|
|
|
Written by Taospark
|
|
Tuesday, 03 October 2006 |
By Peter Kwong, this terrific non-fiction work has been revised in the past decade to provide relevant information about the state of Chinatowns, specifically the one in Manhattan. "The New Chinatown" gives an in-depth and clear understanding of the heritage, culture, and travails that early Chinese-Americans brought with them to America. Most of these pioneers were Cantonese and Kwong devotes a small passage to the Cantonese as a unique subgroup of the Chinese.
Text below is excerpted from "The New Chinatown" under the terms of fair use and is the copyright of its author and publisher. Links are included for the sake of easy reference.
The Unique Cantonese
To Chinese from other provinces, Cantonese are unique. They speak a dialect which is one of the most difficult for those in other areas to understand. Kwangtung Province was first incorporated into the Han cultural and political system in the seventh century A.D. During the T'ang dynasty. The original inhabitants were tribal aborigines of the Miao, Li, Yao, and Thai people. The city of Canton for centuries was considered by the Chinese to be a backwater; for a millennium it was the place of exile for officials who had lost imperial favor. Canton was isolated from the rest of China. Land travel to the area was obstructed by a ring of high mountains. A railroad connecting Canton and central China was not completed until 1936. Before then, the sea was the main link with the rest of the country.
As early as the seventh century Canton was an important international port for Arabic, Jewish, Singhalese, Indonesian, and Persian traders who came to buy Chinese slaves as well as silk, porcelain, and other goods. In the sixteenth century, European traders began to arrive. Later the Ch'ing government (1644-1911) restricted all foreign trade to the port of Canton, in order to keep foreigners as far as possible from Peking.
The Cantonese, therefore, experienced an early and extensive Western penetration. A systematic foreign trade developed. Chinese merchants, called cohong, monopolized the trade and made millions. The British and Americans shipped opium into China. This lucrative scheme eventually precipitated the Opium War (1839-42). The immediate cause was the confiscation of a shipment of British opium imported into Canton by Lin Tse-hsu, the Viceroy of Kwangtung and Kwangsi Provinces. The Chinese held their ground when the first battles were fought in Canton, but lost the war when British warships turned north to invade the city of Nanking. China's defeat in 1842 forced her acceptance of Western supremacy. China agreed to open five trading ports, Canton included, and to relinquish territories. Hong Kong, an island at the mouth of the Pearl River near the city of Canton, became a British colony.
Military defeat was followed by drastic economic decline. Famine and starvation led to a series of peasant uprisings in the south. Local warfare spread across the region. One group that suffered greatly during this period was the Hakka (the “guest people”), who had come to Kwangtung from the northern plains to escape economic hardship in the fourth century. They had settled in the poor, mountainous areas of the province. When they periodically tried to move to more fertile regions, they faced serious conflicts with the Punti (the “local people”).
The Hakka were the main organizers of the Taiping Rebellion (1848-65), which almost succeeded in overthrowing the Ch'ing Dynasty. At one time, the rebels occupied the southern half of the country. The revolt began in Kwangtung, but fighting spread throughout China. In the meantime, warfare flared up again between the Hakka and Punti. For thirteen years (1854-67), while the Ch'ing government was busy dealing with the Taiping rebels, the two peoples waged a devastating struggle for control of the southwestern corner of the Pearl River Delta. An estimated 500,000 people were killed. The Punti formed their own militias, built walled fortifications, and hired mercenaries. The peoples of both sides suffered grievously.
Thus, the Cantonese experienced civil wars, plundering by local bandits, and foreign invasions-all without the protection of the central government. They had to rely on their own resources to defend themselves and survive. It was during these years that the Cantonese from the warring region migrated in large numbers to foreign lands. Many from Toishan, where the Punti-Hakka warfare was most intense, came to the Untied States. Previously, the Ch'ing Dynasty had prohibited its citizens from leaving the country, to prevent them from joining the forces still loyal to the previous Ming Dynasty which had bases on offshore islands. However, when the Opium War opened the gates of the empire, the government was too weak to control the exodus.
In the nineteenth century the Cantonese and the Fukienese (from the adjacent coastal province to the north) were practically the only groups that chose to emigrate. They were peasants who left China with the expectation of making enough money to help support their families. Once overseas, a few, especially those who went to Southeast Asia, became prosperous merchants and small businessmen.
Cantonese are known as good businessmen-a reputation acquired from their commercial heritage. They are said to be worldly, shrewed, quick to learn, and willing to accept new ideas. However, shrewdness in business was not respected in traditional Chinese society. According to the Confucian social structure, merchants were in the lowest rank. Chinese from other provinces regard the Cantonese as too direct, at times hot-tempered, always ready to defend their own interests, and lacking in proper Chinese culture and civility.
The Cantonese in turn claim that their dialect, uncontaminated by foreign influences, is closest to archaic Chinese. (Many words used by the Cantonese no longer appear in modern Chinese dictionaries.) They also maintain that family ties, the basis of Chinese culture, are stronger in Kwangtung than anywhere else.
As for civility, the Cantonese think the northerners are stuffy and pretentious. My Cantonese waiter friends often complain about working with northerners, particularly from Peking or Shanghai, who feel compelled to explain that they are above restaurant work and that they are doing it only temporarily. The Cantonese call them ng soung: uptight. The Cantonese are not ashamed of performing manual labor or engaging in trade. They are not as status-conscious as northerners and are willing to accept paths to upward mobility other than the traditional Confucian scholar one.
In any event, the Cantonese are unique and are treated by other Chinese as such. As a result, historically they have turned inward and relied on their most basic resources; their families, local clans, and village associations. People from Kwangtung have the strongest clan and lineage ties of all Chinese. They maintained them when they moved to urban centers in northern China, and also when they emigrated to foreign countries. Above all, the Cantonese tend to stick together. Thus, they are considered clannish. But this behavior ahas little to do with respect for tradition; it is a practical strategy for survival in a hostile environment.
The Cantonese in America could not count on help from their home government regarding their discriminatory treatment in the United States, because China as a nation was too weak throughout the late Ch'ing and the subsequent Warlord and Civil War periods from 1911 to 1949. The isolation of the early immigrants in America was complete; they were excluded by American society, persecuted by American authorities, ignored by the Chinese government, and seen as a “marginal” people by their fellow Chinese. Those were the perceptions of the early immigrants as they built the social and political institutions within their Chinatowns.
Buy the book from Amazon $14.00 USD
Back to Top
|
|
Last Updated ( Friday, 21 November 2008 )
|
|
|
Who Is Online?
Total user: 200
No Members and
6 Guests Online
| |
Items for Approval
You are not authorized to view this resource.
You need to login.
|
