Selling out
Hakka are generally thought of as being linguistically talented. Many speak fluent Southern Fujianese ("Taiwanese") and Mandarin in addition to their own mother tongue. Lin Yi-hsiung believes that saying that Hakka have linguistic talent is not as accurate as saying that they have been forced to learn languages by their environment. He says their language abilities are the result of leaving their hometowns to make a living in unfamiliar places.
In fact, this bilingualism or multilingualism should actually be a warning that the Hakka language is in trouble. Hsu Cheng-kuang thinks that multi-lingualism just makes a weak language still weaker, bringing that language closer to the dominant language.
A traditional exhortation within Hakka families states that selling the family's ancestral lands is preferable to giving up the language of the family's ancestors.
The 27-year-old Huang Kuo-cheng grew up on Tunghua Street and speaks Hakka fluently. "My father is pretty traditional. He wouldn't let us forget who we are and where we came from." Huang Kuo-cheng says that ever since they were small, the kids in their family had to speak Hakka to get something to eat. "One time my little sister asked my father for some water. She asked him three times in Mandarin, but my father pretended not to hear until she asked him in Hakka."
But the key issue for most Hakka who come to the city to make a living is simply getting by. Because the language that the younger generation speaks is not that important to their elders, most of the younger generation can't speak Hakka well. Even those who live in the Hakka neighborhood of Tunghua Street are no different.
In 1993, the Institute of Ethnology of the Academia Sinica conducted a survey of Taipei's Hakka. The results of this survey clearly revealed that the younger the Hakka, the worse his Hakka language skills. Almost 90% of those over 56 years of age spoke Hakka fluently. Of those between the ages of 40 and 56, about 80% were fluent. However, of those under 40 years of age, only about 60% spoke Hakka well.
Some people understand Hakka but can't speak it, while many others can't even understand what they hear. One Hakka youth in his twenties who grew up in Taipei used to go home with his father to sweep the family tomb every year. But because his relatives in his hometown always griped about how he had forgotten where he came from and was betraying his ancestors, going back to sweep the tomb became a real ordeal for him. He therefore ended up avoiding going back if he could, with the result that he now has little connection to Hakka culture.
There's no place like home
Faced with the dual obstacles of the loss of their mother tongue and residing in a very different sort of environment, the relationship of urban Hakka to their "country cousins" is becoming more distant.
Those Hakka who have lived on Tunghua Street for a long time have become "citified" and "gone native."
Li Chun-te brought his 81-year-old mother to Taipei to live with him many years ago and gave their old family home to an uncle. He also moved their family tomb to Paoshan Village. In his own eyes, Li is a full-fledged Taipei-an.
Similarly, because no one was living in their old home, Huang Ping-feng and his five brothers cast lots to see who would take care of the family's ancestral plaque. In the end it was Huang Ping-feng who brought the plaque from Hsinpu to his Taipei home. Since then, his brothers have come to Tunghua Street every year at the Lunar New Year to pay their respects to their ancestors.
To Chang You-lang, Miaoli's Peiho will always be his hometown, but for him, it is only an image rather than a true feeling.
"I'm used to living in Taipei. I don't want to go back," says Chang. He says that he now only goes back to "hang paper" --when Hakka sweep their ancestral tombs, they hang strips of paper on the headstone and other gold strips in an area near the tomb where they pray to earth spirits--or for major events like weddings and funerals.
Fortunately, those Hakka who have put down roots on Tunghua Street hold onto the traditional idea of never forgetting one's ancestors and make the trip back to their hometowns every year to sweep their ancestral tombs. Because of this, they haven't completely lost their ties to their hometowns.
Most people arrange the time at which they will go home to sweep the family's ancestral tomb when they come together to worship their ancestors at the Lunar New Year. Most set a date between the 16th of the first month of the lunar year and Tomb Sweeping Day. There are people out tidying the tombs on the 16th, the first Sunday after the 16th, the last Sunday of the month, the first Sunday of the second lunar month, the Vernal Equinox and Tomb Sweeping Day.
Hakka have been in Taiwan for some 300 years. In general, seven or eight generations have lived here and for the more recent generations, it is becoming harder and harder to keep track of so many ancestors' tombs. Because of this situation, large cemeteries have become popular in recent years, allowing people to keep together the relics of generations born in Taiwan.
"By building a reliquary tower, you keep future generations from dispersing. So anyone who can find a good location wants to build a tower," says Tseng Yu-yang. Tseng says that six years ago his own family built a reliquary tower in which places have already been prepared for descendants as far down the line as his great-grandchildren.
Home is where the heart is
In what is perhaps an expression of their deeply felt ethnic identity, urban Hakka, who have typically hidden that identity, tend to have passionate feelings for their hometowns. Many join Hakka "yodeling" classes or hometown associations to help them keep their towns alive in their memories.
