Darwin Wally T. Wee, a freelance journalist from the Philippines who is on an exchange program with the Economic Observer, visits his ancestors' homeland for the first time and feels a new pride at being a 'descendant of the dragon'.

As the descendant of a Chinese family that moved to the Philippines, going back to the ancestral land is both an exciting trip and a bit of tricky, especially since I’ve come to consider it as a foreign land.

I grew up with my father’s tales of how Chinese, particularly those from the southeastern city of Amoy, modern day Xiamen, sailed for days to escape China’s poverty and find new hope in other Asian countries like the Philippines.

Darwin Wee's father at Pasonanca Park in Zamboanga City in the 1950s.

Most of them, including my great grandparents of the Wee clan, haven’t bothered or don’t want to go back to China.

I think that my great grandparents and the relatives that went with them were the tough ones among other Chinese immigrants. They weren’t content to stick around in Luzon, which is much closer to Taiwan, but continued their journey south across the archipelago to the Philippine island province of Basilan and onto Zamboanga City in Mindanao Island.

The China of that period - before the great revolution in mid-20th century - was in political turmoil, ruled by corrupt warlords, whose subjects were in despair.

Poverty, a dearth of opportunities, and the dwindling hope of seeing a progressive China drove people away.

That’s exactly the state of the Philippines today. Hundreds thousands of Filipinos are heading to abroad every day in search of jobs and opportunities to feed their hungry families back home, and improve their living conditions.

I have been in China for a little over a month now, and I can say that the old and ugly society that my father described had vanished.  Communist-ruled China is poised to become the world’s largest economy.

There are still flaws along the way for reform. China has gained notoriety for its human rights record, and the pollution that comes from using coal-fired power plans to meet 60% of your energy needs.

Looking back, most of the Chinese immigrants in the Philippines that have left their country hundreds of years ago have been completely absorbed into Filipino society whether in business or politics.

The country’s national hero Jose Rizal Mercado is a descendant of Domingo Lam-co, a Chinese immigrant who changed his name to Mercado, the Spanish word for market, because of anti-Chinese feeling from the colonizers. Even the current Philippine President Benigno C. Aquino, III, has Chinese blood through his mother.

Entrepreneurial Chinese immigrants have long influenced Filipino culture.  Some of the country’s most successful businessmen have Chinese roots, including the family of mall-magnate Henry Sy, who Time Magazine lists as one of the families that control Asia.

My grandfather Wee Piaw and his family started doing business in the old Zamboanga public market located at Magay Street near the terminal port. He made his fortune after the Second World War by selling auto parts and machines abandoned by American troops after Japan’s defeat.

Darwin Wee's grandfather, Wee Piaw a.k.a. Huang Shi Tong

“Your grandpa was a jack of all trades and finally a pioneer in the automotive and hardware business in Zamboanga City,” recalls my aunt Virgnia Wee, who now lives in the US.

The businesses operated by Chinese merchants in Zamboanga City eventually grew and prospered. Their success is represented by tall commercial buildings downtown at Mayor Climaco Street (formerly known as Guarda National), and in Gov. Lim Avenue.

Those buildings, including the Wee Piaw Trading Corp., are still standing.  Some of the old edifices are even considered as heritage buildings.

The businesses nurtured by Chinese immigrants have also evolved. In the past, barter trading of basic goods was the main business. But now, we can see third or fourth generations of Filipino-Chinese in major industries such as retail, real-estate, banking, airlines and telecommunications.

During my tour here, I have seen how many Chinese practice their entrepreneurial skills. Every household seems to have its own small businesses. Young kids as young as nine or 10 years-old are selling children’s toys or snack foods just outside of their residents.

“Who’s buying here? It seems as though everyone is selling,” my Laotian colleague Souksakhone Vaenkeo, asked soon after we arrived in Beijing.

It’s a good start to teach the young ones to become economically independent, he analyzed.

This is my first time in China. The scenery is majestic - both the old city and emerging modern China. The images that had seen in Kung Fu movies and post cards is now getting becoming reality.

The Buddhist temples that I admired are everywhere, as well as the scent of the joss sticks and herbal medicines.

In my first attempt to find my remaining ancestors here, I tried looking for people that share my surname. I asked my Chinese language teacher if she knows anyone with the surname Wee. She told me that since Mandarin, Hokkien (Fukien), and other Chinese dialects are tonal, the pronunciation and writing of the word could change and vary from one province to another.

Reading research online, it seems that the surname Wee, along with Uy, Ng, Ong, Huong, Bong, and Wone, were all derived from the pinyin Wong or Huang.

Tracing my ancestors’ footprints will be a mammoth task, bit it’s my major personal assignment. As the saying goes, ‘genealogy is like hide-and-seek: they hide, I seek!’