Geographical and Historical Notes on the Wuyi Region

by HIM Mark Lai

7 April 2002

Overview

The following is the latest draft of the notes that were originally presented by HIM Mark Lai of the State University of San Francisco, as part of the In Search of Roots course sponsored by the Chinese Cultural Center of San Francisco.

They have been lightly edited solely by myself, and are used with permission and are the copyright of the author.

Geography

The main channel of the West River forms the west side of the Pearl River delta. West across the river the pronunciation and vocabulary of the spoken Cantonese change to that of the Siyi sub-group. Siyi (Sze Yup; four counties) is the collective term referring to the four counties of Xinhui (Sunwui), Taishan (Toishan), Kaiping (Hoiping), and Enping (Yanping). To this group is now added Heshan (Hokshan) so that it now becomes Wuyi (Ng Yup; five counties). The terrain in this region, except for parts of Jiangmen and Xinhui, is hilly with only limited arable land for agriculture. It is an area with heavy emigration abroad.

The Cantonese spoken in this region belongs to the Siyi (Sze Yup) sub-group of the dialect. It differs significantly from Cantonese as spoken in Guangzhou and Hong Kong. The West River that forms the eastern boundary of the region also forms the divide between the Siyi and Guangfu sub-dialects.

The elevation of the land generally speaking increases as one travels northward and westward from Jiangmen. Thus the highest point in Jiangmen, Ximao Mountain is only 225 meters (738 feet), as compared to the highest point, Tianlu Mountain in northwest Kaiping, which reaches 1250 meters (4,100 feet). The main river system in Wuyi is that of the Tan (Tam) which rises in the mountains in Yangjiang west of Enping, flows through Enping, the mid-section of Kaiping and then continues on as the boundary separating Kaiping and Taishan before reaching Xinhui and dividing into a multitude of channels to form a common delta with the West River. The main channel of the Tan forms the west side of this delta and flows south through Yinzhou Hu (silver island lake) in Xinhui before discharging through Yamen (cliff gate) into the South China Sea.

The city of Jiangmen (Kongmoon) is located in the common delta formed by the Tan and the West rivers. It is considered the gateway to the Sze Yup region. It is a municipality that used to be part of Xinhui. Xinhui lies astride the delta formed by the Tan and West rivers. About 65 percent of its area consists of flat delta land. It is the richest part of Siyi for agriculture and produces quantities of oranges, tangerines and other fruits. One important product of the fruit production is dried mandarin orange peel used for cooking; hence it is one of the few places where the fruit can be purchased cheaper without the skins than with the skins. Xinhui has been noted for centuries also for the production of palm leaf fans.

Upstream from Xinhui are Taishan, Kaiping, and Enping in that order. The headwaters of the Tan River are located in Yangjiang upstream of Enping. The Jin (Gam) River flows through Enping to Kaiping where it joins other tributaries to become the Tan. The fifth county in Wuyi is mountainous Heshan (Hokshan) east of Kaiping and north of Xinhui and bordering on the West River.

Wuyi people often identify the location of their ancestral village by naming a closeby market town or a xiang (heung; a township or a jurisdictional grouping of a number of hamlets) such as Chaojing (Chiuking), Baisha (Pak Sar or Baaksha), Dihai (Dik Hoi), Duanfen (Duen Fun), Tanxi (Tam Kai), Ruliang (Yu Leung), Hulong (Wu Lung), Maogang (Mow Kong), etc. Characteristically each village in this region is dominated by a single clan lineage. In some areas this goes even further in that there are stretches of villages which are occupied by people with the same surname and same lineage or related lineages. For example the Huang (Wong) clan is numerous in the north half of the county especially in the Chaojing area. One source listed 163 Wong hamlets, which was about 40% of Wong hamlets in the entire county. Adjacent to them to the south are villages of the Ma clan in Baisha. Many Li (Lee) clan villages, however, are found in northern and central Taishan, while villages of the Yu (Yee) clan are located mostly in Sanba (Saambaat) Township in northwest Taishan and the area near Dihai in Kaiping (which used to be part of Taishan), with more than 300 hamlets. Many Wu (Ng) clan-villages are in the northeast and south central sections, the Chen (Chin, Chan) clan settled in the south central part. Kaiping, Enping and Heshan exhibit similar patterns of settlement as Taishan except that the dominant clan names are different. In Xinhui, which had been settled for a longer period, one finds the same phenomena although there is a somewhat greater mixture of different clans in a given area.

