Hakka

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Hakka settlement ( Tulou )

The Hakka ( Chinese  客家 , Pinyin Kèjiā , Hakka Hag-gá , Jyutping Haak 3 gaa 1  - "guest family") are one of the eight Han Chinese ethnic groups. They have their own form of the Chinese language , Hakka , which is divided into several sub-dialects, and have certain cultural characteristics.

In the 21st century, the Hakka live in other countries in Asia and overseas in addition to China . They have spread in several migratory movements in southern China and from there on to Taiwan, Southeast Asia, North and Central America and Australia. According to the Japanese researcher Hideo Matsumoto, they originally come from the area around Lake Baikal in Siberia. The local population is called " Bunti (ngin) " ( 本地 (人) , běndì (rén)  - "home country (human)").

The name Hakka means 'guests' ( 客家人 , Kèjiārén ). There are over 60 million Hakka worldwide, some of whom can no longer speak Hakka. On the other hand, there is a strongly grown and in some places quite influential movement that promotes the cultural heritage of the Hakka in a sustainable manner with Hakka culture-specific educational offers and defends the cultural location of the Hakka in the Chinese world.

Especially known rotundas ( 圓樓  /  圆楼 , Yuanlou ) of the Hakka in circles Yongding of the prefecture-level city Longyan province Fujian . However, they are also available in square form ( 方 樓  /  方 楼 , Fānglóu ). They consist of tamped mud walls and were primarily used to protect against enemies.

The Hakka Migration History

Ethnicity and background of Hakka research in German-speaking countries

The term "Hakka" refers to one of the eight Han ethnic groups, which differ from other Chinese ethnic groups in their own culture, language and history.

This ethnic group and its peculiarity first became known in German-speaking countries through Basel missionaries . After the collapse of Karl Friederich Gützlaff's "Chinese Association" in Hong Kong, they took over the supervision of his assistants and, under President Rudolf Lechler, after 1858, the reorientation of the work. The direction of the work and the missionary work among the Hakka had been in the hands of the founder of the Hakka mission Hamberg since 1852. The Basel Mission has published a small German-Hakka dictionary and a booklet on Hakka grammar.

Other differences between the Hakka and other Han groups can be found in their religious convictions, in the position of women and in the importance of good education for both sexes. The Hakka women have grown their feet naturally and have not had a lotus foot through centuries of tradition. In terms of religious convictions, the focus is traditionally on dealing with the Yin-Yang concept of Taoism, the control and balance of the two poles of power under the guidance of the geomancer or Taoist priest and the high respect for ancestors. Unlike the rest of the Han Chinese, they traditionally do not worship a large pantheon of gods. The Hakka trace their ethnic origin back to the Central Asian Huns. The Huns ( Xiongnu ) were considered arch enemies of the Chinese for centuries.

Genetic Research and Ethnic Developments

When the first emperor of China in 221 BC When the Chinese kingdoms had united, the Hakka who lived in them were culturally isolated. As a result of this separation, they developed their language and culture in the Han Chinese environment. This made them one of the main tribes of today's Han Chinese.

Hideo Matsumoto believes the Hakka are more related to the Japanese and Koreans than to the Chinese because of their genetic similarities, and has invested many years of research to carefully establish genetic similarities between Hakka and the Japanese and Koreans. His research results show the common genetic origin of the Japanese, Koreans and Hakka and show an almost identical genetic structure with the Buryats and Yakuts on Lake Baikal in Siberia. From this, Hideo Matsumoto draws the conclusion that the Hakka must originally come from the Central Asian Baikal region in the Altai, where, he assumes, they were between 12000 and 3000 BC. Emigrated.

The Hakka settled in China, later in Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Cambodia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Hainan, Indonesia, Hawaii, Suriname, East Timor and, more recently, in Australia. With each wave of emigration, a little more of the Central Asian cultural heritage of the Hakka was lost. The emigration of the Hakka from Imperial China took place in five great waves from the 7th century AD. For this reason, for example, in Taiwan, which is home to more than 4.6 million Hakka (2008: 18.7% of the population of Taiwan), there are very different local traditions among the Hakka. Waves of emigration were often accompanied by natural disasters as well as famine and epidemics. As “immigrants” (客家人, in Mandarin the name Hakka means “guests”), they were the first to make room and move out.

