Hakka

The Hakkas are a unique ethnic group of "Han" Chinese originally active around the Yellow River area. They are thought to be one of the earliest "Han" settlers in China. One theory has it that many of the early Hakkas were affiliated with the "royal bloods". The truth may be more complicated than that. It is highly likely that while Hakka may be a stronghold of Han culture, Hakka people also have married other ethnic groups and adopted their cultures during the long migration history of 2000 years. Due to the infusion of other ethnic groups from the northwest, north and northeast, these original settlers gradually migrated south and settled in Jiangxi, Fujian, and Guangdong. They were called Hakka by the locals when they first settled in. This term has been used since by non-Hakka and Hakka people, and in international publications. The spelling "Hakka" is derived from the pronunciation in Hakka dialect ( pronounced as "haagga" in Hakka and "kejia" in Mandarin).

During the last hundred years or so, Hakka people migrated to South East Asia, East Africa, Europe (Holland, United Kingdom, France, Germany..), South America (Brazil, Trinidad...) Canada, US. About 7% of the 1.2 billion Chinese clearly state their Hakka origin or heritage. However, the actual number may be more as many Hakka Han who settled along the path of migration assimilate with the local people. The Hakka identity is gradually lost.

Hakka people are noted for their preservation of certain cultural characteristics that could be traced to pre-Qin period (about 2200 years ago) as expressed in the custom, foods, spoken language, etc.

Hakka people are also known to be very adamant in defending their cultural heritage, which was the reason for their migration to flee from the "northern" influence at that time.

As a late comer to places initially occupied by locals, Hakkas usually had to struggle and survive on the less desirable lands. Thus, Hakka people are well-known for their perseverance even in the most adverse environment.

Architectural Space

In mentioning Hakka architecture, people always think of old houses, more specifically, examples of historical architecture or ancient sites. The three-wing courtyard house in which the Hakka live (also called the kuofangwu) does indeed have a high profile, and especially throughout the process of social change the old houses in the Hakka villages seem to have survived better than the houses of other ethnic groups.

For this reason, mentioning Hakka architecture today very naturally leads one to think of Fanjiang's Old Houses in Hsinwu, the Fan House and the Liu House in Hsinpu, the Six Clan Wen-li Hall, and Peipu's Tien-shui Hall and Chin Kuang Fu. In southern Taiwan Meinung's Kuofangwu, Chiatung's Hsiao House and Wukoushui's Liu House come to mind. Certainly, outstanding and elegant old Hakka houses are always bound to attract admiration. The shops are full of books on old Taiwan houses, and Hakka architecture regularly accounts for half of them.

Hakka architectural space as cultural property

There are indeed many individual cases of extraordinary elegance in Hakka architecture but if we only talk about the very top level of traditional Hakka architecture it is difficult to get an idea of the values of the Hakka ancestors with regard to the development of architectural space. Reading the Cultural Heritage Preservation Act (Preservation Act) announced in 2005, the closest thing relating to "architectural space" was that the architectural space of "antiquities, historical architecture and traditional gathering habitations" should cover antiquities, historical architecture and traditional gathering habitations and that the overall vision and thinking in this area should be broadened from a cultural perspective, especially given the many architectural types to be found in Hakka villages.

Diversified Architectural Types

The Preservation Act can be boiled down to several key words and phrases: antiquities, historical architecture, traditional gathering habitations, construction methods, buildings and their associated elements. We can extrapolate further from this to: shops, courtyard-style houses (residences), ancestral shrines (public and private), ancestral temples (of the ruling house), shrines, religious buildings, warning stones, fengshui, barracks, police stations, jails, fire stations, official dormitories, colleges, schools, theaters, gymnasiums, meeting places, guild halls, general stores, foreign company buildings, banks, post office, tobacco barns, farmer's association halls, irrigation association halls, sugar refineries, breweries, markets, kilns, train stations, ports, ferry stations, light houses, bridges, ancient roads, hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, memorial tablets, memorial arches, city walls, defensive gates, parks (and gardens), and ancient wells.