History

The economic development of much of the Wuyi region began much later than the region in the vicinity of Guangzhou. When Guangdong became part of the Qin empire (214 BC) most of the Wuyi region was undeveloped land under the administration of Sihui County which today only include the territory in the lower North and Sui rivers on the northwest corner of the Pearl River Delta. In 263 AD the county of Pingyi (suppressed Yi people) was established on the western shore of the shallow bay into which the West River was discharging. Its territory includes the present Xinhui. However, when the county was established it was a sparsely populated region with a few Han people living among the Yue and much of the southern part of Xinhui was still largely ocean. By 420 part of Pingyi became a separate county embracing most of the present Wuyi. It was renamed Xinhui in 589. During this period counties were also established on the territory of the present Enping in 220 and the present Kaiping in 429, but these administrative units were discontinued in 972 and 1072 respectively with parts of the territory being merged into Xinhui.

The earliest large Han group to have entered and settled in the region was said to be the Feng (Fung) clan. According to historical records when the state of Beiyan (Northern Yan) in North China was overrun by the state of Wei in 436, the defeated ruler fled to Korea whence his son Feng Ye with 300 followers voyaged by sea to the south and settled in Xinhui. Feng Ye's great-grandson was the husband of Lady Xian, the famous Li (as the Yue were known during that period) leader who encouraged amicable relations between the Li and the Han Chinese.

As early as the fourth century AD, people in the imperial capital (Nanking) in the lower Yangzi were already familiar with the distinctive product of the Xinhui region, the palm leaf fan. However, Xinhui was then still a frontier region and remained so for several centuries afterward. Development increased during the Tang dynasty (7^th to 10^th century AD) and accelerated during the Song dynasty when invasions by the Nüzhen and Mongols forced a southward migration from north China. Many Xinhui clans dated their migration to the Pearl River Delta by way of Zhuji Xiang during this period.

Xinhui was long an obscure backwater, but in the thirteenth century it was thrust to the fore in the political arena as the setting for the tragic defeat of the Song forces, which had been retreating southward ahead of the Mongol armies. In 1279 Song naval forces were routed in a battle at Yamen where the West River discharged into the ocean. Realising the hopelessness of the Song cause, Song minister Lu Xiufu committed suicide by leaping into the sea with the Song boy emperor on his back, thus ending the Song reign. The Song forces dispersed and many settled in the area. To this day many villagers in this area have the surname Zhao (Chew, Jue) and claim descent from the Song royal line. A grave alleged to be that of Lu Xiufu is located near the border between southern Taishan and southern Kaiping.

An intensive effort for economic development of Guangdong began during the Ming dynasty which ousted the Mongol rulers from China. Increasingly Han Chinese penetrated and settled in areas inhabited by other ethnic groups such as the Yao, She, Zhuang and Li. During the mid-15^th century the Ming government abandoned its policy of indirectly ruling non-Han peoples through appointed native headmen. Instead these areas were put under direct Han Chinese rule and the people encouraged to adopt Chinese language and customs. This policy of forced sinicisation led to friction and resistance. This was reflected in historical chronicles by the occurrence of numerous Yao, She, Zhuang and Li uprisings in Guangdong during this period.

During this period the Ming government continued to consolidate its rule over local non-Han natives. In Wuyi and the adjoining West River basin the predominant group is the Yao. Although Han Yao friction was most intense in the West River valley where large numbers of Han had settled, the Wuyi area, nonetheless, had its share of hostile encounters. In 1466 a military base was established in Enping to defend against attacks from Yao living in the mountains. In 1478 Enping became a separate county with a civil administration. In 1498, after suppression of a Yao uprising in the western part of Xinhui, the imperial government created Xinning (Sunning; new tranquillity; the present Taishan) county in order to exercise better control over the local Yao and also to defend against the frequent Chinese and Japanese pirate attacks from the ocean.

