At this moment, a burst of sadness came to my heart, and a line of hot tears couldn't help but fall down my face; because, in the new wave of migration, I have become a stranger in a foreign land, and I am also struggling to find how to integrate into society, and how to find my inner peace. of peace. Also, I have a strong interest in Hakka enclosed houses. I missed the opportunity in Ganzhou and missed the opportunity again in Fujian. I moved from Shanghang to Yongding County, which is the place with the largest number of Hakka houses and the most typical place. However, I only stayed in Yongding County for one night. When I arrived in Yongding, it was already very late. I wanted to rush to Guangdong the next day. Go to Meizhou, but Yongding only has one morning bus to Meizhou. I had no choice but to call the tourism bureau and get some information to look back at. However, I probably think that the enclosed house is a fusion of clan society and architectural patterns. Its architectural features are like the rammed earth Great Wall in the northwest, which can prevent bandit attacks. This shows that the population in this mountainous area is relatively small, and banditry is particularly serious. , it is not easy for the Hakka people to survive. Enclosed houses ensure the safety of their lives and property, and also strengthen the characteristics of the clan society. The integration of small families and large clans within this clan society is conducive to competition and development. Later generations considered the Hakka enclosed house to be one of the six characteristic "folk houses" in the country, and praised it as an artistic masterpiece of the Hakka people. That is a story for another day. If I have the chance, I will definitely visit the enclosure again to make up for this regret. (I heard that Yongding County is Lee Teng-hui’s ancestral home. His ancestors moved to Taiwan from Fujian. From the perspective of national and cultural roots, he should not engage in acts of splitting the motherland. Although the historical issues left over in Chinese politics are very complicated) Perhaps, the enclosed houses, farming civilization and clan society are the foundation for the Hakka people to take root tenaciously, and the yearning for the gentry society and passing the scientific examination are the reasons why they develop the habit of reading. Reading, scientific examination and being an official are the ways to improve the family status. Central Plains culture. It can be said that under such difficult conditions, the Hakkas have realized a series of cultural integration with self-awareness, and have become an outstanding ethnic group capable of culture and martial arts, farming and reading, and integrating agriculture and commerce - "a group of people who are constantly striving for self-improvement." In this way, relying on this cultural integration, the Hakka people have their own cultural core and can achieve subsequent prosperity and development. Later, along the Tingjiang, Hanjiang and Dongjiang rivers, the Hakkas opened up a living area, connecting Ganzhou, Tingzhou, Meizhou and Chaozhou (including Huizhou) into a Hakka residential area, entering a period of prosperity and then spreading On behalf of the mainland and overseas... As I travel along the way, I would like to further ask: What is the cultural core of the Hakka people? Is this culture continuing to evolve? I don’t fully know my tribe yet, and I don’t fully know myself. In the past, I complained about poor conditions and environment; only today did I understand that Hakka people do not complain about the environment. They are not afraid of difficulties and take the initiative to compete. This can be condensed into four words - continuous self-improvement. -------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------- ---------- The prosperous place of Hakkas - Meizhou (Guangdong) Meizhou, the whole city is made up of Hakkas, which is well-known at home and abroad. Therefore, Meizhou is also called the "Hakka Capital of the World". This is my real hometown. Even though it dates back nearly ten generations, it still feels very friendly and full of people speaking Hakka. I tried it out, and even the people who drove tricycles here were so diligent. They introduced me to a hotel with a price and sanitary conditions that I was satisfied with, and even helped me deliver my suitcase to the room. After the Hakkas established their foundation in Tingzhou, Fujian, they followed the Tingjiang and Hanjiang rivers and occupied large areas of hilly and mountainous areas. In the same area, the Central Plains people who migrated with various surnames realized the Hakka culture. Agree. As a result, three major ethnic groups formed in Guangdong: Cantonese, Hakka and Chaoshan (prefecture) people. Meizhou has caught up from behind and is included in the four famous cultural cities in Guangdong. There are as many scholars in Meizhou as crucian carp crossing the river. Many universities in Guangdong have professors with Hakka accents, and high school teachers are all over the province. The reason why reading is so popular is that they may have experienced the hardship of surviving in a barbaric land and hope to improve their status in life; maybe the Hakka people have overcome the difficulties of migration, their lives have stabilized, and their families have a stable life. The ability to invest in talent.