The above is by no means a complete list of Hakka architectural types. To be complete, it would have to include the types the Hakka people themselves have continued to add with their imagination.

Concrete Manifestations of a Way of Life

Every level of government has numerous projects focusing on living space in Hakka villages, and these projects are not at a loss for older style construction. But there are also many new constructions, and even more up-to-date older but not ancient styles. The emphasis is by on means on the building's design aesthetic but on its cultural significance and function. For example in Taiyuan, Hsinwu's Yewumei office building (and the environs), Pingzhen's new use of the old buildings in the Tungshih zhuang, the renovation of the Shitouwu at Fentien Village, Hengshan, Hsinchu, the delineation of Hsinwawu as a "Hakka Cultural Preservation Area" and the renovation of the Lin Family Clan Temple, the old mountain dwellings in Shuili, the reuse of the tobacco barns in Fenglin, Hualien and in Meinung, Kaohsiung. In these places you can see the more diversified Hakka architectural typologies, and even more significant is that in rediscovering all of this, the significance of Hakka culture is enriched. (text: Chen Pan)

group of North Chinese who migrated to South China, especially Kwangtung, Fukien, and Kwangsi provinces, during the fall of the Southern Sung dynasty in the 1270s. Their origins remain obscure, but the people who became the Hakka are thought to have lived originally in Honan and Shansi provinces in the Huang Ho (Yellow River) valley. The name Hakka is a Cantonese pronunciation of the Mandarin word k'o-chia ("guest people"), which the northerners were called to distinguish them from the pen-ti, or natives. Having settled in South China in their own communities, the Hakka never became fully assimilated into the native population. Unlike most other Chinese before the 20th century, they never allowed their women to bind their feet, and they speak a language that has affinities with both Cantonese, the language of the people of Kwangtung province, and Mandarin, the language of much of northern and central China; many of the Hakka tongue's initial sounds are a bridge between the two dialects. An extremely industrious, shrewd people, the Hakka tend to be very clannish

Hakka and Hoklo originally were two main dialects in Taiwan. But nowadays, the Hakka dialect is shrinking and disappearing. Zhao-jin Luo, an expert in Hakka studies, once said that if Hakka people do not understand deeply about Hakka language and do not keep on speaking it, the Hakka language will die out soon.

The Hakka are Han Chinese people whose ancestors are said to have originated in the Henan and Shanxi provinces of northern China over 1,700 years ago. In a series of migrations, the Hakka settled in Guangdong, Jiangxi and Fujian provinces in southern China, and then they went overseas to various Chinese enclaves throughout the world. The Hakka have had a significant influence on the course of Chinese and Overseas Chinese history: they particularly have been a source of revolutionary and political leaders.



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.



During the reign of the Qing Kangxi Emperor, 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" (¿Í‘ô, k¨¨h¨´).



The existing Cantonese speaking inhabitants (punti, Cantonese for native) of these areas were protective of their own more fertile lands, and the newcomers were pushed to the outer fringes of fertile plains, or they settled in more mountainous regions to eke out a living. 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 would lead to the Punti-Hakka Clan Wars.



Over time, the term "Hakka" was adopted by the newcomers to refer to themselves. However, because the term also covers Hakka language-speakers, 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, 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. 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. 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.



Although they frequently are distinctive in culture and language from the surrounding population, the Hakka are not considered a separate ethnic group by the Chinese people: they are seen as part of the majority Han Chinese. Indigenous settlers thought that the Hakka were not Chinese at all; but due to common ancestry, as traced in clan genealogies, Hakka descendants have been shown to be as Chinese as their neighbours. In fact, the Hakka are no more non-Han than are any other southern Han populations.[citation needed]



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 newcomers and the indigenous people. A recent study showed that there is genetic diversity in the general Han Chinese population. This suggests that the southward migration of people is borne out by these DNA studies, consistent with genealogical data. Further, two main groups of modern Han Chinese are observed: a northerly Han group with genetic affinity with northerly Mongoloid peoples, and a southerly Han group which have genetic affinity with the Gin Vietnamese. This finding is consistent with the migrations experienced during the history of the Hakka, from the north to the south of China. Even though this study is not a direct study of Hakka ancestry using DNA data, it does show that all modern southern Chinese have non-Han genotypes, due to a history of intermarriage with indigenous aboriginal peoples in the places in which they came to settle.



