth.
Published by Book Guild Publishing, ISBN 9781913208899. The Ancestral Quest is available in paperback (£12.99) and Kindle format (£3.99) on Amazon at https://amzn.to/3oTLrzw and https://amzn.to/3xqqD6v respectively.
It is also available to purchase from The Book Guild, Waterstones, W.H.Smith, Foyles and all major bookshops in UK.
Also available from Amazon in Norway, Denmark, Spain, Portugal and India: Romania from books-express.ro: South Africa from loot.co.za: Australia from dymocks.com.au: USA from barnesandnoble.com
About the author:
After thirty years in osteopathic practice in Notting Hill, F. L.Ying aka F.G.Kwong retired to devote time to his other passion – writing. Living in London, married to a fashion designer with their young granddaughters not too far away who keep him on his toes with so many probing questions about the mysterious circumstances hitherto of his family background and the complicated ways of the world.