The five major emigration phases

  1. Phase: In the Qin Dynasty from 249 to 209 BC Chr.
  2. Phase: In the Han Dynasty 307–419 AD (natural disasters, there was a prolonged drought in northern China). In 298 AD, hundreds of thousands emigrated from the north via Gansu and Shaanxi to Sichuan and Henan . In 306, over 300,000 Hakka left Shaanxi and established new branches in the south. As early as the middle of the 5th century, the Hakka formed large colonies in the southern Chinese provinces of Fujian and especially in Guangdong . The Hakka settled in Anhui Province until the 7th century.
  3. Phase: 907–1280 AD During these years, larger groups of Hakka continued to advance further south and there also populated the mountainous outskirts. The overpopulation, which nevertheless soon set in, led to a further surge of emigrants.
  4. Phase: Yuan and Ming dynasties (1241–1644): During these years some Hakka advanced to the headwaters of the Yangtze River , where they repeatedly came into conflict with the Thai, Miao, Yao and Tibetan-Burmese peoples. From 1670, many Hakka accepted an invitation from the Qing (Manchu) government to settle deserted coastal areas of Fujian and Guandong. During this wave of emigration, large numbers of the Hakka left the mainland and immigrated to Hainan and Taiwan. In the years 1865-69, the Dutch trading company brought around 2000 Hakka to Suriname in seven shiploads , thus initiating the fifth wave of emigration.
  5. Phase: From 1867 (time of the Taiping uprising ): After the collapse of the Taiping uprising, masses of Hakka started moving again, this time further abroad. Many of them reached the American continent for the first time in this wave of emigration, others stayed in Southeast Asia and arrived in Singapore and East Malaysia. In 1860 every fourth Chinese immigrant miner in California was a Hakka, and by 1878 most Hakka Hawaiis came from Hong Kong. A Hakka state was founded in Kalimantan , which existed as the Lanfang Republic from 1777 to 1884.

The above classification of the emigration phases was suggested by Clyde Y. Kiang in his book The Hakka Odyssey & Their Taiwan Homeland Elgin (PA), Allegheny Press 1992.

One of the well houses in Yongding, Fujian

The Hakka of the Chinese province of Guangdong

Although many Hakka have emigrated, the highest concentration of Hakka still lives in the Chinese province of Guangdong. According to Chung Yoon Ngan, there are more Hakka in Guangdong than there are anywhere else in the world.

The immigration of the Hakka to the below mentioned areas began in the Song Dynasty (960 to 1279 AD)

After the Song dynasty was superseded by the Mongols, the Hakka in Guangdong spread into different regions of the province and on to Fujian. Especially in the areas of Meixian , Dongguan , Huizhou , Dabu , Haifeng , Lufeng , Yongding , Yongxin and other mountainous regions, they built villages and lived their customs in isolation. Hakka was traditionally used as the colloquial language. There was a strong growth and spread of their culture.

Share of Hakka population in Guangdong (2012)

To the east of Ling Nan

  1. Mei Xian (梅縣)
  2. Jiao Ling (蕉嶺)
  3. Ping Yuan (平 遠)
  4. Xing Ning (興寧)
  5. Wu Hua (五 華)
  6. Feng Shun (豐順)
  7. Da Pu (大埔)
  8. Rao Ping (饒平)

At the lower reaches of the Dong Jiang

  1. Lian Ping (連 平)
  2. He ping (和平)
  3. Xin Feng (新豐)
  4. Long Men (龍門)
  5. Long Chuan (龍川)
  6. Hey Yuan (河源)
  7. Zi Jin (紫金)
  8. Hui Yang (惠陽)
  9. Bo Luo (博羅)
  10. Dong Guan (東莞), Bao An (寶安)

In the north the course of the river along the Bei Jiang

  1. Cong Hua (從 化)
  2. Hua Xian (花 縣)
  3. Qing Yuan (清遠)
  4. Ying De (英德)
  5. Weng Yuan (翁源)
  6. Qu Jiang (曲江)
  7. Yue Chang (樂昌)
  8. Ru Yuan (乳源)
  9. Shi Xing (始興)
  10. Nan Xiong (南雄)
  11. Lian Xian (連 縣)
  12. Lian Shan (連山)

