Taishan's U.S. well runs dry

Seventy years ago, young men in this desperately poor region a few hours west of Hong Kong's high-rises emptied out of Wo Hing to cross the Pacific and try their luck in America. Many would end up on Hill Street or Broadway as cooks and waiters or open their own restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley. Their children would become engineers and even city councilmen. Their decision to leave still dominates the lives of those who stayed behind, for better and for worse.

Wo Hing, like many villages in the encompassing city of Taishan, has survived through a combination of backbreaking farming and handouts from America. That dependency on wah kiu -- overseas Chinese -- has left the villagers vulnerable, however: In the same way the old remnants of L.A.'s Chinatown are fading away, so is the generation from Wo Hing that can be counted on to deliver cash, including donations to build roads and schools.

It clouds an already uncertain future for the 40 residents of this village where water is still fetched from wells and meals cooked over wood fires. They've spent recent years watching the urban centers creep closer to their fields and their children leave for factory jobs.

Farmers all over China are struggling to adapt to the nation's rapid industrialization, but it is especially hard for the inhabitants of many villages in Taishan, who have to learn to move on without the financial advantage they've long enjoyed from America.

"Every one here has some family overseas," said a 60-year-old retiree lounging on a bamboo recliner in the nearby village of Moy Family Garden, giving only his surname, Moy. "I have relatives in Chicago and New York. I'm still waiting for my turn. But I don't have to work here. If I go to America now, who knows? I may have to work hard."

Mei Weiqing, a native of Taishan and wah kiu scholar at Wuyi University in the neighboring city of Jiangmen, said the generosity of those who left has both benefited and hindered Taishan.

"The overseas Taishanese are much more hard-working," he said. "The locals have become lazy. It's a serious problem. In U.S. society, the Taishanese had to live in the lowest end of society. They took the worst jobs. In Taishan, the men won't even consider doing the washing or cooking. American Taishanese learned to do these things to survive."