A student team films the short film "Under the Longan Tree" in Shiqiao Village, Taishan, Jiangmen, Guangdong Province, where young people are using digital storytelling to preserve the heritage of this well-known hometown of overseas Chinese.
A student team from Guangdong University of Finance & Economics recently completed a six-day field program in Shiqiao Village, Taishan, Jiangmen, using oral-history documentation, AI-assisted design and a short film production to help preserve and share the heritage of one of Guangdong's best-known hometowns of overseas Chinese.
Taishan has long been an important source of migration to North America, Southeast Asia and other parts of the world. In Shiqiao Village, memories of earlier generations who crossed the oceans to work abroad—while maintaining close ties with their families back home—are still preserved in family stories, letters, ancestral halls and community life.
The Lei Ancestral Hall in Shiqiao Village, Taishan, still anchors village life today—a tangible link between the hometown and the overseas Chinese families who trace their origins here.
From July 16 to 21, the "Qiaomeng Zhizao" team from the university's School of Humanities and Communication (School of Network Communication, School of Publishing) carried out field research in the village under the guidance of associate professor Ting Feng and lecturer Shujun Wang. The students interviewed eight senior residents, recording their recollections of migration, remittances, family separation and reunion.
Students interview a senior resident in Shiqiao Village to record oral histories of migration, family ties and hometown memories.
"One could earn money abroad, but it never felt as comfortable as home," said a returned overseas Chinese resident who spent eight years in New York—the villager whose family story later inspired the team's short film. "Even meeting friends for morning tea had to be arranged a week in advance."
The elderly Lei couple shows student interviewers documents kept from their years in New York during an oral-history interview.
A handwritten note recording key dates of the couple's years in New York and their return to China, alongside old ID documents shared with the student team.
From print newsletters to digital connections
The students also met the editorial teams of The Dajiang Journal of Chinese People Overseas (Dajiang Qiaokan) and Suyuan Monthly, a clan journal founded in 1926 by the Lei, Fong and Kwong families—hometown publications that have long served as an emotional bridge between Taishan and overseas Chinese communities.
"Each issue is carefully edited to provide readers abroad with timely news from their hometown," an editor said. "We hope the publication helps them remain emotionally connected with China, their hometown and their family roots."
Two issues of the Dajiang Journal, one of Taishan's qiaokan (hometown newsletters for overseas Chinese), published 38 years apart—December 1988 and June 2026. For generations, such publications have carried hometown news to readers abroad.
The research found that printed overseas Chinese newsletters are read mainly by older generations, while younger overseas Chinese engage with them less frequently. In response, the team explored more visual and youth-oriented forms of storytelling—an effort that runs through both the mural below and the short film described later in this article.
Drawing on field materials, the students created an AI-assisted pavement mural, Tracing Roots Along the Overseas Chinese Journey, on a village walkway. The mural follows four stages of the migrant experience: leaving for overseas destinations, building a life abroad, sending letters and remittances home, and returning in later life. It incorporates local imagery such as Taishan watchtowers and village landscapes, turning local history into a walkable public artwork—and, for the village's own young people, an everyday reminder of where their elders' journeys began.
Villagers young and old co-create the AI-assisted pavement mural "Tracing Roots Along the Overseas Chinese Journey" in Shiqiao Village.
A closer look at the finished mural: a letter bearing word of safe arrival, a new home and a blue airplane, linked by a rainbow ribbon along the winding path, together retrace the steps of villagers who went overseas—an open-air lesson for Shiqiao's younger generation in the journeys of their parents' and grandparents' generations.
Helping seniors navigate the digital world
The team also organized an introductory AI class for older villagers. Through hands-on demonstrations, students showed participants how digital tools can help them stay in touch with family, search for recipes, plan travel routes, assist grandchildren with schoolwork and access traditional opera online.
A student guides an elderly villager through AI-powered tools during the digital literacy class in Shiqiao Village, part of the team's effort to help senior residents navigate the digital world safely and confidently.
The sessions also covered privacy protection and fraud prevention, encouraging residents to use digital services safely and confidently. Conversations during the classes provided additional opportunities to collect stories of the village's overseas Chinese past.
A short film rooted in village memories
The team is currently producing a short film titled Under the Longan Tree, filmed in Shiqiao Village's longan groves and at the Lei family ancestral hall. The longan—also known in Chinese as gui yuan, a name that can be read as "precious roundness," with yuan (round) long associated with family reunion—is itself a cultural symbol of togetherness. Building on this, the film uses the fruit, ripening from green to sweet, as a metaphor for homecoming, reunion and enduring ties to one's roots.
The longan trees of Shiqiao Village—known in Chinese as gui yuan, or 'precious roundness,' carrying a wish for prosperous days—bear the fruit that inspired the student film's title and its message of family reunion.
The film draws on the life of the returned villager quoted earlier. Decades ago, his elder sister emigrated; deeply attached to her, he later followed her to New York and spent eight years abroad, traveling back and forth several times before finally settling back home. Today, the siblings still video-call each other every week —a living example of the enduring ties the film sets out to portray.
A scene from the student-produced short film Under the Longan Tree: as young girls in Shiqiao Village, the two sisters pick longans beneath their family tree—the childhood memory at the heart of the film's story of separation and reunion.
Building on such real-life experiences, the film's story begins overseas: a younger-generation descendant of Taishan emigrants comes across a hometown newsletter—a Qiaokan like the ones the team studied—and, moved by its pages, decides to travel back to Taishan to trace the family's roots. The film also portrays the village's transformation from old houses and narrow lanes to a revitalized rural community.
In a later scene from the film, the elder sister's granddaughter—born and raised overseas—returns to the village at dusk and looks up at the same longan tree, having come home to seek her roots after reading a qiaokan (hometown newsletter) sent from Taishan.
"Behind the scenes: Children who acted in the short film pose between takes while team members film on their phones. The production became a village-wide event, with residents gathering to watch after dinner."
By combining field research, local publications, digital creativity, public art, digital-literacy support and audiovisual storytelling, the program has created a pathway for bringing Shiqiao's heritage to wider audiences.
Members of the "Qiaomeng Zhizao" team pose at the starting point of the village's heritage-themed trail in Shiqiao Village.
The team plans to continue working with local partners to refine its digital works and film content, helping more stories from Guangdong's overseas Chinese hometowns reach younger generations around the world.
Source: Guangdong University of Finance & Economics
