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Tanka people

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Tanka people
Tanka woman in Macau
Regions with significant populations
 Mainland ChinaGuangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Hainan, Shanghai, Zhejiang, and along the Yangtze river[1]
 Hong KongKowloon
 MacauMacau Bay
Languages
Tanka dialect of Yue Chinese,
Fuzhou dialect of Eastern Min Chinese (Fuzhou Tanka), Mandarin & other varieties of Chinese,
for those living in the diaspora speak English, Vietnamese, Khmer, Tetun, Burmese, Thai, Hindi, Bengali, Malay (both Malaysian / Bruneian and Indonesian), Spanish, Portuguese (including Macau), French, Fijian, Creole and Dutch
Religion
Chinese folk religions (including Taoism, Confucianism, ancestral worship and others) and Mahayana Buddhism.
Tanka people
Traditional Chinese1. 蜑家
2. 艇家
3. 水上人
4. 曲蹄
5. 蜑民
6. 曲蹄囝
Literal meaning1. Dan families
2. boat households
3. people on water
4. crooked hoof, bowlegged
5. Dan people
6. crooked hoof children, bowlegged children
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin1. Dànjiā
2. Tǐngjiā
3. Shuǐshàngrén
Yue: Cantonese
Yale Romanization1. Daahngā
2. Téhnggā
3. Séuiseuhngyàn
4. Kūktài
Jyutping1. Daan6gaa1
2. Teng5gaa1
3. Seoi2soeng6jan4
4. Kuk1tai4
Eastern Min
Fuzhou BUC4. Kuóh-dà̤
5. Dáng-mìng
6. Kuóh-dà̤-giāng

The Tankas or boat people are a sinicised ethnic group in Southern China[2] who traditionally lived on junks in coastal parts of Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Hainan, Shanghai, Zhejiang and along the Yangtze river, as well as Hong Kong, and Macau. The boat people are referred to with other different names outside of Guangdong. Though many now live onshore, some from the older generations still live on their boats and pursue their traditional livelihood of fishing. Historically, the Tankas were considered outcasts. Since they were boat people who lived by the sea, they were sometimes referred to as "sea gypsies" by both Chinese and British. Tanka origins can be traced back to the native ethnic minorities of southern China known historically as the Baiyue who may have taken refuge on the sea and gradually assimilated into Han Chinese culture. However, Tanka have preserved many of their native traditions not found in Han culture.

A small number of Tankas also live in parts of Vietnam. There they are called Dan (Đàn) and are classified as a subgroup of the Ngái ethnicity.

Etymology and terminology

[edit]

According to official Liu Zongyuan (Liou Tsung-yüan; 柳宗元; 773–819) of the Tang dynasty, there were Tanka people settled in the boats of today's Guangdong Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

"Tan" is a Cantonese term for egg and "ka" means family or peoples another etymology is possibly "tank" meaning junk or large boat in Cantonese and "ka" meaning family. The term Tanka is now considered derogatory and no longer in common usage.[3] These boat dwellers are now referred to in China as "people on/above water" (Chinese: 水上人; pinyin: shuǐshàng rén; Cantonese Yale: Séuiseuhngyàn),[4] or "people of the southern sea" (Chinese: 南海人; Cantonese Yale: Nàamhóiyàn).[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] No standardised English translation of this term exists. "Boat People" is a commonly used translation, although it may be confused with the similar term for Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong. The term "Boat Dwellers" was proposed by Dr. Lee Ho Yin of The University of Hong Kong in 1999, and it has been adopted by the Hong Kong Museum of History for its exhibition.[13]

Both the Tanka and the Cantonese speak Cantonese.[14][15] However, Tanka living in Fujian speak Min Chinese.

"Boat people" was a general term for the Tanka. The name Tanka was used only by Cantonese to describe the Tanka of the Pearl River Delta.

The Tanka boat people of the Yangtze region were called the Nine surnames fishermen households, while Tanka families living on land were called the Mean households.

There were two distinct categories of people based on their way of life, and they were further divided into different groups. The Hakka and Cantonese lived on land; the Tanka (including Hokkien-speaking Tanka immigrants often mistaken for being Hoklo) lived on boats and were both classified as boat people.[16]

The differences between the sea dwelling Tanka and land dwellers were not based merely on their way of life. Cantonese and Hakka who lived on land fished sometimes for a living, but these land fishermen never mixed or married with the Tanka fishermen. Tanka were barred from Cantonese and Hakka celebrations.[17]

British reports on Hong Kong described the Tanka including Hoklo-speaking Tanka boat people living in Hong Kong "since time unknown".[18][19] The encyclopaedia Americana alleged that Tanka lived in Hong Kong "since prehistoric times".[20][21][22]

Geographic distribution

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The Tanka people are found throughout the coasts and rivers of the following regions:[23]

Origin

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Mythical origins

[edit]
Tanka in Hong Kong

Some Chinese myths claim that animals were the ancestors of the Barbarians, including the Tanka people.[26][27] Some ancient Chinese sources claimed that water snakes were the ancestors of the Tanka, saying that they could last for three days in the water, without breathing air.[28]

Baiyue connection and origins in Southern China

[edit]
Main article: Baiyue

The Tanka are considered by some scholars to be related to other minority peoples of southern China, such as the Yao and Li people (Miao).[29][better source needed] The Amoy University anthropologist Ling Hui-hsiang wrote his theory of the Fujian Tanka as descendants of the Bai Yue. He claimed that Guangdong and Fujian Tanka are definitely descended from the old Bai Yue peoples, and that they may have been ancestors of the Malay race.[30] The Tanka inherited their lifestyle and culture from the original Yue peoples who inhabited Hong Kong during the Neolithic era.[31] After the First Emperor of China conquered Hong Kong, groups from northern and central China moved into the general area of Guangdong, including Hong Kong.[32]

One theory proposes that the ancient Yue inhabitants of southern China are the ancestors of the modern Tanka boat people. The majority of western academics subscribe to this theory, and use Chinese historical sources. (The ancient Chinese used the term "Yue" to refer to all southern barbarians.)[33][34] The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition, states that the ancestors of the Tanka were native people.[35][36]

The Tanka's ancestors were pushed to the southern coast by Chinese peasants who took over their land.[37][38]

During the British colonial era in Hong Kong, the Tanka were considered a separate ethnic group from the Punti, Hakka, and Hoklo.[39] Punti is another name for Cantonese (it means "local"), who came from mainly Guangdong districts. The Hakka and Hoklo are not considered as Puntis.

