Hakka History, Part 11

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Oliver’s slide presentation at the May 4 general meeting

Following Antonio’s talk about the China tour planned by him and his wife Victoria Wu (吴淑莲) with special focus on visiting the unique Hakka architecture to be found in southern Fujian Province. Oliver presented his slides which showed examples of that architecture. The buildings are called Tu Lou (土楼)，meaning “earthen buildings).

Oliver began with a geography lesson by showing a map of the Meizhou Prefecture （梅州地区）in northeastern Guangdong Province, highlighting that Prefecture in bright blue color, and then showing the demarcation of that Prefecture into seven Counties. This is the core area of the Hakka people, where about 3 million Hakka people live.

Oliver then showed a dozen slides of the unique Hakka architecture, often called round houses though some of them are square, to be found in southern Fujian Province (福建)，in Nanjing County （南靖） and Yongding County （永定），and also just across the Provincial border in Meizhou Prefecture.

The slides then switched to urban or rural scenes in each of the seven counties in the bright blue area. Some few of the modern buildings, though not being the traditional Tu Lou，show the influence of the round houses by having rounded or curved exteriors.

Oliver then showed urban scenes from several counties outside the bright blue area. He mentioned that the inhabitants of those Counties were the result of 18th century migrations from the blue area to Counties near the Pearl River Delta, thus not far from Canton. One of these is Zhong Shan County, where the ancestors of many of Hawaii’s Chinese came from. Another one is Tai Shan County, where most of the 19th century Chinese immigrants to the U.S. mainland came from. 

Oliver closed with two slides of him and some of his children visiting his native village in Mei County（梅县），which is pronounced “Moy Yan” in the Hakka dialect.

 click to view Oliver's slide show