The Hakkas, a people with unique history and traditions, are experiencing something of a cultural revival in places such as Peipu, a small town in Hsinchu County. The Hakkas are finding not only a renewed interest in their culture but also discovering that some of their traditional businesses are thriving as well.
Three years ago Peng Yao-feng, a Peipu native, returned from a neighboring town to open with a friend the fourth teahouse in Peipu selling lei tea, a traditional drink of the Hakka people. Lei tea proved to be a hit with locals and the growing number of tourists visiting the village of 10,000 residents. "There're more than 50 such teahouses in town now, and the competition is fierce," says Peng, who has since set up his own teahouse. "You have to create some unique feature to attract attention." Aside from serving Hakka snacks, the shop owner tries to make his teahouse stand out by playing guitar and singing songs, including Hakka folk tunes, of course, to entertain his customers. "They love it," he says, "and sometimes join me singing."
The renewed interest in Peipu reflects the growing interest in the diversity of Taiwan's local communities, such as the Hakka. Hakka culture, in fact, is undergoing a renaissance of sorts, as more people are attracted to the language and the unique heritage of the Hakkas, who migrated more than 1,000 years ago from northern to southern China, and settled mainly in Guangdong Province. In the 17th century, some Hakkas began moving to Taiwan in the footsteps of the Southern Min people from Fujian. They generally clung together in closely knit communities, thus preserving many of their traditions.
Today, Taiwan has a Hakka population of about 4 million, and Peipu is one of the many places that their culture is thriving. Local Hakka customs provide only part of the rich tapestry of this historical town that has managed to preserve historical sites such as the Chin Kuang Fu House. Constructed in 1834 as a local government headquarters in charge of, among other things, guarding settlers from aboriginal raiding parties, the old structure was financed by descendents of immigrants from the mainland Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Fujian. The single-story structure is nestled among common apartment buildings. Yet, despite its modest appearance, it is representative of traditional architecture of the time, which featured a courtyard in the middle of the building. It is the only first-class national historical site in the region covering the three counties of Taoyuan, Hsinchu, and Miaoli, where most of Taiwan's Hakkas live.
Yet, the town of Peipu is home to a cluster of other buildings of historical interest. And to help promote the preservation of historical sites and heighten local people's identification with their hometown, the Chin Kuang Fu Foundation was established in 1995. The foundation, which takes its name from Peipu's most famous site, is housed in a nearby building, the Chiangahsin Old Residence. The foundation's first project was to restore the Chiangahsin Old Residence to use as a center for its preservation campaign. The historical building, built between 1946 and 1949, also houses historical exhibitions and is itself of great interest to those seeking out local history and was designated as a county-level historical site in 2001.
One of the foundation's primary goals is to spark community interest in the historical sites among local residents and convince them to pitch in to restore and preserve hometown sites, according to Peng Te-yen, who sits on the foundation's board. "They were initially impatient about this. They just wanted the government to foot the bill and plan everything for them," Peng says. Gradually, he found that the residents of Peipu began to take pride in their town and set up distinctive enterprises of their own. Teahouses, for example, popped up one after another along Peipu's historic streets. The Hsinchu County government has also helped reinvigorate the town by repaving the streets with flagstones and improving Peipu's infrastructure where it could. The effort has created a sense of community, and more residents now take part in looking after the town. "Now the people here are more willing to keep the environment clean, too," Peng adds.
Cooperation between the county government and local citizens has been a winning combination for Peipu. It has created not only a pleasant and culturally rich environment for locals but has also created steady business for the shops and services that rely on tourism. When tourists arrive in Peipu, they can, among other things, take guided day-trips involving visits to historical sites, teahouses, and nearby scenic spots. "Tourists might come here just by herd instinct, but they find themselves closer to Peipu after guides relate its stories to them," Peng notes. Meanwhile, the local township office and farmers' association hold annual activities promoting Peipu and Hakka specialty snacks, such as dried persimmons, and unique teas. And to enhance local people's understanding of their hometown and familiarize visitors with Peipu, the Chin Kuang Fu Foundation published a book, made vivid with prized old photos, detailing local history, of which Peng Te-yen is quite proud.
Peipu's boom just partly reflects the renaissance of Hakka culture across the island, an issue that has received serious attention from the central government, as indicated by the establishment of the Council for Hakka Affairs (CHA) in June 2001. In an attempt to sustain Hakka heritage, the Cabinet-level agency works full-time to develop plans to stimulate interest in Hakka culture and to support tourism and other industries that might help Hakka communities financially. One recent example is the Tung Blossom Festival, first held in a small Hakka community in Miaoli in 2002, and this year Taoyuan, Hsinchu, and Taichung joined the list of places promoting the half-month-long spring event publicized by the CHA. The festival was chosen as an incentive for people to get closer to Hakka communities. The flowering tree that produces the tung blossoms is often seen in hilly areas inhabited by Hakka people, who used to extract oil from its seeds to make a water-proof coating. The Hakka also produced matchsticks, clogs, and drawers from its wood. The CHA claims that the festival has succeeded in encouraging 170,000 people to visit Hakka communities, who spent around NT$400 million (US$11.6 million) in the local economies. Moreover, the CHA is planning to open two Hakka cultural parks in Pingtung and Miaoli in the near future. Located in Hakka communities, these parks are intended to raise awareness of Hakka culture by offering amusements, accommodations, exhibitions, and performances with Hakka cultural themes.