It was during the Ming period that one of the best-known Guangdong Confucian scholars, Chen Xianzhang (1428-1500; also known as Chen Baisha) was born in Jiangmen, then part of Xinhui. Chen became the only Guangdong scholar who was ever given a place in the Confucian temple. Sites connected with his life can still be visited in Jiangmen.

During the sixteenth century the Portuguese arrived off the China coast. They established one of their earliest bases on Shangchuan (St. John) Island off the Xinning (Taishan) coast. In 1551 Father Francis Xavier landed on the island seeking permission to enter China to launch a missionary effort. While there he sickened and died and was buried there in 1552. The Portuguese abandoned this base after they occupied Macau in 1557.

During the seventeenth century, when Ming power in China had declined and peasant rebels took Beijing and the Ming Emperor hanged himself on Coal Hill behind the Forbidden City in 1644, Wu Sangui, the commander at Shanhai Pass invited the Manchu armies to enter the Ming realms. The Manchus then proceeded to impose the rule of their Great Qing dynasty over the rest of the nation. Guangdong became one of the Ming bastions as loyalists sought to resist the conquering Manchus. For a short time Ming Emperor Yongli had his capital at Zhaoqing (Shiuhing) at the head of the Pearl River Delta. During this period a petition was presented to the throne to form a county in the present Kaiping in order to better control banditry in the mountains of the area. The emperor issue a decree to establish the county in 1649, taking parts of the territories of Xinhui, Xinxing, and Enping counties.

By 1650 victorious Qing forces had forced Emperor Yongli to flee from Zhaoqing and retreated to Guangxi, leaving behind many Ming loyalists in the Guangdong countryside. A pocket of resistance in the Sze Yup area was a fortress established at Wencun (Munchuen) in southern Xinning that was not captured by Qing forces until 1659.

After peace had been restored to Guangdong the Qing authorities encouraged people from overpopulated areas with limited arable land, particularly from the Hakka speaking areas along the upper reaches of the East and Han rivers, to move to more sparsely settled regions. A number of these migrants settled in mountainous areas in the Pearl River Delta. By 1708 Hakka settlers had founded seventeen villages in the present Heshan. In 1732, in order to facilitate the defence of settled villages against attacks from Yao tribesmen in the mountains, territory was taken from Xinhui and Kaiping counties to form Heshan. It was the last county to be created in the Pearl River Delta region during the Qing dynasty.

Earlier the Manchu imperial government had ordered the region along the entire China coast to be evacuated for about fifty li (approximately sixteen miles) to create a buffer zone against attacks by Ming loyalists from the ocean. Xinning, which had the longest coastline in Sze Yup, was affected the greatest, but the southern parts of Xinhui, Enping, and Kaiping were also evacuated.

After the ban was lifted in 1684, many of the original inhabitants did not return and immigrants from other areas entered the region and settled on the land. Many were Hakkas. In Xinning Hakkas became about a third of the population. Friction between the Hakka and the Cantonese (Punti) eventually led to a long bloody conflict in the area. During the early 1850s physical violence had broken out in Enping and Kaiping. By 1856 fighting had spread to the southwestern part of Xinning. Fierce fighting soon engulfed the entire southern part of the county. The superior number and resources of the Punti eventually prevailed and the Hakkas were forced into the southeast corner of Xinning. Many Hakkas captured in the battles were sold to the coolie trade. Others fled the area and migrated to southern Guangdong and Hainan. The Hakka population in Taishan declined dramatically (e.g. They were less than 3 percent of the Taishan population in the 1980s). In 1867 a truce was effected with the Hakka's last stronghold becoming the Independent Sub-prefecture (i.e. Zhili Ting) of Chixi (Chikkai). Punti took over the territory formerly occupied by the Hakkas.

