People study the merchants of Jin and Hui, who have become a thing of the past, while the Teochew merchants seem to be increasingly active in the domestic and international economic arena. People are amazed at the Lingnan cultural specificity, and speak Guangzhou dialect, Hakka language, the crowd is its eminent Teochew language, three of the same is not different. When representatives of the Teochew people at home and abroad gather for the first time in their ancestral home, it is time to look at the Teochew people.
November 8 to 20 this year, nearly 3,000 representatives of the Chaozhou people gathered for the first time in their ancestral home. Unusually, there are more than 20 million of them, with more than 10 million living in the not-so-small "global village" in the Teochew hometown.
The Teochews are becoming increasingly visible because of their economic strength and dynamism, as well as because they maintain the cultural traditions of their homeland.
The boomers are said to be easy to recognize. It is no exaggeration to say that two Teochews can smell each other, even if they are 20 miles apart. Now they are working on being easily recognizable to the world.
The fact that the annual conference of the International Teochew Groups has been held nine times in 16 years, and the symposium of the International Teochew Studies has been held for the second time in four years, shows that the Teochew people are trying to build up their self-awareness and international image for better survival and greater development.
Neither a race nor an ethnic group, the Teochews have begun to emerge from the world's population, just as Shantou surfaced from the Han River three hundred years ago.
This is rare. Because the Boomers are unique.
Relationships, credit: the four-word recipe for success of the "Jews of the East"
For a long time, the Chiu Chow people have been known as good businessmen. When generations of Boomers left the country, they did so almost entirely empty-handed and penniless. Related memories of the most commonly used words are: take the "red-headed boat", a piece of water cloth (Chao special supplies, generally 0.5 meters wide, 2 meters long, a wide range of uses, such as bathing, covering the body, for parcels, etc., has now disappeared), and often carry a handful of soil from the family's field house, and then get rich.
The world-wide influence of the Teochew people stems mainly from economic success: according to the sixth issue of Hong Kong's Capitalist in 1995, a list of Chinese billionaires with more than 100 million US dollars, the Teochew people are the strongest economically in terms of their place of ancestry.
It is said that a Thai king first called the Chaoshan people "the Jews of the East". Some scholars have pointed out that this remark was derogatory at first, but it also reflects the fact that the Chaozhou people are in charge of Thailand's financial sector and have invested in various fields, which is very important in Thailand, and that Chaozhou dialect is the second language in Thailand.
The 80-year-old scholar Xue Shan attributed the success of the Teochews to a blessing in disguise. When the Teochews went abroad to work as laborers, they were hardworking, smart and honest, and didn't dare to rob the docks. Instead, the locals trusted you and cooperated with you before they put down roots and went on to grow.
Relationships, credit, is the French orientalist Han Lin (Chinese name) summarized the success of the boomers four words.
According to Hanlin's observation, Chaozhou merchants are the most relationship-oriented and trustworthy among overseas Chinese, to the extent that they do not need to bank on each other, while relationship and credit are enough to guarantee.
Q: Why is Li Ka-shing successful? Because he is from Teochew.
Rao Zongyi, a master of international sinology, even singled out the word "credit" as the business ethic of the Chaozhou merchants, who have applied their ancestral motto of "no one can stand without trust" to their business. This is the biggest key to their success, especially worth inheriting and carrying forward.
The Chaoshan people are also known for their shrewdness and calculations. Wang Lixin, a young observer at the Shantou Municipal Economic Commission, made a comparison: the Shanghainese are also good at math, but they are getting smaller and smaller, while the Chaoshanese are getting bigger and bigger. The Hakka people are also good at calculating, but the Hakka people are good at politics, more senior politicians, and the Chaoshan people are good at business, more industrial and commercial giants.
Some scholars have also noted the difference. A professor at Shantou University analyzed that the Chaoshan people have a typical marine character. They fished, sun-dried salt, had adventures on the sea, and there was even no shortage of pirates and opium trade. This professor found that if the Chaoshan people were Yang Bailao in "The White Haired Girl", they would not die but choose to run away. Because Huang Shiren forced a debt rather than wanted you dead.
Wang Lixin, on the other hand, said bluntly that the ocean opened up the brash side of the Chaoshan character.
The angry sea survival of the Chao people can even immediately create a miracle. 70's fleeing Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and stay in France, the United States, Canada, the Chao people so successful, and even their associations hosted the sixth and seventh annual meeting of the International Chao group fellowship, the then mayor of Paris, the current President of France, Jacques Chirac, personally officiated; President Clinton sent congratulatory telegrams, a number of years have sent the presidential envoys to participate in the speech; Canadian Prime Minister Chrétien also sent a message of congratulations.
The key points that these dignitaries praised the Boomers for were similar: their ability to integrate into their host countries, their industrial and commercial achievements, and their contribution to the cultural pluralism of their host countries by preserving their own traditions.
The Teochew language, Teochew opera and Kung Fu tea: a pot of traditional culture
The Teochew people themselves admit that when they hear someone speak Teochew, they recognize them as one of their own.
The overseas Teochews often maintain their mother tongue, among other customs. This is a mysterious umbilical cord that is constantly being cut with the mother. The Chaoshan region, as the motherland, also has a mysterious umbilical cord with the ancient traditions of the Chinese nation.
