"My Mandarin isn't even good--why should I want to speak Hakka?" asked Fan Ya-chiao, a sixth grader at the Hsinming Elementary School of Chungli, on the first night of the camp. Although both of her parents are Hakka, Fan Ya-chiao usually speaks Mandarin with her friends, whereas Hakka she only understands. In the first two days of activities, she could often be seen pouting and grumbling. "If I had known I would have to speak Hakka, I wouldn't have come," she said. "It's all my mother's fault. She applied for me without even asking if I wanted to come or not."

Let's Speak Hakka: On the third night, a group of kids were doing the twist and singing "se guai ne" (little frog)--rehearsing for a performance later that night around the campfire. As astonishing as it may seem, Fan Ya-chiao was among them, singing at the top of her voice.

Group leader Big Chin-chin, a nickname for Chiu Chin-tun, was the camp's most noted figure. Her father Chiu Tsung-jung's company recorded a tape of her singing Hakka nursery songs, and as a result a lot of the campers knew her. She has been studying English lately and as soon as she opens her mouth, out comes an "oh, yes" or an "oh, no." And while she thinks English is more interesting and fashionable than Hakka, she was more than happy to lead other children in dancing and singing to her tape of nursery songs. "Oh yes, these past few days I've spoken more Hakka and sung more Hakka songs than ever before," she said, betraying a sense of satisfaction in her own achievement.

The Hakka language ability of children such as these, who grow up outside of Hakka villages and whose parents are busy, is commonly poor. "The basic purpose of participating in these activities is to teach children Hakka," noted Peng Tan-jung, whose entire family of five was participating in either the adult or children camps put on by the Yi Min Temple.

Where Are the Hakka Kids?: The Liao kids was a relatively special case--their Hakka was even better than some of the counsellors. They can speak the Four Counties dialect as well as the Sea and Land dialect. Liao Keng-yi said, "I can speak four languages now: Four Counties, Sea and Land, Taiwanese, and Mandarin. When I grow up I am going to speak a hundred." In this respect, their parents Liao Yu-wen and his wife have been firm: at home, any language but Hakka is prohibited. But "after Chih-yi entered kindergarten," Mrs. Liao recounted, "she would frequently ask why we didn't speak the same language as other people? Why was she the only kid to speak Hakka? And where were the other Hakka-speaking se ning ne (children)?"

In response, Mrs. Liao frequently takes her children to the Yi Min Temple of Hsinchu--a Center of Hakka culture that means temple of the people with a deep sense of justice--to let them encounter other children who speak Hakka so that they know they aren't the only ones.

"Without any personal experience, it's hard for children to recognize that they're Hakkas. I often tell them that there are Hakka children all over the world using Hakka to communicate. But their life experience, to the contrary, tells them that there are very few Hakkas, to the point where they start thinking they are the only ones different from everyone else," remarked Peng Tan-jung. "I believe that letting them come into contact with other Hakka children is deeply meaningful."

The Invisible Hakkas: It is estimated that there are about 5 million Hakkas in Taiwan. But except for the Hakka villages in the Taoyuan-Hsinchu-Miaoli, Changhwa-Pingtung and Meinung areas, one almost never notices their presence. Their Mandarin has no accent and they speak fluent Taiwanese, and unlike the aboriginal people of Taiwan, they have no facial features that give away their ethnic identity. When one adds on stereotypes about Hakkas--about their thriftiness and stinginess--"it leads Hakka offspring to stop speaking any Hakka when they leave their home towns. They become the invisible people of the cities," said the publisher of Hakka Magazine, Lin Kuang-hwa, who is also a director of the Yi Min Temple.

In 1988 several concerned Hakkas started the "Give Me Back My Hakka" movement, which encouraged the younger generation to study Hakka, understand traditional Hakka customs and feel proud of being a Hakka.

Last year was the first year of the "Hakka Culture Summer Camp." This year this trend of acknowledging and respecting one's own culture has strengthened, and activities include the "Liutui Hakka Culture Summer Camp" of Kaohsiung and Pingtung, the two-session "Meinung Cultural Field Study Camp" sponsored by the Taiyuan Publishing Company, "the Hakka Culture Summer Camp" and the first year of the "Hakka Culture Camp for Children." As these kind of activities proliferate, the number of participants grow as well. For example, at this year's "Hakka Culture Summer Camp" there were more than 120 adults; at the "Hakka Culture Camp for Children," there were nearly 40 campers.

