A group of 74 young Chinese descendants who were born and brought up overseas have recently ended a tour to their hometown in the southernmost island province of Hainan.

The youngsters, mostly from Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, were here to attend a winter camp sponsored by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the Hainan provincial government.

"The beautiful island is our common home," they said after touring the land where their forefathers once toiled.

Most children said China's long-standing civilization had impressed them the most.

"Which Chinese emperor do you love?" a mischievous boy from Malaysia asked the girl sitting next to him with a slip of paper, as the group were listening to a lecture on Chinese history at Hainan University.

"Emperor Qian Long", the girl wrote in Chinese before she passed on the "questionnaire".

"We all know that Emperor Qian Long was very talented and he ruled for many years during the Qing Dynasty", she told Xinhua.

Most of the children speak good Chinese, thanks to the help of their parents and grandparents whose love for the homeland has never faded.

Fu Xiulian, a college girl from Indonesia, had a pious look on her face as she recalled how she started to learn Chinese.

"It was quite a coincidence," she said, "I found the beauty of Chinese language in Buddhist sutras, and unlike my friends and classmates who are Muslims, I am a Buddhist."

Despite her fluent Chinese, Fu said she hoped to have an opportunity for some further study in order to improve her reading and writing skills.

Guo Zhiming, a middle-aged private business owner whose grandfather moved to Malaysia in the 1920s, was on his fourth tour to Hainan, this time as deputy head of the delegation.

"Most overseas Chinese want their children to search for their roots in China, because they'll never forget they are Chinese," said Guo.

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