A young «tulou» resident savors a quick break between the morning’s guided tours in 振成樓’s central courtyard in front of the ancestral hall, perhaps the only Fujian «tulou» with Greek-style columns. A National Geographic reporter, in 2015: “‘Where is everybody?’ That was my reaction almost every time I stepped inside a tulou. In places built to hold hundreds of people, often only five or six residents remained. They were mostly old-timers, frail and living alone. Weeds often grew among the cobblestones, and the wells held stagnant water. Sometimes a small child stood in the shadows, one of the so-called ‘left behind children,’ consigned to the care of an aged relative while the parents live and work in a distant city.” The ancestral hall in Zhencheng Lou (振成樓) in Hongkeng Village, Yongding County, Fujian, China. Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017. Portra 400, Canon EOS A2.

Village temple in Hongkeng Village (洪坑), Yongding County, Fujian, China. Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017. Portra 400 Canon EOS A2

Village temple in Hongkeng Village (洪坑), Yongding County, Fujian, China. Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017. Portra 400, Canon EOS A2.

Prayer ribbons in Hongkeng Village (洪坑), Yongding County, Fujian, China. Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017. Portra 400, Canon EOS A2.

I don’t think I’ve eaten fresher food in my life. The vegetables were harvested from right outside the «tulou». The fish were caught in the nearby stream. The tofu, the sausage, the noodles — all were handmade. The chicken in the soup was butchered and cleaned just hours before it was served to us. Growing up in a Chinese family, I’m accustomed to sitting at a round dinner table — dominated by a lazy susan loaded with more dishes than there are people seated — and dutifully eating until my stomach is ready to burst. But I wasn’t prepared for the thrice-a-day feasts that we marveled at, then ate, in my family’s «tulou» and, while many of the ingredients, preparation methods, and flavors were familiar to me, others were not. Sitting at the table with family I’ve known my entire life alongside family I’d met only the evening before, tasting and enjoying foods that were familiar yet strange, knowing the love and pride that went into every cut, stir, sear, and bite — I felt like I was in a dream, but one in which every bite of food both jolted me awake and lulled me back. Ground-level kitchen at Zhencheng Lou (振成樓) in Hongkeng Village, Yongding County, Fujian, China. Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017. Portra 400, Canon EOS A2.

In the afternoon, we left the village to visit other «tulou» whose significance we didn’t understand immediately. The first was 振福樓 — or, Zhenfu lou — which was home to my grandmother’s mother before she married. Like Zhenfeng lou and 44 other «tulou», Zhenfu lou is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. From the nomination report: “Just like Zhenfeng Lou, [Zhenfu lou] represents the outstanding work combining Western-style and the Hakka architectural art in the early 20th century.” Zhenfu Lou (振福樓), Hukeng Town, Yongding County, Fujian, China. Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017. Portra 400 Canon EOS A2

This «tulou» where my great-grandmother had grown up is, according to an early 2000s revitalization proposal, “of recent vintage. It is not ancient, old or contemporary. Its architecture is east and west. It was built in 1913 by a businessman to house workers for his tobacco business. Offices were located on the ground floor. This vision of a business person, prosperity from agriculture and the allocation of space, giving life to a community and building, are ideas worthy of replicating in the modern age. This part of the tulou story can be recycled into a new foundation for hope and the transformation of a static museum into a dynamic, flourishing, vibrant and prosperous community.” Zhenfu Lou (振福樓), Hukeng Town, Yongding County, Fujian, China. Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017. Portra 400, Canon EOS A2.

The second «tulou» we visited was 衍香樓, or Yanxiang lou, which was home to my grandmother’s maternal grandmother before she was married. Yanxiang Lou (衍香樓), Xinnan Village, Yongding County, Fujian, China. Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017. Portra 400, Canon EOS A2.

Visiting the «tulou» where my great-grandmother had lived, and now the «tulou» that my great-great-grandmother had called home, was very strange. In contrast, 振成樓 (Zhencheng lou) felt so familiar and so much like home because my grandmother had lived there, and I have some inkling of her life as a girl and how she became who she is now. Yanxiang Lou (衍香樓), Xinnan Village, Yongding County, Fujian, China. Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017. Portra 400, Canon EOS A2.

But I have no concept of who my great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother were. Did they share the same spunk my grandmother has shown throughout her life? What privileges did they enjoy as daughters of wealthy families, and what challenges did they face as girls and as women? Could they ever have imagined that my grandmother would leave China, work at the U.N., marry a man who began his career in the Chinese Navy and concluded it as an ambassador? Walking the halls of first 振福樓 (Zhenfu lou) and now 衍香樓 (Yanxiang lou), I felt more like a tourist than a long-lost family member finding her way home. Knowing I’d never find out the answers to my questions about my grandmother’s own mother and grandmother is something I’ll simply have to come to terms with. Yanxiang Lou (衍香樓), Xinnan Village, Yongding County, Fujian, China. Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017. Portra 400, Canon EOS A2.

On our final morning, we awoke at first light and ventured further into my grandmother’s ancestral village. The previous evening after dinner and tea, our cousins had led us into the village, further into the valley away from the «tulou». With only the occasional street lamp and our own flashlights illuminating the pitch-black night, we could just barely make out the outlines of other buildings and smaller «tulou». At one point, we passed a large tree that our cousins said was more than 300 years old; in a small open area just beyond, a movie was being projected onto a nearby wall with a small audience of young children in attendance. In the morning, we retraced our steps from the night before. Daylight had transformed the village: The cobblestone street was now lined with vendors setting up their tables to sell produce, meat, and tourist souvenirs. Children were hoisting their backpacks to go to school, while people harvested vegetables from what appeared to be community gardens. Stopping at the 300-year old tree, we could now see it was covered with prayer ribbons and that a small shrine with fresh incense stood nearby. As a woman meticulously swept up fallen leaves, we lingered long enough to admire the tree before continuing on in the village. A tree, covered in prayer ribbons, that's at least 300 years old in Hongkeng Village (洪坑), Yongding County, Fujian, China. Friday, Sept. 22, 2017. Portra 400, Canon EOS A2.

