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| Fujian Glance |
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Zhen
Cheng Lou -- Welcoming Distinguished Guests.
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Fujian Province in southeast China has a
very long and colourful recorded history, dating at least as
far back as the Warring States Period (475-221 B.C.). At that
time the State of Yue, located approximately in present-day
Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, was defeated by the State of
Chu, which ruled the areas of today's Hubei and Hunan provinces.
After their defeat, the Yue people were forced to move southward
and settled in the areas now known as Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi
and Vietnam. Those that went to Fujian were called Min Yue,
and the province itself Dong Yue.
Later, Emperor Shihuang of the Qin Dynasty (221-207 BC) set
up a prefecture in
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The
square in front of the main hall of Kaiyuan Temple has
many stone carvings which show the influence of Hinduism
on Chinese architecture.
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Fujian and changed the name of the province
to one word, Min. Even today this word is used as an abbreviation
for Fujian, and people in the south of the province speak a
dialect called the Minnan (southern Fujian) dialect.
The natives of Fujian are therefore called the ancient Min people.
No written records about them have ever been found, but the
boat-shaped coffins at the Wuyi Mountains probably belonged
to Xia-dynasty (c. 21st-16th century BC) Min people. A pictographic
written language was discovered carved into a rock in the town
of Hua'an, and is believed to be another relic of the ancient
Min people from the Shang Dynasty (c. 16th-11th century BC).
Besides the Min people, Fujian is
home to several other nationalities, the largest of which is
the She people, a branch of the Miao nationality who moved to
Fujian from the Yangtse River Valley. Other minority people
include the Hui, who are scattered in urban areas; the Ding
and Guo clans in southern Fujian and Putian, descendants of
Arabs and Persians who came to Quanzhou during the Tang and
Song dynasties; the Dan people, and a small number of
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This
basin at the centre of the Wuyi Mountain Range is home
to many Hakka families.
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Manchus. People of the Ding and Guo clans
have curly hair, deep-set eyes and hook-shaped noses. The Dan
people are said to be Mongols who were forced by the Han to
move from the hinterlands to the coast of Fujian during the
decline of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368).
Historically the Han nationality made five big emigrations,
all from the Central Plains. Sometimes whole villages and tribes
travelled long distances to Fujian in an organized way. These
people, called Hakka or "guest families", retained
their own language, dress, customs and habits. Many of their
descendants later moved to Guangdong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia,
and today the Hakka total some 60 million. Many prominent figures
have been Hakka people, including Sun Yat-sen, his wife Soong
Ching Ling, writer, historian and archaeologist Guo Moruo and
others. |
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