Returnees find prosperity in hometowns
Print Edition
Despite sweltering summer heat, 56-year-old village head Lu Hong patrols the village greenway to check sanitation in southeast China’s Fujian Province, as diligently as he ran his own restaurant in New York.
While many were desperate to obtain US citizenship, Lu renounced it in 2009 and returned to his hometown in Fuqi Village, Fujian, after running his New York restaurant for 20 years.
Many overseas Chinese are from Fuqi, a village situated by the river estuary of Minjiang.
Lu said there are over 6,000 people from Fuqi currently living in the US, while back home in the village, there are only 1,100 people.
“The village used to have a population of 6,000 people in the 1980s. Since then, many people left. It is like the whole village has been transplanted to America,” he said.
Expats from the village established the American Fuqi Association in 1987, so that members can help each other and come together to celebrate Chinese festivals.
Changle District of Fuzhou, the provincial capital, has a centuries old seafaring tradition. Ships of the great Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) explorer Zheng He stopped here for supplies and repairs before setting out on journeys to Southeast Asia and beyond, making a part of China’s Maritime Silk Road history. The statue of the explorer stands just a few kilometers north of Fuqi Village.
The pioneering spirit has been inherited for generations. Local peasants and fishermen explored the sea routes to Southeast Asia and further to the US to seek fortunes. When they got rich, they sent money home and built beautiful mansions combining Western and Chinese architecture styles.
Lu arrived in New York in 1988. He followed the life track of other Chinese immigrants in the United States, working as a kitchen cleaner, and later a chef in a restaurant opened by a fellow Fuqi villager.
“I worked 13 hours a day, 6 days a week, living in a 40 square meter basement with 10 other Chinese immigrants in Chinatown,” he recalled.
As soon as he saved enough money, Lu opened his own restaurant in 1995. That year, he sent money home to Fuqi and built a six-story house with an elevator, the first of its kind in the village.
The ostentatious houses built by early adventurers like Lu Hong made others even more determined to follow their path to go overseas. Lu immigrated to the United States with his four daughters in 2000, when the eldest was in fifth grade.
The exodus lasted until the early 2000s. However, the tide began to turn when their businesses in the United States experienced hardships amid the 2008 financial crisis, while across the ocean, China offered more business prospects.
After several years of working hard to run his restaurant business, Lu’s health started to get worse. He chose to retire and go home. He said he gave up his US citizenship because he never thought he would go back.
In his lush and tranquil homeland, his health recovered, and he dedicated himself to rebuilding his family’s ancestral hall with money sent by overseas villagers. In 2015, he was elected as the village head.
Lu said in the past few years, over 200 villagers living in the US have returned to Fuqi to settle down.
Lu Minlong, 51, a cousin and childhood friend of Lu Hong, has invested in real estate development since he returned home from the US in the late 1990s.
“I came back because I saw opportunities in China,” he said. “Now my business has expanded across the country.”
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