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(This charming story was told to me by my father-in-law, translated by my wife, LiPing Chen Hudson, and polished by me.)
In ancient times, the large and closely knit extended Chen family lived in He-nan Province. For 500 years, they lived in Ying Chuan village in He-nan. The patriarch of the Chen family was an authoritarian man, with strict rules about all matters of everyday life from marriage to housekeeping to hanging the washing to dry. Even the family dogs feared to cross him.
Then, sometime in the mid- to late 1700s, a son of the Chen family married Huang Shih, a girl from the wealthy Huang family. She brought with her a sizable dowry. She objected to the rules of father Chen, so they expelled her from the family, but kept the dowry as a matter of course. The Huangs took the Chens to court over the issue, and the local court and higher courts could not determine who was at fault and whether the Chens should take her back or return the dowry. The appeals went all the way to the Emperor.
Emperor Qianglong, who ruled from 1736-1796, often traveled his empire in disguise. Interested in the Chen-Huang dispute, he visited Ying Chuan to learn what was going on, in the guise of a fortune teller. One of his concubines favored the Huang family. A Chen family retainer explained the patriarch’s rules to the Emperor-fortune teller, who refused to believe anyone but him could be so forceful and rigid. The guard told the Emperor-fortune teller that the family owned 100 dogs who obeyed the patriarch’s rule limiting their consumption of bao-tze, a kind of leavened, doughy, meat cake, to one apiece. The Emperor ordered that 100 bao-tze be laid out for the dogs as a test of their Chen-inspired restraint.
Each of the first 98 dogs approached in turn and took one bao-tze. The 99th dog, a small white one, took two. The Emperor remarked at this, saying that the dog failed the test. The retainer suggested that they follow the dog as he carried away the second bao-tze. They did, and marveled when the dog dropped the meat cake on the paws of his aged and blind mother dog.
Emperor Qianglong was convinced and ruled in favor of the Chen family, awarding them the heraldic characters yi-men-di, which means family of justice with strength and honor. He returned to his imperial court in Manchuria and executed the concubine who had advocated for the Huangs. (The moral of this story is: Never mix concubinage with lobbying.)
Nevertheless, the Emperor ordered the Chen family to divide into smaller clans. How to do this? The Chens smashed a huge iron or earthenware pot, which fell into 108 fragments. Based on this omen, they divided into 108 clans, each clan taking its piece of the pot to a new home.
Our clan of the Chen family moved with its pot fragment first to Long Yan in Fu-jian Province, then to Sian Feng village of Ping Xiang city, Jiang-xi. Chen Jiao-chiou, a carpenter, and his wife, Zhou Shih, moved to Da Mao Ping, Jiou Jiang District, Jiang-xi Province, and finally, before 1886 to Heng Xin village, Shang Li district, Jiang-xi. This is where his son Chen Ching-mou was born in 1886 and became a manufacturer of fireworks. He married Liang Shih of Chu Jia Wan village, Shang Li, daughter of Liang Feng-kwei and Liou Shih. Their son, Chen Tsung-hou, my father-in-law, was born in Heng Xin in 1926.
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