Tseng is not only a member of the Heartland Hakka Association and the Hsinchu Hometown Association, he is also a founding member of the Self-Reliance Society, and the Kuanhsi Hometown Association. "The hometown associations are simply a way for Hakka to get together, that's all," he says.
On the afternoon of March 8, the Kuanhsi Hometown Association held its annual meeting. The auditorium of the Armed Forces Hall of Heroes reverberated with the sounds of people. But what made the event unique was that everyone there was speaking Hakka.
The stage was alive with people playing Hakka songs such as "Love in the Tea Fields" and "Mountain Song." In front of the stage there were delicious Hakka snacks. And hung on a wall in a nondescript corner of the room, were the lyrics to a traditional Hakka song entitled "Hakka Character." The lyrics runs: "From Tangshan to Taiwan without half a cent/To till mountain and field, and stake our own claim/Ten years of hardship without a complaint/Generations have passed, all just the same/Diligence and thrift, legacy unchanged/The Hakka spirit will never be lost/ Forever and ever. . . ."
The Hakka attitude towards life and the Hakka character have changed as their environment has changed. This kind of get-together is a lively event, but unfortunately, none of the younger generation attend. It is difficult for those who grew up during Taiwan's current era of prosperity to appreciate the hardships of "gnawing on ginger roots and sipping vinegar." Given that, what is now distinctive and special about the modern Hakka character?
Bringing back Hakka culture
Having left their villages and lost their mother tongue, urban Hakka have become still less readily distinguishable from the masses. So what is distinct about urban Hakka? Is the connection of the next generation of urban Hakka to their ethnicity to become still more tenuous?
Chen Pan, who came up with the idea of the "Culture of the Hakka Streets of Taipei" event, says: "Urban Hakka haven't had any purely Hakka communities." But the recent survey of Tunghua Street's Hakka and the organization of a Hakka event on the street have brought out the neighborhood's Hakka. Chen thinks that it is only this kind of "coming out" which can relieve the internal psychological pressures they feel.
Fan Chen-chien, one of the organizers of the "Hakka Streets" event and a self-declared victim of the "Hakka bug," holds a different view: "Taiwan's Hakka are not simply Hakka, but also Taiwanese." Revitalizing Hakka culture is not only important for the Hakka themselves. Over the years, all of Taiwan's ethnic groups have been repressed by various political masters. All have been in the same boat in terms of not being respected and having difficulty in holding on to their special ethnic character. Building a viable Taiwanese society with room for all is of great importance to everyone.
In addition to the "Hakka Streets" event, the Hakka arts center promised by Taipei mayor Chen Shui-bian opened its doors in February, while the Hakka community center will open in September.
Although it can be said that the opening of such centers does not equate to having culture, at least for the long "closeted" Hakka, they are an opportunity to come out and begin rebuilding their group identity.
How will the urban Hakka reclaim their identity? This isn't just a question of import to Hakka, but also marks the beginning of the appreciation and integration of other ethnic groups into Taiwanese society.
p.51
Tunghua street is a lively commercial thoroughfare. Its vegetable market, night market and street market are always bubbling over with the sounds of people. The area also has one of the highest concentrations of Hakka residents in Taipei City.
p.52
Tomb sweeping is one of urban Hakka's last connections to their hometowns. Every year between the Lantern Festival and Tomb Sweeping Day, Hakka living in all parts ot Taiwan return to their hometowns to "hang paper" on the tombs of their ancestors.
p.54
Due to his father Huang Ping-feng's insistence that he speak Hakka if he wanted anything to eat, Huang Kuo-cheng, born in 1971 and raised in Taipei, speaks fluent Hakka. It is a skill of which he is extremely proud.
p.55
The house is usually deserted, only coming to life like this when everyone comes home for tomb sweeping or family reunions. The courtyard in which rice was once dried in the sun now serves as a parking lot for children and grandchildren.
p.56
Three generations of Tseng Yu-yang's family work as picture framers, and here he looks satisfied with the job he has done mounting this large painting. Tseng says: "If Hakka doing picture framing aren't my close relatives, then they are my distant relatives."
p.57
Landless Hakka who left their homes to find work all have a trade. Chen Chen-lung, who has a Chinese herbal medicine shop on Tunghua Street, first worked as an apprentice in a similar shop. He studied hard and passed the licensing exam for practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine.
p.58
Hakka, who place great importance on their ancestry, fear that in the future, their descendants will forget to keep records of the family lineage. For this reason, many have traveled to mainland China to find their "roots."
p.59
The stereotypical views that a girl should not marry a Hakka man and that Hakka women are hard-working are often obstacles to marriage outside their ethnic group. However, the younger generation is gradually discarding such ideas.
p.60
Since Hakka gave up their traditional dress, their mother tongue has gradually lost its pride of place among them. Urban Hakka who have become "citified" and "gone native" are now encountering problems preserving their ethnic identity and culture.