The Search for our Hakka roots

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka

From WIKIPEDIA:

The Hakka (Mandarin: Kèjiā) are a subgroup of the Han Chinese people who live predominantly in the provinces of Guangdong, Jiangxi, and Fujian in China. Their ancestors were often said to have arrived from what is today's central China, centuries ago. It is still a contested issue where the Hakka originated. It is said that in a series of migrations, the Hakkas moved, settled in their present locations in southern China, and then migrated overseas to various nations throughout the world. The Hakka have had a significant influence on the course of Chinese and overseas Chinese history: in particular, they have been a source of revolutionary, political and military leaders.

Hakkas are most commonly found in the southern Chinese provinces, but may also be found in the northern provinces; for example there are television news programs read in Hakka in Xi'an (Shaanxi). The presence of Hakkas is pan-China.

Migrations and group identification

The use of the term Hakka to describe this people is thought to be comparatively recent, dating to the Qing Dynasty (c. 17th century).

Their ancestors migrated southwards several times because of social unrest, upheaval, and the invasion of foreign conquerors, since the Jin Dynasty (265-420). Subsequent migrations occurred at the end of the Tang Dynasty when China fragmented, during the middle of the Song Dynasty which saw massive depopulation of the north and a flood of refugees southward, when the Jurchens captured the northern Song capital, at the fall of the Song to the Mongols in the Yuan Dynasty, and when the Ming Dynasty fell to the Manchu who formed the Qing Dynasty. Some of these migrants did not want to reveal where they were from as under Chinese Laws, a crime of treason committed by one person is punishible by death upon the clan of that person up to nine generations removed. As the locals did not know where the migrants were from, they were referred to as 'guest families'.

During the reign of Emperor Qing Kangxi, the coastal regions were evacuated by imperial edict for almost a decade, due to the danger posed by the remnants of the Ming court who had fled to what is now Taiwan. When the threat was eliminated, the Kangxi Emperor issued an edict to re-populate the coastal regions. To aid the move, each family was given money to begin their new lives; newcomers were registered as "Guest Families" (客戶, kèhù).

The existing Cantonese speaking inhabitants (Punti or 本地) of these areas were protective of their own more fertile lands, and the newcomers were pushed to the outer fringes of fertile plains, despite having migrated legitimately, or they settled in more mountainous regions to eke out a living. People were also able to purchase and sell land. Conflict between the two groups grew, and it is thought that "Hakka" was a term of derision used by the Punti aimed at the newcomers. Eventually, the tension between the two groups (the Hakkas had by then been settled for several hundred years, and could not be regarded as migrants in any sense) would lead to a series of 19th century skirmishes known as the Punti-Hakka Clan Wars (土客械鬥) in the Pearl Delta. The problem was not that the two groups spoke a different tongue. In fact the 'locals' were composed of different peoples speaking several mutually unintelligible tongues, as typical of the Chinese country-side all over China, but they would regard each other as 'locals' or Puntis but not the Hakka.

The term 'Punti' is not however synonymous with 'Cantonese', as a Cantonese in any other part of China, say for example Beijing, would not be able to call himself a 'Punti', as the puntis of the area are the Beijing or Hebei people.

The term 'Punti' is a Hakka word given to the Cantonese by the Hakka people. In Cantonese, the Hakka word 'Punti' is pronounced 'boon-day'.

Over time, the term "Hakka" was adopted by the newcomers to refer to themselves, not least due to the migratory tendencies inherent in their own culture. However, because the term also covers Hakka language-speakers, (in the same way that Punti covered several peoples speaking different tongues) and because the Han Chinese registered as Guest Families who migrated at the time may not have been Hakka language-speakers, and because of intermarriages among Hakka and Punti members (which showed that relation between the two were very good at times), identification as Hakka was largely a matter of self-selection. Through studies of both Cantonese and Hakka genealogies, some Hakka and Punti people with the same surnames claim the same ancestors, although their descendants strongly identify with one group to the exclusion of the other.

The Hakka ancestors are thus but one group amongst many who migrated southwards, becoming linguistically marked by differences yet unified through cultural assonances. Hakka people now are found in the southern Chinese provinces, chiefly in Guangdong, south-western Fujian, southern Jiangxi, southern Hunan, Guangxi, southern Guizhou, south-eastern Sichuan, and on Hainan and Taiwan islands, as well as in the northern provinces such as Shanxi, where there are television news broadcasts in the Hakka language. The Hakka dialects across these various provinces differ phonologically, but the Meixian (Meizhou) dialect of Hakka is considered the archetypal spoken form of the language. Migratory patterns have been established for some groups e.g. in Taiwan, northern and southern migrations from corresponding provinces in China.

Although different, and also not different, in some social customs and culture (e.g. linguistic differences) from the surrounding population, the Hakka are not a separate ethnic group: they belong to the Han Chinese majority. Historical sources shown in census statistics relate only to the general population, irrespective of particular districts, provinces, or regions. These census counts were made during imperial times. They did not distinguish what language the population spoke. Therefore they do not directly document Hakka migrations. The study by Luo Xianglin, K'o-chia Yen-chiu Tao-Liu / An Introduction to the Study of the Hakkas (Hsin-Ning & Singapore, 1933) used genealogical sources of family clans from various southern counties. With population movement, it is reasonable to assume that there is mixing among both the Hakka newcomers and the indigenous peoples, and between the Punti and Hakka.

The Hakkas have a custom of buying the unwanted baby daughters of the Yue puntis in Guangdong, as Puntis favored sons over daughters. These Punti-moys (本地妹) then made brides for Hakka sons when they grew up. Hakka daughters did not enter Punti households in the same way, and there is no equivalent Hakka-mui term in the Punti vocabulary. The Yue punti genes thus entered Hakka populations.

On the road to Kunlun & Kangtou Villages, my mum and dad's ancestral home

Other Links and resources

http://www.asiawind.com/hakka/
http://www.sungwh.freeserve.co.uk/hakga/
http://www.worldhakka.org/

http://www.jyu.edu.cn/kejia/index1.htm
http://www.hakka.gov.tw/mp.asp?mp=1