Gary Locke in his ancestral village (Photo from sina.com)
On Nov. 4, the U.S. ambassador to China, Gary Locke, went back to his ancestral home, Jilong village in Taishan, a county-level city in southern China’s Guangdong province.
Jilong is where his grandfather and father were born.
He was accompanied by his sister Rita Yoshihara, and they brought a portrait of their late father, presenting it to the village. There were about 20 to 30 media representatives and about 150 people from the village waiting for them. Other people from the Luo (a transliteration of Locke’s Chinese surname) clan traveled to the village to see Locke.
The Lockes still have relatives in the village.
Locke said he shook every hand. He said it was very important to visit the village as an ambassador because it’s very important to the Luo clan. (end)