hakka: Re: Hakka women (fwd)

[sllee <sllee@asiawind.com>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 05 Sep 1997 07:29:19 -0700
From: "K. Dudley" <dkdudley@twave.net>
To: Yeong-Shi Wen <yswen@cad.oes.itri.org.tw>
Cc: hakka@mini.brooklaw.edu
Subject: hakka: Re: Hakka women

I mentioned that friends often said that Hakka families preferred Hakka 
daughters-in-law. Mr. Yeong indicated that with the change from farming 
to work in the city, this preference is almost absent now, and that in a 
large city like Taipei it was hard to distinguish Hakka and Hoklo.

Actually, I have not lived in Taiwan for 4 years, but I would be 
surprised if things had changed that much. I did live in small towns and 
rural communities (Kung-kon, Meu-lit in the north, and Lin-lok, Pin-tung 
in the south), so perhaps my perspective is overly rural! At the same 
time, in the cities, even thought lifestyles were similar among ethnic 
groups, in social interactions, it was easy to find out who was Hakka and 
who was not! Also, there still was a work-hard, save-money ethic among 
the Hakka that exceeded the Hoklo attitudes. I am not saying that Hoklo 
women are lazy or spend money easily, but there is definitely a cultural 
difference in attitudes, especially among those who have become urbanized 
only within the last generation. Hakka families do not have as strong a 
preference for Hakka daughters-in-law as they used to, I believe. I know 
quite a few families that were satisfied with the Hoklo brides. But there 
still seemed to be an added measure of satisfaction when a son brought 
home a Hakka girlfriend. It is the same attitude you find among 
westerners who claim (honestly) that they don't care whether they have a 
boy or a girl, and then show added pleasure over their baby boy!


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