Hongkeng Village (洪坑), Yongding County, Fujian, China. Friday, Sept. 22, 2017. Portra 400, Canon EOS A2.

All paths in 洪坑 (Hongkeng Village) lead to the Hongchuan stream that flows parallel to the main street. On the western bank are vegetable gardens and a shrine; on the eastern bank is 福裕樓 (Fuyu lou), where my grandmother’s paternal grandfather lived before he built 振成樓 (Zhencheng lou). Built in 1880, Fuyu lou is a “mansion”-style «tulou», with far more right angles than any other «tulou» we’d seen previously. Fuyu Lou (福裕樓) in Hongkeng Village, Yongding County, Fujian, China. Friday, Sept. 22, 2017. Portra 400, Canon EOS A2.

After exploring the village, we returned to 振成樓 (Zhencheng lou) for our final breakfast. Then, our cousins led us back into the village, this time with my grandmother and our other family, for a grand tour before we would leave the village altogether. First, we stopped at my grandmother’s family’s temple. The spire-like monuments outside the temple gate, we learned, are raised in honor of a family member who has died. I was surprised to learn that my great-uncle — a devout Christian and my grandmother’s older brother whose funeral was the first I remember attending, in the mid- or late 1990s — was given the honor of one of these monuments here in the village where he was born. The temple itself was dilapidated, clearly not in regular use. Our cousins told us it was partially destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, and is used now only for special occasions. The Lin family's temple in Hongkeng Village (洪坑), Yongding County, Fujian, China. Friday, Sept. 22, 2017. Portra 400, Canon EOS A2.

Our family tour of 洪坑 (Hongkeng Village) continued on, often retracing the steps we’d taken earlier when we’d gone exploring on our own before breakfast, but also including quick visits to other village «tulou» and, finally, a stop at the old school that my grandmother and her siblings attended in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Now fallen into mild disrepair, the old school still stands, with some rooms used to house teachers at the more modern school facility across the courtyard. We also learned my grandmother’s family enjoyed such esteem in the village that she had a private resting room in the school for her particular use. The Lin family's school in Hongkeng Village (洪坑), Yongding County, Fujian, China. Friday, Sept. 22, 2017. Portra 400, Canon EOS A2.

The modern school’s principal welcomed us to his office, where he served us tea. Covering three of his office’s four walls were large boards that, we learned, listed all the village’s residents who had gone on to achieve some status in their adult lives. One of those names was my grandmother’s, who had worked with the United Nations in New York City. I was fascinated: My grandmother had lived in the village for seven years and, once she’d left for Hong Kong in 1942, had not returned until this very trip. Yet there was her name, listed with pride, because the village — her family — had not forgotten her. Far from it, in fact: Her family had gone to extraordinary lengths to welcome her — plus two of her sons, her granddaughter, and her granddaughter’s husband — and to make us, whom they had never met, feel at home. Growing up in Texas as the daughter of first-generation immigrants, I remember my mother telling me many times throughout my childhood that friends come and go, but you will always have family to return to. For years, I interpreted this saying as a threat, but upon our «homelandcoming» to China, I finally understood it was intead a reassurance of love, and of home. The modern school, as seen from the old Lin family school, in Hongkeng Village (洪坑), Yongding County, Fujian, China. Friday, Sept. 22, 2017. Portra 400, Canon EOS A2.

It was mid-February. I was covering a high school basketball playoff game when my Uncle Doug texted that my grandmother planned to visit her ancestral home in the fall. “You should go!” he added. So, I joined a September 2017 expedition that would be my grandmother’s first time seeing 振成樓 (Zhencheng lou) since 1943. As we confirmed dates and flights and applied for visas, I kept telling myself to keep my expectations in check: Our board and lodging were at the mercy of family we’d never met. I don’t understand Chinese, so I could expect to have no verbal communication with our distant cousins. It would be very hot and humid. But no matter what, I was determined to respect that this was Grandma’s trip, and we were just the passengers. While my predictions above were spot-on, all my other expectations were blown away. We visited not just my grandmother’s ancestral home, but also the homes of her own mother and grandmother, her family temple, the school she attended. The lines between familiar and foreign blurred with each nonverbal direction or clumsily translated query my cousins and I exchanged, at every lovingly prepared meal, whenever we were greeted both as long-lost relatives and as beloved family. Slowly, I realized that a trip to accompany my grandmother to her ancestral home had become a journey for me to find new meaning in the concept of home: I was an American tourist in my grandmother’s homeland, yet could also claim my place among the clan’s 25th generation. “Every immigrant is the person he might have been and the person he is, and his homeland is at once the place it would have been to him from the inside and the place it must be to him from the outside.” — Jade Chang, “The Wangs Vs the World” I take comfort that, just as my Texan birth and my Americanness can never be taken away from me, my memories from and my pride in my family’s homeland are now an indelible part of who I am. Extended family in front of Zhencheng Lou (振成樓) in Hongkeng Village, Yongding County, Fujian, China. Friday, Sept. 22, 2017. Portra 400, Canon EOS A2.