Re: hakka: Re: Hakka( resend, correct homepage address)

["Dylan W.H. Sung" <mabr12@dial.pipex.com>]

Hi Al,

: 	Thank you very much for your discussion about the Hakka and identity
: again. I really admire your effort.  I certainly agree with you about your
: many points. We certainly need to look into the identity and origin issues
: beyond our own family books only. We should try to learn  what others
: studies, such as those  from the Hoklo, Cantonese, and non-Chinese.  

The points have already appeared, made by Dr. Lau and others, in recent exchanges
to the forum and elsewhere. So the credit really goes to him and others for doing
so. Thank you also for making available the biological information at your site.
It will go a long way towards a solid Hakka argument for our Hakka identity.

: 	The biological studies of southern Chinese certainly paint a different
: picture from what we learned from our parents. Please read  homepage on the
: biology aspect about the origin of Hakka. All the data from immunoglobulin,
: human leukocyte antigen, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, multiple gene
: analysis indicated southern Chinese, regardless  Hakka, Hoklo, or Cantonese
: are primarily southern origin. Whenever I mentioned this possibility, I got
: many name calling. Not only the biology, linguistics or Chu-phu (Zupu)
: studies from non-Hakka are also very  differnet from what we are told by
: our parents. 

The term Southern is a little ambiguous when we say we have a southern origin. It
implies that southerners have always been in the south, a false reading of the
facts. My message to the forum at
http://www.asiawind.com/pub/forum/fhakka/mhonarc/msg01339.html shows population
changes over the last two millenia in China. It clearly shows by 1290 almost 80
percent of the population of China resided in the South. Clearly, there had to
have been migration from the North into the South for this fact to have occured
in such a short space of time, therefore, many modern Southerners once had
Northern origins. (The other conclusion would be mass depopulation of the North
by famine and war, whilst the South enjoyed a baby boom.)

If we take into account the population increase of the South, then logic says the
dialects of these people of the Song Dynasty had also moved southwards with their
speakers. Hence, linguistically, modern Southern dialects were once found in the
Northern areas of China, namely the Central Plains. However, what logic does not
tell us is who and which people moved south from the statistics. For that, clan
records and goverment censuses need to be looked at.

People who do not want to recognise the factual arguments are the very people
that need to see that they and Hakka have some interconnected relationship that
needs clarification. When we mutually understand each other's backgrounds and
accept the truth of wach other's circumstances, then we can start to get on with
being part of a harmonious culture.

Dylan.