One of the most distinctive features of Hakka community life is its language--a dialect of Chinese differing widely from others spoken on the island. The CHA and many Hakkas themselves have grown increasingly worried that the Hakka dialect is slowly dying out. "The biggest crisis for the Hakka people is that their mother tongue is gradually falling into oblivion," says Yeh Chu-lan, chairwoman of the CHA. It is estimated that only 60 percent of Hakka people aged over 50 can speak the language fluently. The percentage drops as the age goes down, and reaches a low of less than 10 percent for those below the age of 13. "Many people in Taiwan have Hakka ancestry, but they dare not admit they're Hakkas because they can't speak the Hakka dialect," Yeh says. "You're likely to have contact with many Hakka people without ever knowing it."
One reason for the language's decline is the exodus of young people from Hakka communities. When they leave to study and find jobs in big cities, they are often separated from other Hakka speakers and their native dialect gets rusty or they stop speaking it altogether. The promotion of Mandarin as the national language after World War II also had a negative effect on the development of holo (or the Southern Min) and Hakka. In recent years, holo, known locally as Taiwanese, has become more popular and is commonly used for television programs and sometimes even by government officials on a daily basis. Hakka has not fared so well; it has been doubly marginalized by the popularity of Mandarin and holo. As a result, the Hakka language is disappearing at an alarming rate. "That's why we need to be serious about creating a favorable environment for the Hakka language in order to recover a multilingual and multicultural society," says CHA chairwoman Yeh Chu-lan.
To popularize Hakka, the CHA has earmarked about NT$300 million (US$8.7million), or one third of the organization's 2003 annual budget, for the establishment of a long-awaited Hakka cable TV station. "This is supposed to be a platform that offers comfort to Hakka people and helps introduce Hakka culture to other groups," Yeh notes. The station, which started broadcasting in July, plans to introduce everything Hakka in the Hakka dialect, most of the time with Chinese subtitles. It will also feature programs designed to help people learn to speak the dialect and programs for young people to air videos of songs sung in Hakka. This kind of programming, the station hopes, will kindle among younger Hakka generations interest in their hereditary dialect.
To help prevent the language from dying out among the young, the CHA has also been communicating with the Ministry of Education (MOE), which is responsible for promoting the Hakka language in schools. Since 2001, all primary schools must open a 40-minute course per week in which pupils choose to study Southern Min, Hakka, or aboriginal languages and cultures. The CHA advises the MOE on teaching materials and teaching methods to improve the Hakka language courses. Moreover, to ensure that there are enough instructors qualified to teach the language, the CHA is training 450 teachers to improve their Hakka-language teaching skills. The CHA has also allocated NT$5 million (US$144,927) this year among 62 schools, mostly primary schools, around Taiwan to promote the Hakka language through various activities, such as a Hakka Day in which all students must communicate for a day in Hakka.
While younger Hakkas are offered the chance to study the dialect in school, various methods are being used to encourage interest among scholars. The CHA has held several meetings and seminars, including the two-day World Hakka Culture Conference last December, which was attended by more than 400 people from Taiwan and abroad. The academic study of the Hakka dialect and Hakka culture got an enormous boost about six years ago with the establishment of the Center for Hakka Studies at National Central University (NCU) in Taoyuan. "The study of Hakka culture was attracting attention in international academic circles, but Taiwan had yet to prepare for the systematic study of the subject at home," explains Lai Jeh-hang, founder of the center and dean of NCU's College of Liberal Arts. "Moreover, the university is the most suitable site for such a center, since Taoyuan has the largest population of Hakka people in Taiwan and rich resources for the study of the Hakka," he adds.
This past June, NCU made a further stride by establishing the College of Hakka Studies, the first of its kind. The college houses a graduate school focusing on Hakka culture and societies around the world. According to Lai, a non-Hakka who has been instrumental in the creation of the college, the college is planning two more graduate institutes for next year, one concentrating on the Hakka dialect and the other concentrating on Hakka politics and economics. The academic interest in all things Hakka has proven infectious; several other schools are now considering setting up their own Hakka colleges, such as National Chiao Tung University in Hsinchu, he notes.
Through these various efforts, Hakka culture is experiencing a revival and showing how Taiwan's various groups can preserve their heritage while still playing a vital role in modern Taiwan. "The Hakka issue should be the issue for all Taiwanese," says Peng Te-yen, indicating the importance of preserving all aspects of Taiwan's cultural history. As a rich part of that history, the Hakkas, whose name means "guest people," are finding a permanent and highly visible role in the diverse cultural tapestry of Taiwan.