Social and cultural influences
With limited prospects in agriculture, Hakka men have turned -- more often than have other Chinese -- toward careers in the military or public service. Consequently, the Hakka culturally emphasized education and have performed well in Imperial examinations.



Hakka society was dependent on the working abilities of women, who had to take up a larger share of the farming work while the men were studying or at war. Because the women had to work, the Hakkas did not practice foot-binding.



Due to their agrarian lifestyle, the Hakka have a unique architecture based on defense and communal living (See Hakka architecture), and a hearty savory cuisine based on preserved and fried and stewed items (See Hakka cuisine).



Hakkas in China
Hakkas in Guangdong
The Hakkas who live in Guangdong comprise about 60% of the total Hakka population. Worldwide, over 95% of the overseas-descended Hakkas came from this Guangdong region, usually from Huizhou: the Hakkas there live mostly in the eastern part of the province, particularly in the so-called Xing-Mei (Xingning-Meixian) area. Guangxi contains the second-largest Hakka community. Unlike their kin in Fujian, the Hakkas in the Xingning and Meixian area developed a non-fortress-like unique architectural style, most notably the weilongwu (Chinese: ‡úýˆÎÝ, w¨¦il¨®ngw¨±) and sijiaolou (Chinese: ËĽǘÇ, s¨¬j¨«aol¨®u).



Hakkas in Fujian
The Hakkas who settled in the mountainous region of south-western Fujian province, developed a unique form of architectural building known as tu lou (ÍÁ˜Ç), literally meaning earthen structures. The tu lou are either round or square, and were designed as a combined large fortress and multi-apartment building complex. The structures typically had only one entrance-way, with no windows at ground level. Each floor served a different function: the first floor containing a well and livestock, the second food storage and the third and higher floors contain living spaces. Tu-lou were built to withstand attack from bandits and marauders.





Hakkas in Taiwan
In Taiwan, Hakka people comprise about 15% of the population and are descended largely from Guangdong: they form the third largest population group on the island. Many Hakka moved to lands high up in the hills or remote mountains to escape political persecution. Many of the Hakka people continue to live in these hilly locations of Taiwan.



Taiwan's Hakka are concentrated in Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County, Miaoli County, and around Jhongli in Taoyuan County, and Meinong in Kaohsiung County, and in Pingtong County, with smaller presences in Hualian and Taitung County. In recent decades many Hakka have moved to the largest metropolitan areas, including Taipei and Kaohsiung.



Hakkas in Hong Kong
The Hakkas in Hong Kong are concentrated in the villages and small towns in the New Territories. They farm high and difficult terrain because when they arrived in Hong Kong the Punti had already occupied the best land. The Hakka and the Punti are very different. For instance, the Hakka people actually speak a more standard Cantonese than the Punti, who talk with a thick accent. Also, the Hakka women never bound their feet, unlike the traditional Chinese.



Hakkas worldwide
The Hakkas have emigrated to many regions worldwide, notably, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand.



Hakka people also emigrated to Australia, Brunei, Canada, the United States, and to many countries in Europe, including Great Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Hakka people also are found in South Africa and Mauritius, on the islands of the Caribbean (Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, and in Central and South America, particularly in Panama. Most expatriate Hakka in Great Britain have ties to Hong Kong, many emigrated when Hong Kong still was a British colony. There once was a sizable Hakka community in Calcutta, but most there have migrated to Canada, the United States, Australia, or Taiwan. Today there are about 90-100 million Hakka speakers around the world.



