They called us Khek not Hakka

[CHUNG Yoon-Ngan <chungyn@mozart.collective.com.au>]

  They called us Khek not Hakka
 
  Unless you refer to a big atlas otherwise you might not find 
my hometown, Pusing (next to Batu Gajah), in the State of Perak, 
Malaysia. Most of my town folks are the offspring of the Hakkas 
who emigrated here from Dongguan county in Guangdong province at 
the beginning of the 20th century. As far as I can remember we 
always referred to ourselves as Dongguan Hakka, but people of 
other dialects called us "Rough Hakka", not like the Jiaying 
Hakkas whom, to them, were the refined Hakkas. At times, under 
such circumstances we called ourselves "Pusing Hakkas".

  In high school in Ipoh, which is about 12 kilometers away, kids
from other dialects, like the Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew, called 
us Kheh and they purposely pronounced it as "Cat" just to make us
angry. However, they called the Meihsien Hakkas "Hakkas" and most
of them lived in Ipoh. It was an insult to call the Pusing 
kids "Cat". Many a time we fought with those kids who tried to 
make fun of us. 

  The worst thing was to called us "Pusing Bandits" for this we 
could kill them because the British Colonial Authority referred to
the Malayan Communists as Bandits. It was well known that Pusing town 
produced more Communists than any other small towns in Malaysia. A 
small town with a population of less than ten thousand could produce
over 500 communiste was incredible to the British. That was why the CID
(Centre Investigation Departmemt) nicknamed my home town as "Little Yan
An" (Yan An, which is in Shaanxi province China, was the capital of the 
Communist Party China before the liberation).

   Actually I wanted to the story of my hometown which was to be
included in my story "A Taiwanese Hakka in the Japanese army", but 
someone spoiled it and qashed my inspiration. It is hard to continue 
now as my initiation has disappeared. 

CHUNG Yoon-Ngan.   chungyn@mozart.collective.com.au