After the revolution established a republic in 1912 Chixi became a separate county (i.e. Xian). In 1914 Xinning was renamed Taishan in order to avoid duplication with two other localities of the same name in other provinces.

During the late nineteenth century the Wuyi region was the birthplace of another famous scholar, Liang Qichao of Xinhui. Liang was the disciple of Kang Youwei and was active in the movement to reform the Qing empire during the 1890s. His writing style was greatly admired and his essays and poetry reached a wide audience. A small memorial museum is maintained at his native village Chakeng.

After founding of the People's Republic of China, Jiangmen was separated from Xinhui and made into a separate shi (municipality) in 1951 and placed under the jurisdiction of provincial authorities. It became a city with many industries. In 1953 Chixi again became part of Taishan. In 1983 Jiangmen was made into a dijishi (regional-level municipality) having jurisdiction over all five counties of Wuyi. The component counties Xinhui, Taishan, Kaiping, Heshan, and Enping each attained xianjishi (county-level municipality) status in 1992, 1992, 1993, 1993, and 1994 respectively.

Emigration

The shortage of arable land in most of Wuyi had long encouraged emigration from the area. Before the mid-nineteenth century many early emigrants left directly from coastal fishing ports such as Guanghai (Kwonghoi) in the southern part of Taishan to southeast Asia. For example Cao Azhi (Cho Ahji) from Xinning was in Sir Stamford Raffles' advance party when Britain took possession of Singaprore in 1819. In 1822 he was one of the founders of Ningyang Company, the first district association in Singapore.

During the last half of the nineteenth century the economic dislocation caused by the Hakka-Punti conflict became another major factor increasing the exodus, especially from Xinning (Taishan). Many went no further than Hong Kong, by then already a flourishing British colony, to seek economic betterment .Others went to Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Americas. A few, especially those from the relatively affluent Xinhui, were merchants, but the greater majority were unskilled labourers. Thus in the United States the population of Wuyi immigrants rose to about 124,000 in the 1870s. They made up the bulk of the physical labour force that did much of the basic development and exploitation of the natural resources in the West, especially California, during the nineteenth century. Their numbers dropped precipitously during the exclusion era but before World War II about 70 percent of the Chinese in the United States mainland still traced their origins to this region with four out of seven from Taishan.

Due to chain migration, members of a clan-lineage from a particular area in Wuyi tended to concentrate in specific areas in North America. For example for Taishan immigrants the Huang (Wong) clan is numerous in San Francisco and Los Angeles, the Chen (Chin) in Seattle and New York, the Kuang (Kwong) in Sacramento, the Mei (Moy) in Chicago, the Yu (Yee) in Detroit, etc. Kaiping immigrants also exhibits a similar pattern in their geographical distribution in the United States. The Deng (Ong) clan predominates in Phoenix, the Guan (Quan) in Los Angeles, the Situ (Soohoo) in Oxnard, the Zhou (Chow) in Mississippi, etc. Similarly this chain phenomenon was also reflected in their occupations. Many Chinese laundrymen in the U.S. were Taishan immigrants or their descendants, while many Chinese-owned grocery stores in Arizona and the Mississippi Delta region are operated by Kaiping people.

Immigration to the United States is heaviest from the north and central parts of Taishan and along the Tan River valley in Kaiping. In Xinhui many came from the area around and south of Huicheng and Jiangmen and from villages along the route of the Xinning (Sunning) Railroad. Some of the more numerous Xinhui surnames in America are Chen (Chin), Tan (Tom, Hom), Lin (Lam, Lum), Zhao (Chew, Jue), Xue (Sit), Zhong (Chung), Tang (Tong), Jiang (Chiang), and Lü (Lui).

Enping and Heshan immigrants in the US are relatively fewer in number than those from other areas in Wuyi. There are concentrations of Enping people in San Francisco and New York. Some prominent Enping surnames are Zheng (Jang), Tang (Tong), Feng (Fung), and Wu (Ng). There is also a concentration of Heshan immigrants in New York.