Hakkas in Indonesia
Hakka people in Indonesia are found primarily in cities in Western Kalimantan (Borneo), such as Pontianak, Singkawang, and towns along the Kapuas River. They are descendants of gold prospectors who migrated from China in the late 19th century. (It is said that the first migrants wore Qing-style ponytails.) Hakka also are found on the Indonesian islands of Bangka and Belitung. However most have moved on to the city of Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia.



Hakkas on the island of Bangka have a very interesting accents scheme, said to be heavily influenced by the Malay native language. Because Chinese languages are dependent upon intonation, to convey meaning, slight difference in intonation can change the meaning entirely. The Hakka spoken by the islanders has such a different intonation that their spoken language is hardly intelligible to Hakkas from other regions.



Hakkas in East Timor
Ethnic Hakka people in a wedding in East Timor, 2006There was a relatively large and vibrant Hakka community in East Timor before the Indonesian invasion in 1975. During the invasion many Hakka were slaughtered, while others escaped to Australia. Now they can be found in Darwin and spread-out in major cities such as Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. They often are highly-educated, and many continue their educations in Taiwan or China. The Australian government took some years to assess their claims to political asylum in order to establish their credentials as genuine refugees and not illegal immigrants. As no Asian country was willing to accept them as residents, or grant political asylum to displaced Hakka and other Timorese, they were forced to live as stateless persons for a time.

Hakka is a spoken variation of the Chinese language spoken predominantly in southern China by the Hakka ethnic group and descendants in diaspora throughout East and Southeast Asia and around the world.

The Hakkas are a unique ethnic group of "Han" Chinese originally active around the Yellow River area. They are thought to be one of the earliest "Han" settlers in China. One theory has it that many of the early Hakkas were affiliated with the "royal bloods". The truth may be more complicated than that. It is highly likely that while Hakka may be a stronghold of Han culture, Hakka people also have married other ethnic groups and adopted their cultures during the long migration history of 2000 years. Due to the infusion of other ethnic groups from the northwest, north and northeast, these original settlers gradually migrated south and settled in Jiangxi, Fujian, and Guangdong. They were called Hakka by the locals when they first settled in. This term has been used since by non-Hakka and Hakka people, and in international publications. The spelling "Hakka" is derived from the pronunciation in Hakka dialect ( pronounced as "haagga" in Hakka and "kejia" in Mandarin).

During the last hundred years or so, Hakka people migrated to South East Asia, East Africa, Europe (Holland, United Kingdom, France, Germany..), South America (Brazil, Trinidad...) Canada, US. About 7% of the 1.2 billion Chinese clearly state their Hakka origin or heritage. However, the actual number may be more as many Hakka Han who settled along the path of migration assimilate with the local people. The Hakka identity is gradually lost.

Hakka people are noted for their preservation of certain cultural characteristics that could be traced to pre-Qin period (about 2200 years ago) as expressed in the custom, foods, spoken language, etc.

Hakka people are also known to be very adamant in defending their cultural heritage, which was the reason for their migration to flee from the "northern" influence at that time.

As a late comer to places initially occupied by locals, Hakkas usually had to struggle and survive on the less desirable lands. Thus, Hakka people are well-known for their perseverance even in the most adverse environment.

Architectural Space

In mentioning Hakka architecture, people always think of old houses, more specifically, examples of historical architecture or ancient sites. The three-wing courtyard house in which the Hakka live (also called the kuofangwu) does indeed have a high profile, and especially throughout the process of social change the old houses in the Hakka villages seem to have survived better than the houses of other ethnic groups.

For this reason, mentioning Hakka architecture today very naturally leads one to think of Fanjiang's Old Houses in Hsinwu, the Fan House and the Liu House in Hsinpu, the Six Clan Wen-li Hall, and Peipu's Tien-shui Hall and Chin Kuang Fu. In southern Taiwan Meinung's Kuofangwu, Chiatung's Hsiao House and Wukoushui's Liu House come to mind. Certainly, outstanding and elegant old Hakka houses are always bound to attract admiration. The shops are full of books on old Taiwan houses, and Hakka architecture regularly accounts for half of them.

