COMMENT When 47-year-old Lai Yee Lon was first asked about his ancestry, the fourth-generation Hakka chef and restaurateur from Tapah, Perak could hardly give a straight answer.

Lai’s great grandfather had settled down in the then-Malaya and since then, the family had lost touch with their relatives in China, except that his great grandfather had left behind an important piece of written information with his 82-year-old uncle - being the eldest of three siblings in the family - about the family genealogy, something which the elder Lai could only vaguely remember.