A number of prominent Chinese in America traced their ancestries to Wuyi. In journalism there was Ng Poon Chew of Taishan who in 1900 became founder and publisher of one of the earliest successful Chinese dailies Chung Sai Yat Po. Another was Walter U. Lum of Xinhui ancestry who was an influential leader of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance and a founder of the Chinese American daily Chinese Times. In horticulture there was Lue Gim Gong a Taishan immigrant who develop the Lue Gim Gong variety of oranges that was widely grown in Florida during the first half of the twentieth century. In industry there was Lew Hing and Tan Foon Chew from Taishan who were pioneers in the canning industry in the San Francisco Bay Area during the first quarter of the twentieth century.

In politics Wing Ong from Kaiping during the 1940s was the first Chinese American on the U.S. mainland to be elected to a state legislative body (in Arizona). In the 1990s Judy Chu of Xinhui origin was a member of the Monterey Park city council, while Michael Woo, who traces his ancestry to Kaiping, was a member of the Los Angeles city council.

Wuyi immigrants and their descendants abroad also were active in politics in modern China. Wong Bock You, Won Hong Fei, Lee See Nam, and Wong Wan Sue, all of Taishan origin, were important cadres of Dr. Sun Yat-sen in San Francisco. The artist Li Tiefu from Heshan was another active supporter of Sun in England and the United States. Seeto May-tong of Kaiping was a powerful New York Chee Kung Tong leader who supported Sun Yat-sen and later returned to China to support the People's Republic when it was founded. Sun's Chee Kung Tong supporters also included Taishan's Wong Sam Ark and Enping's Tong King Cheong in San Francisco.

Others contributed variously to the modernisation of China. Fong Joe Guey the first Chinese aviator in the world was an Enping immigrant to America and Tom Gunn the first licensed Chinese American aviator was of Kaiping ancestry. During the 1930s the head of the Guangdong Air Force Huang Guangrui was an immigrant from Taishan who grew up in America. They and many others from Wuyi were active participants in the early development of military aviation in China.

Many Wuyi immigrants remitted money to their villages, especially for construction of brick dwellings, often characteristically two-storied and constructed with green-coloured bricks, for families or relatives. Others invested in businesses, in roads and transportation companies, in telephone and utility systems, and in other facilities needed in a modern society.

During the early 1900s Chin Gee Hee of Seattle raised capital from Chinese in the United States, Canada and elsewhere abroad to build the Sunning Railroad from Doushan in his native Taishan to Beijie, then in Xinhui but now part of Jiangmen. It was one of the earliest railroads in China. Overseas Chinese money also enabled a diversity of projects as the Heshan steel bridge over the Tan River at Xian'gang, Kaiping; the Taihe Hospital in Doushan, Taishan; the Situ Clan and Guan Clan libraries in Chikan, Kaiping; the Xiehe Medical Clinic (donated by the Tom family of San Francisco) in Shushan, Kaiping, etc.

Generous contributions from abroad for school construction enabled Taishan to lead all Guangdong counties in the number of primary schools with 1277 by the mid-1930s. Canadian and American Chinese donations before World War II financed the building of modern educational institutions in Taishan such as Taishan Middle School, Taishan Normal School, Duanfen Middle School. Similarly, in Kaiping donations from overseas Chinese enabled the construction of such institutions as Kaiping Middle School and Kaiqiao Middle School.

There was a hiatus in contributions after the founding of the People's Republic of China when tense relations existed between China and America for more than two decades. After China began its open policy in the late seventies, contributions for education were again resumed in the eighties and nineties, remodelling and repairing old facilities and building new ones. Two major projects are the facility for Taishan's Television University donated by architect Stephen Lee of San Francisco, and buildings on the campus of Jiangmen's Wuyi University built with contributions from Chinese abroad.

The table below lists the areas and populations in some administrative subdivisions in Wuyi. Statistics for San Mateo County in California are given for comparison.

Taishan Genealogy
Copyright: ©1995-2002 Him Mark Lai, San Francisco and ©2002 Jon Kehrer, Canberra