Moreover, the clan society has some public property and has built local rural academies. Meizhou people still have the habit of selling cattle to cultivate scholars. The stability of life is also reflected in food, forming Hakka cuisine. When you arrive in Meizhou, you must taste the Hakka dishes, such as "salt chicken, braised pork with pickled vegetables, fish fillet and tofu". Many dishes are on the salty side. I wonder if it is due to the strong taste of the Central Plains people, and there is another It is said that when working in hot mountainous areas, you sweat a lot and you need to add salt. These dishes are not palace dishes, but common people's dishes made from local materials, which gradually formed a series of Hakka dishes, also called Dongjiang cuisine (Dongjiang in Guangdong, the Hakka residential area). The same changes are also reflected in architecture. House construction has also shifted from rammed earth walls to brick and wood style. There are relatively few enclosed houses (earth buildings) in Meizhou, and there are many styles of houses. The dragon-shaped house is a major feature, and most of them are made of brick and wood. There are also "palace-style" houses with a structure, and there are also some Chinese and Western houses built by overseas Chinese, reflecting the characteristics of Meizhou's hometown of overseas Chinese. In modern times, the social status of the Hakka people has also improved. Dabu County is a general county. During the Kuomintang period, 108 generals were produced, which is an obvious example. At this time, the Hakka people were rich in products, and characteristic industries emerged. They followed the Han River to the Chaozhou sea port and exported large quantities to Southeast Asia. This export trade brought opportunities to the world. Due to the serious contradiction between more people and less land, , a large number of Hakka people took boats to Nanyang, starting their maritime migration path. In Taibu County, there is the ancestral residence of Lee Kuan Yew. It was built by Lee Kuan Yew's great-grandfather after he came back to make his fortune in Nanyang. The house is not very big, and there is a name "Zhonghandi" on the front door. I visited it personally. Lee Kuan Yew and his son successively served as Prime Ministers of Singapore. Neither of them came back to Tai Po. It is said that only Lee Kuan Yew's cousin did. The Hakka people's advocating for reading has yielded many fruits. In modern times, the emergence of talents in large numbers is very obvious. For example, Sun Yat-sen, Lee Kuan Yew, Ye Jianying, etc. all became talents through reading, including civil and military officials, and many scientists. During the Republic of China, most of the college students in famous universities across the country were Cantonese and Jiangsu people, among which the Guangdong Hakka people can be said to be a new force. Judging from the origin, development and prosperity of the Hakka people, this is an upward process. They have experienced the critical point of either surviving or perishing, or rising or sinking. This is not the case for a family, an ethnic group, or a country. Our country is carrying out one experiment or another. It has caught up with a period of reform and development and has made some achievements. Now, it has reached a crossroads of either upward advancement or downward decline. mouth, because the fundamental solution for farmers has not been solved and is not really taken seriously. If the time goes back 20 years and the per capita land of farmers drops to only one piece of land, hundreds of millions of farmers will no longer be able to support themselves. Will we have to wait until a crisis breaks out to achieve national self-awakening? I have seen that farmers in Gan, Ting and Mei have fallen into the dilemma of limited farmland and population growth. The rural land responsibility contract system once solved the problem of farmers' food and clothing. However, this system not only cannot solve the problem of getting rich, but also solves the problem of getting rich. There may also be a danger of going from food and clothing to starvation. By then, it will no longer be a joke that the countryside has transformed into Africa and the cities have transformed into Europe. Maybe God has left China 20 years to realize the transition and transformation of farmers, otherwise, the consequences will be disastrous... In Meizhou now, the local government seems to want to "get some money" from overseas Chinese to build the city, and has deviated from the mountainous economy. Development has deviated from the grassroots Hakka culture. Although the local government claims to the outside world that Meizhou is the "Hakka Capital of the World," they do not understand or care that Hakka culture is a living culture.
