"At home with children teaching, in the fields toiling, in the kitchen cooking, with the needle sewing."
This phrase is used to praise Hakka superwomen for both handling their family responsibilities and working hard outside the home, helping their husbands and teaching their children, working in the fields and toiling in the kitchen--simply being good at everything. Images of hard-working, frugal and devoted family women in the Hakka villages of Taoyuan, Hsinchu, and Miaoli offer proof of the phrase's current applicability.
Next to a door in a traditional Chinese sanheyuan courtyard house one finds a New Year's couplet: "A first-rate person is a loyal subject and filial child. Studying hard and tilling the fields are the two most important things." It's an even clearer pronouncement that the village's native sons must crack their books with due diligence.
Whenever I walk through Hakka villages, whether large or small, I gradually come to feel that they are awakening the Hakka in me. Apart from making a record of them, what can I do for them? Taking a photo, Ifocus on the smile of a carefree, innocent girl. Suddenly, it's as if I've returned to my grandma, who is clad, as always, in a blue blouse and chewing on bright red dried persimmons and then stuffing them in my childhood's mouth.
Hakka Images--Chi Kuo-chang Photo ExhibitionExhibition Dates: December 1, 2005-May 31, 2006.Location: Taipei Hakka Cultural Gallery (Taipei City Hall, sixth floor, southeast section)Phone: 02-2757-4503
One corner of a Hakka Village in Kungkuan, Miaoli County.
Traditional sanheyuan courtyard-style houses in Tunghsiao, Miaoli County.
A creative pig god from the ceremony of the Yimin Militiamen in Taipei.
This Hakka Tsutienkung Temple in Hsinpu, Hsinchu County is a Class 3 historic site.
Geese raised by a Hakka family in Taoyuan County.
The Liu family ancestral temple in Hsinpu, Hsinchu County
A detail of the Pan family ancestral temple in Hsinpu, Hsinchu County
Children in a traditional Hakka village in Peipu, Hsinchu County.
@List.jpg?w=522&h=410&mode=crop&format=webp&quality=80)