"Seeing so many Hakkas coming out to organize activities for themselves is really moving," said Lee Yun-fei, who participated in the planning of the Hakka Summer Camps at Luitui and the Yi Min Temple.

Eating and Making Merry: As a cultural camps, they provide an introduction to Hakka culture in addition to providing an environment in which to practice language skills. On the "Road of Relics," which had both adult and child participants, Peng Tan-jung, who began teaching Hakka to children two years ago, pointed out that her daughter would always say that Hakka folk songs were hard on the ears whenever she and her husband had sung them. But this time, after hearing Professor Yang Chao-chen's introduction and demonstration, their daughter accepted Hakka songs and began singing them in a short period of two hours.

"These are the immediately observable results," said Peng Tan-jung happily. "I believe that there are seeds planted which will sprout in five or ten years--or who knows when."

The children seemed to be transfixed by the video on Hakka cuisine. Drooling, they kept saying "Oh how delicious, how delicious!" The next class gave them the chance to grind rice and eat the shui-ban they made themselves. During the four days of activities, they lived in an 80-year-old Hakka-style house. There, the children touched the bricks and the earthen walls, played games in what was named the "Tien Lu Hall," and cried out at night when they saw cockroaches. Today they may feel that the food is good and the games are a lot of fun, but in the future these will become cultural memories that have sprung from life experience.

For the children "who won't speak Hakka when they can speak mandarin," it is necessary to think hard and be very flexible when planning the curriculum. For example, the sedentary "Everyone Come and Speak Hakka" was originally planned for two mornings. But when it was noticed that the children were bored, the second class was changed to the teaching of Hakka nursery songs and the group telling of stories. Liu Hsuan-yung, who was responsible for the curriculum, pointed out, "In order to catch children's interest, we organized activities that appear to have no relation to Hakka culture, such as swimming and barbecues, in the hope that the children will study happily while engaged in these activities."

At the nearby "Hakka Culture Camp" for adults one frequently heard such remarks as "the Hakka are a noble people from central China" and " President Li Teng-hui is Hakka you know." As one would expect, such kinds of self-encouragement have not been adopted by the young.

On the second night, besides the four original groups of children, there was a fifth group, composed of neighborhood children who had been watching from the sidelines be deciding that they too wanted to participate. Because they live in a Hakka area, they are surrounded by Hakka culture--it's what they see, hear and eat. One of these kids asserted that he could sing such songs as The Tiger Cub Squad's "Green Apple Paradise" and "Red Dragonfly" in Hakka. And talk about delicious Hakka food: chi-ba (ma-shu), pu-tsoi (pickled mustard greens), shui-ban (wa-gui), bantiao. . . they could go on without end.

"You don't need to teach this stuff to the kids that grow up in Hakka villages; they know it all naturally. In the future, I plan on sending my daughter back to my home town to study for a few years," said Liu Hsuan-yung with great feeling as she held her one-year-old daughter.

Cheng Po-hsun's Embarrassed Laughter: On the fourth day, when the activities were over, Cheng Chien-yu and Cheng Chien-hsu of Taichung and Huang Shih-yi and Huang Shih-hao of Taipei, who had become bosom buddies, parted reluctantly with promises to write. They had become friends because they could sing the same Hakka nursery songs as a result of their having the same tape.

On the way to the Hsinchu train station from the Yi Min Temple, the kids at the back of the bus sang one Hakka nursery song after another. Huang Feng-chiao couldn't help but turn her head and ask her son, "now when mom sings Hakka songs are you still going to protest with dad?" Embarrassed, eight-year-old Cheng Po-hsun bent his head and laughed. 

[Picture Caption]

Just washed clothes are laid to dry in the front yard of the old Liu house. Here the children have lived, played and studied for the past threedays.

At the closing ceremonies, children use Hakka to act out a skit of "Three Pigs." It's hard to imagine that only four days before a lot of them refused to speak Hakka and didn't know how to speak it well, using Mandarin instead. (photo by Diago Chiu)

Children who grew up outside of Hakka communities have never been involved in activities with so many Hakkas before.

Come and eat some chi ba (ma shu), a Hakka specialty.

Tese two pairs of brothers became friends after they discovered they both had the same cassette of Hakka nursery songs.

Children who grew up outside of Hakka communities have never been involved in activities with so many Hakkas before.

Come and eat some chi ba （ma shu）, a Hakka specialty.

Tese two pairs of brothers became friends after they discovered they both had the same cassette of Hakka nursery songs.