The Teochew dialect has been recognized by linguists as a living fossil of the ancient Chinese language, passed down from the ancient Central Plains people who migrated to Teochew. Scholars claim that it retains ancient vocabulary, ancient tones, simplicity and elegance, and that outsiders, even Hakka and Cantonese speakers, hear it as a foreign language, but it is still the first language of communication for today's Teochew people.
A Shantou newspaper editor-in-chief once asserted that Teochew is one of the best business languages. The reporter did not dare to comment on it, but it may be an indication of the resilience and vitality of Teochew.
The Teochew dialect is used in Teochew opera, which has a history of about 500 years. Teochew opera, which changed from the southern opera that came from the north, is now one of China's top 10 opera genres. Teochew opera has moved from the plaza into the theater, and some experts are already worried about its future.
But the Teochew English song is still a living square art. Actors are non-professional, used for festivals and celebrations, no song and group dance, the performance is only "Water Margin" attack on the Da Mingfu that section, but the changes are endless, and even formed many schools. Reporters in Chaoyang City to watch the Yingge gongs and drums thrilling, costume Li Kui, Lu Zhishen, Wu Sung, men dressed as women Sun Erniang, Gu Daqiao Liangshan good guy step dance with section, strong martial arts.
According to an English song coach, the English song has historically been used for the anti-Yuan, anti-Qing folk martial arts cover-up, while the accompaniment has been taken from the temple music of the Confucius Festival.
The Chaoshan Kung Fu Tea is the highest level of the tea ceremony in China, the "home of tea". What is even more amazing is that Kung Fu Tea is still a necessity in the life of the Teochew people, and even tea in the Teochew language is called "tea rice".
Life style certainly contains the spirit of tradition, scholars have seen more known as the "seaside Zulu" known as Chaoshan legacy is still alive.
The Teochew heavy clan, heavy repair (family, clan) genealogy, return home to build ancestral temples, sacrificing ancestors, people say that the feudal consciousness, scholars can see that the Department of obedience to the teachings of Confucianism; Teochew believe in Buddhism, worship mountains, worship God, people say that feudal superstition, scholars specify that belongs to the religious consciousness.
Scholarly research shows that it is the *** with the blood, geography, God's edge contact with the Chao people at home and abroad, so that they cooperate to survive, without ever losing their roots.
There is also narrowness: the collective unconscious of exclusion
The Chao people have become a basin of accumulation of traditional culture, stemming from their destiny: fleeing to a foreign land, a foreign country, encountering an exclusionary humanistic environment, and having to watch out for each other in order to gain a foothold and develop. The ancestral home of the Teochew people was also the "end of the province and the corner of the country" in the past, and Chaoshan was isolated by mountains on three sides, with one side facing the sea, which gave the Teochew people a chance to expand overseas. A high degree of identification with their traditions and an extraordinary cohesion with each other are what the Chaozhou people need to survive.
The other side of the cohesion is the criticized exclusivity.
When a reporter talked to a Shantou cab driver from Henan province, he said that Shantou people are good at everything, but bad at being exclusive. He then went on to prove it with his personal experience.
This session of the Teochew Research Conference, scholars Chen Jingxi by analyzing the "Lin Jianshen destroy Feng Shui Chaozhou" legend, also concluded that the Teochew people have a kind of "xenophobic" collective unconscious.
The legend goes that Lin Supervisor, who came to Chaozhou from Fujian province to become an official, destroyed the feng shui of Chaozhou, and a cultural hero of Chaozhou took revenge on Lin's hometown by using Lin's hand.
Chen argues that the legend, which has been passed down from the Ming Dynasty to the present day, is a direct manifestation of the Teochew's sense of regional grouping, and reveals the Teochew's guardedness and even hatred toward those outside the regional group.
Chen cites a customs report from the Chaozhou Customs Department as saying that the Chaoshan people "often use the slightest pretext to unite together in order to exclude a single outsider," suggesting that the exclusivity of the Chao people impressed the British tax collector a century ago.
Chen Jingxi analyzed that the closed area and unique social factors in Chaoshan limited the vision of the Teochew people, and also formed the collective psychological characteristics of the Teochew people, which are narrow, conservative and exclusive.
Li Ka-shing: "I'm a Teochew, but I'm more Chinese"
But the Teochews have long transcended that. Li Ka-shing is the representative.
A reporter interviewed Li Ka-shing at Shantou University and asked: "Chao people are proud of you, are you proud to be a Chao person?
Lee immediately replied: "I am more proud of being Chinese." He said: "It's not that I don't have a sense of place, I'm a Boomer, but I'm more Chinese.
Lee has invested more than 60 billion dollars in the motherland, and 4 billion in Shantou. When Li first arrived in Shantou, he declared to party and government officials that he had come only to build Shantou University and that he should not be approached about business. He did not want to make money from his hometown.
Later on, he could not resist the friendship of his hometown, and in the winter of 1992, he negotiated to make a "Shantou First City", and 5 minutes before signing the papers, Li thought about what to do, because he said he would not come to his hometown to make money. He then said he would leave for 3 minutes, and when he returned, he said the decision of the moment: the word still have to sign, but all the winnings to set up a fund, all for Shantou University.
Supporting the development of education in his hometown and even on the mainland without compensation is what Li Ka-shing is obsessed with, "beyond the limits of life".
Li Ka-shing may be a typical Boomer. He was a poor young man who didn't study much and succeeded only through hard work and intelligence. He also speaks a very good "Mandarin".