"Chook Bo"

A few weeks ago, our family was busy preparing for our brother’s wedding. While we were discussing about the upcoming wedding, my mom shared with us how those days she was married to my father. There were many traditions to observe and my grandparents were not lenient in giving leeway to make things easier. Well, I will tell you more in my next blog on those we call today “pat po” things (surely, if my grandparents were alive, they will ‘kill’ me for stating tradition as “pat po” things...)

Along the way, my mom found our Wong’s family book ie “chook bo’. She mentioned that this book records our family’s background especially the male decendants ie their names, date and time they were born, their spouse's name, their son's name, their burial ground and etc. Ye Ye wrote 5 of these books and had given to all his sons. I am amazed and so is my brother. Besides, it also has instruction on what middle name the male decendants should be naming their sons.

"Chook Bo"

You see for Chinese, our ancestors have predetermined their next few generations of male descendants’ middle name. In this way, we should know how big our family has grown and those with same surname are most likely from the same ancestors.

One of our fore fathers' names

Being Chinese illiterate, we asked my brother’s wife’s father to read. Although Uncle could only understand partially as some of the chinese characters are too deep for him, he too is amazed. He commented this book is full of details on Wong’s family - way back when they were still in China. This book is an antique and not many are still in existence. This comment made me feel proud of what Ye Ye had left us. (Hmmm, wonder were we from the famous kungfu master ie Wong Fei Houng 's decendants...hahahaha...who knows, right?!)

My brother then took it to one of his friend. Again, there are several characters which are too old for him to interpret. However the names written on it were as far as 20 over generations before my father’s time. Some pages even mention that our fore fathers were buried in Fu Chow, China. This means even if we are Cantonese, we may not be even from Guangdong at all.

This page belongs to my father's generation - last page of the book (24th generation)

Well, from the book we know that our father’s generation is named “Yuen/Yoon” whereas my brother’s generation is “Kok”. According to the book, the next in line should be “Tak/ Tuck”. Thus if my brother or my cousin brothers have any sons, they should be naming their son as "Wong Tak/Tuck ___".

The 1st page of the book

(on the right side, it has all the middle name for the male generations)

There are a few more names given for the future generations. How interesting and I somewhat feel that our ancestors were so brilliant that they could then foresee what they want in the future. Besides, it also takes a lot of discipline to ensure the message written by our ancestors are passed down as our family grows! I can’t imagine that this book has 20 over generations' history…and it’s belonging to our family!!!

I am really interested to know the entire book’s contents. It should tell us a lot. Wonder if anyone knows the olden days chinese characters...I am very grateful that Ye Ye had actually taken the time to write 5 of these. I must say what he has given to us is far more valuable than monetary things. History is what has shaped us to be today.

Just like how God has given us the Bible. As said, the Bible is the most demanded book in history and it is still holding the record till date. Not just that it contains the history of BC and AC, more importantly it has God’s instructions for us! I am proud to be called God’s child and to have His words with me. Amen...

I am also thankful to Ye Ye for spending time and effort to give us the family history to pass on to our children and so on...