Hakka architectural space as cultural property

There are indeed many individual cases of extraordinary elegance in Hakka architecture but if we only talk about the very top level of traditional Hakka architecture it is difficult to get an idea of the values of the Hakka ancestors with regard to the development of architectural space. Reading the Cultural Heritage Preservation Act (Preservation Act) announced in 2005, the closest thing relating to "architectural space" was that the architectural space of "antiquities, historical architecture and traditional gathering habitations" should cover antiquities, historical architecture and traditional gathering habitations and that the overall vision and thinking in this area should be broadened from a cultural perspective, especially given the many architectural types to be found in Hakka villages.

Diversified Architectural Types

The Preservation Act can be boiled down to several key words and phrases: antiquities, historical architecture, traditional gathering habitations, construction methods, buildings and their associated elements. We can extrapolate further from this to: shops, courtyard-style houses (residences), ancestral shrines (public and private), ancestral temples (of the ruling house), shrines, religious buildings, warning stones, fengshui, barracks, police stations, jails, fire stations, official dormitories, colleges, schools, theaters, gymnasiums, meeting places, guild halls, general stores, foreign company buildings, banks, post office, tobacco barns, farmer's association halls, irrigation association halls, sugar refineries, breweries, markets, kilns, train stations, ports, ferry stations, light houses, bridges, ancient roads, hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, memorial tablets, memorial arches, city walls, defensive gates, parks (and gardens), and ancient wells.

The above is by no means a complete list of Hakka architectural types. To be complete, it would have to include the types the Hakka people themselves have continued to add with their imagination.

Concrete Manifestations of a Way of Life

Every level of government has numerous projects focusing on living space in Hakka villages, and these projects are not at a loss for older style construction. But there are also many new constructions, and even more up-to-date older but not ancient styles. The emphasis is by on means on the building's design aesthetic but on its cultural significance and function. For example in Taiyuan, Hsinwu's Yewumei office building (and the environs), Pingzhen's new use of the old buildings in the Tungshih zhuang, the renovation of the Shitouwu at Fentien Village, Hengshan, Hsinchu, the delineation of Hsinwawu as a "Hakka Cultural Preservation Area" and the renovation of the Lin Family Clan Temple, the old mountain dwellings in Shuili, the reuse of the tobacco barns in Fenglin, Hualien and in Meinung, Kaohsiung. In these places you can see the more diversified Hakka architectural typologies, and even more significant is that in rediscovering all of this, the significance of Hakka culture is enriched. (text: Chen Pan)

group of North Chinese who migrated to South China, especially Kwangtung, Fukien, and Kwangsi provinces, during the fall of the Southern Sung dynasty in the 1270s. Their origins remain obscure, but the people who became the Hakka are thought to have lived originally in Honan and Shansi provinces in the Huang Ho (Yellow River) valley. The name Hakka is a Cantonese pronunciation of the Mandarin word k'o-chia ("guest people"), which the northerners were called to distinguish them from the pen-ti, or natives. Having settled in South China in their own communities, the Hakka never became fully assimilated into the native population. Unlike most other Chinese before the 20th century, they never allowed their women to bind their feet, and they speak a language that has affinities with both Cantonese, the language of the people of Kwangtung province, and Mandarin, the language of much of northern and central China; many of the Hakka tongue's initial sounds are a bridge between the two dialects. An extremely industrious, shrewd people, the Hakka tend to be very clannish

Hakka and Hoklo originally were two main dialects in Taiwan. But nowadays, the Hakka dialect is shrinking and disappearing. Zhao-jin Luo, an expert in Hakka studies, once said that if Hakka people do not understand deeply about Hakka language and do not keep on speaking it, the Hakka language will die out soon.