(Nanfang Daily/Dai Jiaxin)

Some Chinese descents from Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam have recently come to visit Foshan, a prefecture-level city in central Guangdong Province for the first time in their lives. The historical places they visited included the Foshan Zumiao Museum.

Early in the morning on Oct. 15, these Chinese descendants from Ho Chi Minh arrived at the Foshan Zumiao Museum. Some of them held up their cameras to take pictures next to the plaque acknowledging "The Second Year of Zhenguan's reign during the Tang Dynasty in Foshan"; some of them whispered to each other in Cantonese with a slight Vietnamese accent and stopped for a long time in front of the tile ridges.

For these descendants, their ancestors took the ceramic technology of Shiwan, Foshan and sailed "down to Southeast Asia" about 100 years ago, realizing the industrial export of these "skilled craft bearing immigrants" in foreign countries during the 19th century.

After a period of more than 100 years, Foshan people discovered and confirmed during their visit to Vietnam that it was these Foshan ancestors who participated in the construction of many Chinese halls in Vietnam. They applied excellent ceramic technology and the Chinese culture of Shiwan Foshan on the high roof of the local Chinese halls in the form of tile-ridging, which became the representative symbol of Foshan and thereby made them participants in the construction of the commercial network of the "Maritime Silk Road".

More than 100 years later, the descendants of these "skilled immigrants" set foot in their homeland for the first time ever. Here, ceramics, Cantonese lifestyle, the lion dance, Kung Fu and other elements were the cultural elements of Lingnan that they identified with.