Well, a part of it, mainly around this one grandpa of grandpas.

So, there i was, listening to my dad about his usual ramble about my grandpa's grandpa's ironic life. When the gramp's gramp was young, he was a spoiled kid, because our family back then were mega rich. Rich enough to say that they owned all the land they could see with their eyes, and then some, which made a lot of sense to call the whole valley that they lived on and onwed, the "valley of Piao".

And the gramp's gramp went to university for reasons i cannot possibly imagine in my current situation, but apparently according to my dad, he wanted to get away from his parents and waste time. And he, as "educated" as he was, gambled and partied, and wasted loads of silver and gold on prostitutes.

But he would always mail home for money whenever he needed more, so the parents would sell a piece of land to send him money. His brothers, knowing about this, got jealous, and did the same thing as he did. And that lead the family into downfall. Eventually, they had selled most of the land they had owned, except the parts close to the manor and around a temple.

His son, now grown up, had to work hard for other people for around no pay and no status to stay alive. Eventually, he ran away from the job, because they would dock the son's pay and beat him up. So the son joined up with the nationalist army, and was a good hard worker at that.

Then communists came. This is where the irony begins. Many of you know that the communists in China at the time were greatly against land owners, because 1. the communists themselves were not rich and they didn't like other people to be rich, and 2. their whole purpose is to have everybody have the same status, not like peasants and serfs.

So the communists killed the landowners, who had bought land from our family, decades ago.

My Gramp's father, a man later joined with the communists army because he ditched up with the nationalists for more chances to kill the landowner that ripped him off, saw an end to his lifelong goal. And decided that joining up with the communists might give him greater good.

And that same army, lead by Lin Biao (who was later a bad-ass), fought from the valley of Piao, up to Ha Er Bin, then down to southeastern sea islands. My gramp's father, followed with them.

And that is part of my family history.

wow...long history...