Hakka People

1. Some famous Hakka people's ancestry

2.  Genealogy (more in forum )

3. Hakk women

4. Han Suyin

Some  famous Hakka  ancestor registry

This list is by no means complete, and is constantly being updated. Corrections, additions are welcome.

Those marked with ? have been referenced as Hakka in some books, but it is difficult to verify.

Many of Taiping Tian Guo's leaders were Hakka: Hong Xiu Quan, Yang Xiu Qing, Shi Da Kai, Wei Chang Hui.   Hakka girls were referred by Zeng Guo Fan (the Qing official) as "Big foot hillbilly witch" since the Hakkas girls never bind foot like other Chinese girls and fight side by side with men.

Other contemporary famous Hakka figures include Sun Yat-Sen (many of his political speeches were made in Hakka).

Genealogy

Surname Clans: (in Big5 Chinese)

Zhang (Chang, Teoh) Clan of the Ching He Tang
Thien (Deng, Tang) Hakka Genealogy

Zhang
(Author: Jonathan Teoh Eng-Seng, teoh@cs.utk.edu)

Chang, Zhang, Chong, and Teoh are all of the same Chinese family name "long bow".

The following Chang's origin, some genealogical records and migration path is according to my clan genealogical records.

Yong Tong, third wife of Huang Ti(Yellow Empror), bore Huang Ti his fifth son. HT's fifth son invented powerful long bow and was made the "bow" official and was given the Family name "Long Bow" or Chang; He then moved to ShanSi, Tai Yuan Fu and became the ancestor of the Chang's clan. His full name is Chang Hui(shine).

After some period of time, several powerful Chang clans appeared including the one that lived in Hsu Zhou, Ching(Clear) He(River). I believe there were 12-14 Chang clans recorded in some historical records in ancient time. Today many of the oversea Changs are from the Ching He clan lineage. That is where all the plagues in the Chinese houses are for, to indicate their clan origin. My lineage origin is of Ching He.

My 64th generation ancestor moved to Chie Pu in Shangtung, I believe it is the same county with Confucius's home village.

The 81th generation ancestor according to my clan genealogy is Chang Liang, the man who tried to assasinate Chin Shu Huang and helped Liew Phang to establish Han dynasty. He had two sons, and my clan geanealogy followed the elder son line.

At 96th generation, the migration towards to the South started with my ancestor accompanied Yuan Ti(Yuan Emperor) migrated to South during Eastern Chin Dynasty around 4th century. He was an official in the army.

At 108th generation, we have Chang Chiu Ling, the "Prime Minister" during Tang dynasty era, there are a few poems of him collected in the Tang poem 300 book. He had one son.

During the Sung dynasty, my 117th generation ancestor moved to Ning Fah, Fukien. My 123th generation ancestor moved to Shang Hang county in Fukien province.

My 131th generation ancestor moved to Shang Chuan village(also known as Shong Chak Kang) of Fukien's Yong Ting county. My clan had settled in Shang Chuan village of Yong Ting county for about 22 generations and has about 3,000 people, all of Chang Family names.

My dad Teoh Ming See, moved to Malaysia at the age of 12, worked as an apprentice in my grandfather's fifth brother medicine shop and eventually opened a Chinese medicine shop of his own in Alor Setar, Malaysia. I am his 8th children and I am now 149th generation descendant from Huang Ti or Yellow Emperor.

I can photostat my clan genealogy for any interested party and it would be good if you could send a check to cover the postage. I will photostat probably down to Sung dynasty, about 20 pages. These are single vertical lineage with short note about some of the ancestors, what they did or where they moved. After Sung dynasty, the genealogical records covers more horizontal lineage and is getting huge quickly. Thus, I think I will stop at Sung dynasty. Also, one of the clans has the portrait picture of the 108th generation Chang Chiu Ling. Just in case, someone is looking at this article knows about the portrait, I would like to get a copy by taking a picture of it. I have pictures(taken from portraits) all the way up the my grandfather's grandfather.

Hakka Women

Hakka Women are characterized by their strong personalities of sharing most heavy labor in the family. While during the migration, the men had to prepare all the time to defend any military intrusion, women had to take care of the home and family including minding the fields. They are easily recognized by their typical flat round hat woven with cane fiber, and rimmed with a skirt of black cloth. A round hole in the middle of the hat fits any head size. They are almost uniformly dressed in black with scanty embroidary along the seam. A legend has it that the regimentary look of a team of Hakka women marching to the fields had kept the Yuan soldiers from seizing the refugee emperor of Southern Song.

Hakka women never bound their feet even under the greatest social pressure during the Qing dynasty. Such custom is not compatible with their role in the family. While the man of the house often had to look for new route for the migration, or engaged in numerous battles, the elderly Hakka women in the house were left with the authority of decision making for the whole family. So developed their independence, liberalness and equality in sharing the decision in the family. Without such support, the venturesome Hakka men would not be successful during the massive migration, hundreds of years ago or now.

The following is an article (in GB code) provided by Nam C. Low on a television series about a Hakka women, depicting the life of such a strong character in contemporary Chinese history.

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