For hundreds of years, Hong Kong has been the most frequent transit point for Hakka people at home and abroad. For many overseas Chinese who have lost contact with their hometowns, it is also common for them to seek their roots and ancestors through their hometowns in Hong Kong and the mainland.
The author recently received a request for help from a Friend in Thailand. A young and promising lawyer in his thirties recently saw the news of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and Yingluck brothers and sisters returning to their hometown in Meizhou to worship their ancestors, and suddenly remembered that he should also "go home and see".
But the Thai lawyer had no clan clues, no Chinese name, and knew nothing Chinese, speaking only Thai and English. The only evidence that he claimed to be of Chinese descent was that his grandfather's tombstone was inscribed with the words "Lianzhou Ren clan of Meiping Waixiang". The author asked all the compatriots around him, and no one had ever heard of this place name. I have been engaged in the study of Hakka characters for twenty years, and I have realized a common sense: a person from coming to this world to the end of his life, the place of origin and the year of birth and death on the tombstone are the most reliable records. Is there no score this time?
In desperation, I asked for help from experts from the Hakka Research Institute of Jiaying University, friends from the Municipal Overseas Chinese Bureau, and meixian Museum, and found out that this was a place name from the Republic of China period. Lianzhou in Meiping Waixiang is today's Lianzhou Dam in Baidu Town. At that time, Meixian county had 3 districts, 3 towns, 48 townships, 618 bao, and the vicissitudes of the years disappeared not only the place names, but also the administrative structure and official positions. For example, the governor, the governor, the "bao", and the "baochang" have long been annihilated in the smoke and dust of history. But as long as the original hometown engraved on the tombstone can still be done, its descendants will not be kites with broken lines.
Some celebrities in Hong Kong, such as Jao Zongyi, are Teochew or Hakka, and occasionally there is controversy, and understanding history may suddenly lead to enlightenment. In the first year of the Republic of China (1912), Jiaying Prefecture was renamed Meizhou. In the third year of the Republic of China, Guangdong implemented the Beiyang Government's "Order on the Organization of The Unified Local Government Officials and Departments of the Provinces", abolished the government (prefectures, departments), and implemented the three-level political power system of provinces, provinces and counties. Set up a tide method, and the rule of the road is located in Shantou. In other words, the traditional Hakka areas of Meixian, Xingning, Wuhua, Fengshun, Tai Po, Pingyuan, and Jialing counties were once under the jurisdiction of "Chaoxun".
The author worships the Hakka ancestors of the Lin clan in the Chinese Yishan of Mauritius.
The author has been on the Malay Peninsula and the islands deep in the Indian Ocean. Most of the local Chinese were "piglet sellers" in the Western colonial era, who boarded ships from Hong Kong, changed their hometowns, and then became resting places. I have seen the tombstones of many Hakka ancestors, the handwriting is vague, and it is lamented that "the sea is dry and rotten" is not only the sea oath mountain alliance, the owner behind the tombstone was once a flesh-and-blood existence.
Dynasties rise and fall, the world is like chess, what remains unchanged is my land and my people, and there is a sense of family and country that is inherited...
The only ancestral clue provided by a Thai friend.
The tombstones of many Hakka ancestors are blurred and can no longer be identified.
Author: Lin Wenying