{"id":2,"date":"2017-05-19T14:43:25","date_gmt":"2017-05-19T14:43:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/journalsbysharon\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2017-05-21T05:14:37","modified_gmt":"2017-05-21T12:14:37","slug":"journal1","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/journalsbysharon\/journal1\/","title":{"rendered":"Journal 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Week 1: 5.15-5.21 in Sze Yap Area<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/strong> — \u00a0the cradle\u00a0of Chinese Migration<\/span><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the first week of the program, between May 15 to May 21, we spent time in Guangdong province of China, to explore and discover more about the histories and stories of overseas Chinese who are originally from the area of Sze Yap \u56db\u9091. I did not know or hear anything about this area Sze Yap \u56db\u9091 before until I came here. But now I knew Sze Yap \u56db\u9091 is an essential district for overseas Chinese, it is the hometown for overseas Chinese, which include four major counties Hoiping \u958b\u5e73, Toishan \u53f0\u5c71, Yanping \u6069\u5e73, and Sunwui \u65b0\u6703. I was only heard about Toishan \u53f0\u5c71 from my geography teacher before, because he is from Toishan \u53f0\u5c71 and he said it is common that the entire village people would migrate abroad such as North American in Toishan \u53f0\u5c71.<\/p>\n

I was astonished that there is a large proportion of overseas Chinese are originally from Sze Yap \u56db\u9091. And they also made great contributions in many aspects, particularly in developing China. I was so glad to meet new friends from Wuyi University \u4e94\u9091\u5927\u5b78 in the first day in Jiangmen \u6c5f\u9580. Because I got a great opportunity to take courses outside UBC and experience the Asian university life for two days. It was quite different from studying in UBC, because we won’t have class from each department so they don\u2019t have exactly classmates like students in Wuyi University \u4e94\u9091\u5927\u5b78.<\/p>\n

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Photo: East Gate of Wuyi University\u00a0\u4e94\u9091\u5927\u5b78<\/p>\n

Selia, a professor from Wuyi University \u4e94\u9091\u5927\u5b78, had told me a research by the Chinese University of Hong Kong examines that the Cantonese Language will disappear in around hundred years. I was so shocked because I never think about Cantonese will become extinct but it is the fact. It seems like both Cantonese and Mandarin exist for a long long time. However, now in Mainland China, even in Guangdong province, more and more people especially young people prefer to speak Mandarin rather than Cantonese. It is because, under the policy of the Chinese government, Mandarin is the only official language. I heard from one of my friends from Guangzhou \u5ee3\u5dde said that everyone in school must speak Mandarin; if not, they will get punishment when they speak Cantonese. It is cruel but it is true.\u00a0It makes me feel upset because it seems like the heritage we inherited from the ancestor such as Cantonese language, it may fail to be handed down from past generations to our next generation.\u00a0As such, the local government should pay more attention to protect the local cultural products such as regional languages and unique handcraft.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Cangdong Village \u5009\u6771\u6751 in Hoiping \u958b\u5e73<\/p>\n

In the field trip, we had also visit museums, temples, rural villages, and local well-known schools in Toishan\u53f0\u5c71 and Hoiping \u958b\u5e73. I knew about the history of overseas Chinese in the museum of Jiangmen. It shows why the overseas Chinese in Sze Yap \u56db\u9091\/Ng Yap \u4e94\u9091(which include five counties Hoiping \u958b\u5e73, Toishan \u53f0\u5c71, Yanping \u6069\u5e73, Sunwui \u65b0\u6703, and Hokshan \u9db4\u5c71 in nowadays) left their hometown and migrate abroad in nineteen century and how they left. It made me surprised that most of the overseas Chinese used to work as indentured ticket labours in North America, they had participated in the fields of gold mining, farming, fishery, orchards, and even the construction of railroads as well. However, due to the increasing competition of employment between White and Chinese, more and more countries such as United States, Canada, Australia have implemented the law to restrict the entry of Chinese labours in the late nineteen century.\u00a0Hence, to fight for the Chinese Exclusion Act, the overseas Chinese strove in their adopted countries and built Chinatowns to live together, they had formed numerous community organizations and founded their own newspapers and schools in their adopted countries.<\/p>\n

Additionally, I appreciate the overseas Chinese of whom back to their original villages and try their best to rebuild their hometown. I enjoy exploring the particular architecture Diaolou \u7889\u6a13 in Hoiping. Diaolou \u7889\u6a13 looks like used for the defensive purpose in the rural villages. I believe Diaolou \u7889\u6a13 are scattered in Hoiping \u958b\u5e73 everywhere because I found these tower architecture in many places in Hoiping \u958b\u5e73. Most of the Diaolou\u00a0\u7889\u6a13 were built with stones and implied the local vernacular architectural styles. I was so glad to visit amazing Diaolou \u7889\u6a13 in Zili village \u81ea\u529b\u6751 of Hoiping. As such, I believe the furnishing style of the Diaolou\u00a0\u7889\u6a13 symbolizes the overseas Chinese\u2019s wishes that their hometown or even the whole country can achieve rapid development like in the Western countries.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Diaolou \u7889\u6a13 in Zili village \u81ea\u529b\u6751<\/p>\n

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Photo: Diaolou \u7889\u6a13 in Zili village \u81ea\u529b\u6751<\/p>\n

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Photo: Group photo in the Mingshilou Tower \u9298\u77f3\u6a13 in Zili village \u81ea\u529b\u6751<\/p>\n

However, from my point of view, I believe it is not every overseas Chinese will back to their hometown. Some of them might not back to China again due to the financial matter, but some of them may think their hometown are dirty, poor, and unsafe, so they are not willing to come back.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, I found it was interesting that most of the clans were from one particular family name, they lived together and set up villages in Ng Yap \u4e94\u9091 such as the first village Liangxi \u826f\u6eaa we visited, it is an old rural village in which composed of a family name of Law \u7f85. It quite a special custom from traditional Chinese culture that the clan always controls the generation of the region, and the first son supposed to inherit his own family business. Nevertheless, the culture of China is quite different from Western, because parents in Western families seldom ask their sons to take over their property.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Liangxi \u826f\u6eaa Village<\/p>\n

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Photo: Law Ancestral Hall in Liangxi\u00a0\u826f\u6eaa Village<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Week 1: 5.15-5.21 in Sze Yap Area \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 — \u00a0the cradle\u00a0of Chinese Migration   In the first week of the program, between May 15 to May 21, we spent time in Guangdong province of China, to explore and discover more about the histories and stories of overseas Chinese who are originally from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34538,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/journalsbysharon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/journalsbysharon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/journalsbysharon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/journalsbysharon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34538"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/journalsbysharon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/journalsbysharon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/journalsbysharon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions\/64"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/journalsbysharon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}