It started with a photograph: the tanned man with a high forehead and thick lips, who carried a twin-lens camera around his neck. This was my paternal grandfather, Shen Huansheng (沈焕盛), the only other photographer and journalist in the family, whom none of my relatives had spoken about since his death in 1949. He was executed by the Kuomintang and is buried in our ancestral home village in Meixian, east Guangdong. In 2011, I travelled to Meixian to piece together his story. It is also the story of our family, whose fate turned on his death, and of the Hakkas in the Chinese diaspora.”