To the west, along the Xi Jiang

  1. He Shan (鶴山)
  2. De Qing (德慶)
  3. Yun Fu (雲浮)
  4. Si Hui (四 會)
  5. Si Chuan (寺 川)

In the southern plains of Guangdong

  1. Chi Xi (赤溪)
  2. Fang Cheng (防城)
  3. He Pooh (合浦)
  4. Qin Xian (欽 縣)

In the eastern coastal regions of Guangdong

  1. Hai Feng (海豐)
  2. Lu Feng (陸豐)

The Hakka Migration History in Taiwan

After Zheng Chenggong the Dutch from Taiwan was expelled, as he sat Ming -Loyalist his opposition to the ruling in mainland China Qing dynasty of the Manchus continued. In his entourage was a general named Liu Guoxuan , a member of the Hakka ethnic group and who led a large number of other Hakka from Fujian Province in his entourage. This was the first major immigration from Hakka to the island of Taiwan.

In 1683, the troops of the Qing Dynasty conquered Taiwan and incorporated the island as a province into their empire. In order to avoid further resistance or new uprisings, immigration from mainland China to Taiwan was strictly controlled from then on. The imperial court passed laws prohibiting residents of Guangdong Province from crossing to Taiwan. The ban was not aimed directly at the Hakka, but since many southern Chinese Hakka were resident in Guangdong, it turned out that in the early days of the Qing rule there were relatively few Hakka among the numerous Chinese immigrants to Taiwan. It was only when the emigration bans were lifted at the end of the 18th century that Hakka from Guangdong Province came to Taiwan in large numbers. Since the more easily accessible areas near the coast had already been occupied by immigrants from earlier phases, the only option left for the Hakka was to cultivate areas that were more difficult to access near the central Taiwanese mountains.

Since the Hakka immigrants came to Taiwan in staggered batches, their settlement areas emerged incoherently scattered across the west of the island. Where the Hakka lived with Minnan -speaking Chinese from earlier periods of immigration, they were mostly a minority who were in conflict with or mixed with other ethnic groups. Those Hakka who settled in more remote areas, on the other hand, preserved their cultural idiosyncrasies and their language better. However, since their areas were not geographically connected, various local dialects of the Hakka language emerged in so-called dialect islands.

The Hakka now make up about 15 percent of Taiwan's population.

East Timor and Australia

Hakka wedding in East Timor 2006

The Hakka had come to Timor as traders.

Before the Indonesian invasion of 1975, East Timor had a large and lively Hakka community. During the invasion, however, many Hakka died or fled to Australia . Today most of the Timorese Hakka live in Darwin and other Australian cities, such as Brisbane , Sydney and Melbourne .

See also

literature

  • Robyn Smith: Hakka. The Diaspora leading to the Northern Territory. Hakka Association of the Northern Territory, Winnellie NT 2012, ISBN 978-0-646-57197-3 .

Web links

Commons : Hakka  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Hakka  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hakka - An Important Element of Chinese Culture. Retrieved May 20, 2009 .
  2. ^ Wilhelm Oehler: History of the German Evangelical Mission. Volume 1: The early days and heyday of the German Protestant mission. 1706-1885. Wilhelm Fehrholz, Baden-Baden 1949, pp. 357–358.
  3. ^ Basler Missionare: Small German-Hakka dictionary for beginners . Evangelical Mission Society, Basel 1909.
  4. ↑ Basel Missionaries: Brief Hakka Grammar . Evangelical Mission Society, Basel 1909.
  5. ↑ Hideo Matsumoto in Nihonjin no kigen. The Rafu Shimpo, Los Angeles, April 24, 1990, p. 5.
    James Oda: The Mongolian spot: Mougohan no nazo. In: The Rafu Shimpo Los Angeles, July 23, 1990, p. 5 (Japanese).
  6. ↑ en: Lanfang Republic
  7. ↑ Chung Yoon Ngan: More Hakkas living in Guangdong province. In: Hakka Chinese Forum at Asiawind. asiawind.com, accessed on May 20, 2009 .
  8. ↑ - ( Memento of the original from January 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hakka.gov.tw