We don’t want the government to understand Hakka culture as “the culture of books or memorials.” I really want to say that Hakka culture is not dead. It still has a little breath. Don’t kill this last breath... On the streets of Meizhou, we often see Meizhou women riding tricycles. They take on this hard work, come and go in the wind and rain, which reflects the hard-working nature of the Hakka people; however, this kind of laborious rolling forward also means It is very worrying. The fate of the Hakka people may have been like this during the reform and opening up period. Meizhou's economic and social development has not caught up... ----------------------- -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------- Hakka's outlet to the sea - Chaozhou (Guangdong) a The place where the tide rises and falls connects the Han River and the southeast sea, so it was named Chaozhou. Teochew dialect is a Hokkien dialect and is difficult to understand. In the past, Chaozhou belonged to the Shantou area. There was a joke that a person served as a soldier in Shantou for three years and only learned one sentence in Chaozhou dialect: "Three pairs of underpants (Shantou area)". I took a bus from Meizhou to Shantou. I did not stay in Shantou and transferred to Chaozhou that night. This was my fourth destination on this trip - the Hakka outlet. There are many Hakkas living in Southeast Asia and the United States, and most of them came from Chaozhou. In overseas Chinatowns (also known as Chinatowns), the two most popular languages ??are Cantonese and Hakka, followed by Teochew and Mandarin. Why the Hakkas went overseas, in addition to their conscious migration, was also related to their shift from farming civilization to the integration of agriculture and commerce. In particular, the Hakkas' ability to cultivate land was an important factor in the Chinese's success in establishing a foothold overseas. There is a popular saying overseas: Hakka people created Chinatown, Cantonese people prospered Chinatown, and Chaozhou people occupied Chinatown. The Hakkas occupied a place in Jieyang City (county-level city) adjacent to Chaozhou. Some Hakkas who immigrated to Chaozhou City could only converge (identify) with Chaozhou dialect in language, because most of the Chaozhou officials in the Song Dynasty came from Fujian, bringing with them Many immigrants from Fujian who speak Hokkien have turned Chaozhou into a place dominated by Hokkien. Moreover, the Chaozhou dialect is difficult to learn, making it almost difficult for outsiders to establish themselves in Chaozhou, which also leads to the isolation of Chaozhou. Apart from exporting goods from Hanjiang or immigrating overseas, the Hakkas basically did not stop in Chaozhou. In addition, the tenacious Hakka people, under attack from the left and right, followed the "Dongjiang River" southward, extending from Meizhou to Huizhou (and Shenzhen), connecting with Hong Kong, and opened up a way to immigrate abroad. There are many Hakka people in the mountainous area in the northern part of Hong Kong. people. Chaozhou's profound cultural heritage and well-protected ancient city are amazing. The existence of the ancient city also maintains their original way of life, a living Chaozhou culture. Because there is a regulation in the ancient city restricting new buildings with more than three floors, which discourages real estate developers and moves new construction to new urban areas. Chaozhou has a strong culture of advocating culture. The Confucian Temple, Kaiyuan Temple, and Kechi Temple are all in good condition, and there are many Buddhist sites. Kaiyuan Temple was built in the Tang Dynasty. Later, Monk Dadian, a disciple of the legendary Buddhist figure Sixth Patriarch Huineng, also built a new temple. Temple; it can be said that Chaozhou City has a strong academic and Buddhist style. Chaozhou's snacks and Kung Fu tea are also outstanding, and its food and drink habits are also very popular. There are many Chaozhou flavor foods throughout the country. The most surprising thing is that the houses facing the streets in the ancient city of Chaozhou are all shops, reflecting the popular business characteristics of Chaozhou people. Most of them sell food and ready-made clothes. Two special features that have to be mentioned are selling Buddhist offerings and second-hand bookstores. There are many. I bought a lot of old books in Chaozhou, such as "Hetu Luoshu", "Top Ten Figures of Chinese Buddhism" and "The Horse Whisperer", etc. This is a big gain from this trip. Although Chaozhou people like to do business, Chaozhou's economic vitality is not the leader in Guangdong. This has a lot to do with the local business culture. On the one hand, Chaozhou people can endure hardships and move their families to various places to open small shops. On the other hand, Chaozhou people dare to take risks, like to speculate, and engage in all kinds of buying and selling activities. These behaviors appeared to be vigorous in the early stages of reform and opening up. As commodities became more abundant, profiteering commodities became increasingly rare, leading to the outcome of "speculation succeeds and fails".
There are also serious fraud and integrity problems, which have caused the regional economic reputation to decline, making it difficult to re-establish Chaoshan's business reputation. Even Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, who was born in Chaozhou, is unwilling to come back to invest. He invested huge sums of money in Shenzhen Yantian Terminal, but did not invest in Shantou Terminal. He donated to Shantou University and promised to make Shantou University a first-class university in the country. He was also willing to contribute to Shantou University. Tens of millions in donations for flood disaster. However, he deeply abhorred the "money evasion" and "waste" practices of local officials. Among so many local officials, he liked two mayors, one was honest and the other was squeezed out. I went to see Li Ka-shing's former residence on Beima Road. It was rebuilt in the 1980s and now belongs to his relatives. They are unwilling to change it. I found that people riding tricycles in Chaozhou also like to ride with guests and take the initiative to take you to some scenic spots, and then they can charge you extra money. Therefore, outsiders need to pay more attention to the commercial and sincere language of Chaozhou people. In a culturally diverse area, I want to know whether different cultures can exist harmoniously? The Cantonese people occupied the early sandy land (now the Pearl River Delta), the Hakka people occupied the hilly and mountainous areas, and the Chaozhou people occupied part of the coastal area. I saw an example when I went to Guangzhou. I saw Cantonese people producing ready-made clothes in the Pearl River Delta factories, Hakka people working in these production factories, and Chaozhou people selling ready-made clothes in the market. Obviously, this has formed a combination.