As a largely refugee population, most Gazans had weak social roots.

With the onset of modernization, millions of people were uprooted from their traditional communities and ways of life.

All you can find are newsreaders from national television covering the smiling faces of people who come back to Hongdong to seek their roots and pay homage to their ancestors.

Many don t want to abandon the deep roots they have in their home regions others don t want to move to another country, where language and culture may be obstacles.

Indeed, were it not for the 400 fathers who petitioned for the rescue of their kidnapped children who had been sold into slavery, Hongdong County would still remain a tourism hot spot for Chinese people seeking their roots.

On the other hand, in many places such institutions were relentless in their efforts to separate whole generations of indigenous students from their cultural roots and, very often, their families, doing irreparable harm to the survival of indigenous cultures and societies.

He led a vicious campaign to portray all Taiwanese with mainland Chinese roots, even if born and bred in Taiwan, as untrustworthy carpetbaggers wai shen ren , or not native people as if they were aliens from a different culture.

This is a matter of politics. As China attempts to tighten its grip on Hong Kong, Li is showing independence, and China s new rulers who, true to their communist roots, believe firmly in top down control do not like it one bit.