Fact is often stranger than fiction. Take, for example, Shih Lai-fa from Changhua County. He had always felt that his ancestry linked him with ancient Ceylon. Shih recently found out that this was really the case -- he was the 19th generation descendant of Ceylonese royal Prince Parakrarnabau II.
A Sri Lankan delegation visited Shih and his family last week to present him with a Sri Lankan national flag and to formally invite him to "return" to his homeland in Sri Lanka.
Delegation leader Gangodawila Nugegoda, a member of the Sri Lankan Parliament, expressed his pleasure that a direct descendant of the prince, who lived around 500 years ago, had been found in Taiwan.
The delegation was organized after Nugegoda received a request from Shih for assistance tracing his roots. Shih sent the Sri Lankan official a copy of his family tree and related data in July.
Shih, 50, said he had always wondered why his family name was Shih, a very unusual name among Chinese.
According to a family tree in Shih's possession, Shih Chen-chih, an official working in Hangzhou during the Ching dynasty (1644-1911), moved to Taiwan after he was robbed by bandits, becoming the first generation of the family in Taiwan.
Shih Lai-fa said that in the family burial ground near Changhua's Paguashan there is a tombstone on which two Chinese characters "Xi Lan" -- which means Ceylon -- are clearly engraved.
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