More Singaporeans Going on Tours in Search of Overseas Kin

Travel agencies report rising demand for ancestry and heritage tours, especially from multi-generational families

- Chin Soo Fang

The moment he stepped off the train at Chaoshan railway station in China, Mr Goh Mia Chun heard a cacophony of Teochew. It reminded him of Chinese New Year gatherings when he was growing up in Singapore.

"I was a boy again, hearing the language of my blood," says the 47-year-old arborist.

He was accompanied by his wife and seven-year-old son, as well as Mr Nathan Co, founder of the Chinese Ancestry Research (CAR) Facebook group.

The tour in August, which was jointly organised by Genealogy Society Singapore (GSS) and CAR, included sightseeing and an ancestry search for those who requested it.

Mr Goh and his family, who paid $1,200 each, broke away on the third day of the eight-day heritage tour to Chaoshan and Xiamen in China to seek out his uncle, and rejoined the group the next day.

In 1954, Mr Goh's grandmother left Yin Hu village in Chaoshan to join her husband in Singapore and escape the famine that plagued their village. She brought with her Mr Goh's father, then aged four, but left behind her elder son, 14, to be the guardian of their ancestral home.

Mr Goh provided Mr Co with the Chinese names of his father and grandfather. Mr Co found out through his Chaoshan network that Mr Goh's long-lost uncle, now 86 and partially paralysed, was still living in the village.

This was the first trip led by Mr Co, who is also GSS' genealogy adviser. GSS and CAR plan to host up to six tours a year from 2026, covering Chinese provinces like Henan, Shaanxi and Hainan, as well as Malaysian cities like Melaka and Penang. In October, it will organise a trip to Zhangzhou, Quanzhou and Putian in Fujian.