Journey unites family after 94 years

Sol de Leon, a Panamanian woman now living in the US lights up when recalling the "incredible" meeting with her extended family in China.

Sol de Leon (second right) and her sister pose for a photo with their extended family members in front of their ancestral temple in Pingshan, Guangdong province. Provided to China Daily

Her grandfather Liang Tick Fe left the village of Fa Yen - later renamed Pingshan - on the outskirts of Guangzhou for Panama in 1918 when he was 24, leaving his wife and two sons at home. China was in chaos, ruled by warlords following the overthrow of its last emperor.

Ninety-three years later, his granddaughter De Leon traveled to China for the first time and met with her long lost relatives.

The reunion in October 2011 brought happiness to the different generations of her family living in Panama, the US and China.

De Leon said she always wanted to visit China. With an old document her father had provided - her grandfather's certificate of registration with the Chinese consulate in Panama - de Leon was able to find the village formerly known as Fa Yen.

"I went with my sister on the trip," she said. "I didn't expect to find a family but, only to see the place."

Athena Liang, a college student who is part of the Liang family in Pingshan, recalled the reunion.

"I wasn't at home when they arrived; my mom called me home. I saw everyone was full of excitement," she said. "(De Leon's) grandfather is my great-great-grandfather. The only thing I have heard from the older generations was that he moved to Panama."

De Leon, however, knew what happened after Liang Tick Fe arrived in Central America. Local authorities in Panama registered the new arrival from China as Felix Leon. "When you pronounce Liang, it sounds like 'Leon' in Spanish. So they 'adapted' his name to Spanish," she said.

Leon had an eventful life in his new country. He imported the first convertible cars to Panama and opened a bakery, ultimately prospering and enjoying an affluent life. He became part of what the Panama News called "the biggest of Panama's Chinese fraternal societies" - expatriates from Fa Yen.

But Leon's good fortune didn't last. He fell on hard times, for reasons his granddaughter can only speculate about.

"Somehow my grandfather lost everything and started to struggle. He kept looking for jobs and worked in different cities in Panama and moved very often from place to place."

At the time most Chinese immigrants in Panama were struggling, partly due to strict Chinese-exclusion laws in the Central American nation.

The first Chinese arrived in Panama in the mid-19th century by way of Canada and Jamaica to work on the Panamanian railroad, according to Juan Tam, a historian and writer with the Chinese Association of Panama.

In 1903, the government declared Chinese "undesirable citizens". Ten years later, just before the Panama Canal's completion, a "head tax" was imposed on the Chinese community. The 1941 constitution stripped citizenship from all Panamanians of Asian ancestry.