The Tanka have been compared to the She people by some historians, practising Han Chinese culture, while being an ethnic minority descended from natives of Southern China.[40]

Yao connections

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Main article: Yao people

Chinese scholars and gazettes described the Tanka as a "Yao" tribe, with some other sources noting that "Tan" people lived at Lantau, and other sources saying "Yao" people lived there. As a result, they refused to obey the salt monopoly of the Song dynasty (Sung dynasty; 960–1276/1279) government. The county gazetteer of Sun On in 1729 described the Tanka as "Yao barbarians", and the Tanka were viewed as animals.[41]

In modern times, the Tanka claim to be ordinary Chinese who happen to fish for a living, and the local dialect is used as their language.[42]

Historiography

[edit]

Some southern Chinese historic views of the Tanka were that they were a separate aboriginal ethnic group, "not Han Chinese at all".[43] Chinese Imperial records also claim that the Tanka were descendants of aboriginals.[44] Tanka were also called "sea gypsies" (海上吉普賽人).[11]

The Tanka were regarded as Yueh and not Chinese, they were divided into three classifications, "the fish-Tan, the oyster-Tan, and the wood-Tan" in the 12th century, based on what they did for a living.[45][46]

The three groups of Punti, Hakka, and Hoklo, all of whom spoke different Chinese dialects, despised and fought each other during the late Qing dynasty. However, they were all united in their overwhelming hatred for the Tanka, since the aboriginals of Southern China were the ancestors of the Tanka.[47] The Cantonese Punti had displaced the Tanka aboriginals, after they began conquering southern China.[48]

The Chinese poet Su Dongpo wrote a poem which mentioned the Tanka.[49]

The Nankai University of Tianjin published the Nankai social and economic quarterly, Volume 9 in 1936, and it referred to the Tanka as aboriginal descendants before Chinese assimilation.[50] The scholar Jacques Gernet also wrote that the Tanka were aboriginals known as pirates (haidao), which hindered Qing dynasty attempts to assert control in Guangdong.[51]

Scholarly opinions on Baiyue connection

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The most widely held theory is that the Tanka are the descendants of the native Yue inhabitants of Guangdong before the Han Cantonese moved in.[52] The theory states that the Yue peoples inhabited the region at the time of the Chinese conquest when they were either absorbed or expelled to southern regions. The Tanka, according to this theory, are descended from an outcast Yue tribe who preserved their separate culture.[53]

Regarding the Fujian Minyue Tanka it is suggested that in the southeast coastal regions of China, there were many sea nomads during the Neolithic era and they may have spoken ancestral Austronesian languages, and were skilled seafarers.[54] In fact, there is evidence that an Austronesian language was still spoken in Fujian as late as 620 AD.[55] It is therefore believed that the Tanka were Austronesians who could be more closely related to other Austronesian groups such as Filipinos, Javanese, or Balinese.

A minority of scholars who challenged this theory deny that the Tanka are descended from natives, instead claiming they are basically the same as other Han Cantonese who dwell on land, claiming that neither the land dwelling Han Cantonese nor the water dwelling Tanka have more aboriginal blood than the other, with the Tanka boat people being as Chinese and as Han as ordinary Cantonese.[56]

Eugene Newton Anderson in 1970 claimed that there was no evidence for any of the conjectures put forward by scholars on the Tanka's origins, citing Chen, who stated that "to what tribe or race they once belonged or were once akin to is still unknown".[57]

Some researchers say the origin of the Tanka is multifaceted, with a portion of them having native Yueh ancestors and others originating from other sources.[58]

Genetics

[edit]

Fujian Tanka have customs similar to Daic and Austronesian people. They have a closer genetic affinity with Daic populations than Han Chinese in paternal lineages, but are closely clustered with southern Han populations (such as Hakka and Teochew) in maternal lineages. It is hypothesized that the Fujian Tanka mainly originate from the ancient indigenous Daic people and have only limited gene flows from Han Chinese populations.[59]

Another study on the Tanka concluded that the Tanka people not only had a close genetic relationship with both northern Han and ancient Yellow River basin millet farmers but also possessed more southern East Asian ancestry related to Austronesian, Kra-Dai and Hmong-Mien people compared to southern Han. Tanka people had their own unique genetic structure, but kept a close relationship with geographically close southern Han Chinese populations. The results supported that the Tanka people arose from the admixture between southward migration Han Chinese and southern indigenous people.[60]

History

[edit]

Sinicisation

[edit]

The Song dynasty engaged in extensive sinicisation of the region with Han people.[61] After many years of sinicisation and assimilation, the Tanka now identify as Han Chinese, though they also have non-Han ancestry from the natives of Southern China.[62] The Cantonese would often buy fish from the Tanka.[63] In some inland regions, the Tanka accounted for half of the total population.[64] The Tanka of Quanzhou were registered as barbarian households.[65]

Ming dynasty

[edit]

The Tanka boat population were not registered into the national census as they were of outcast status, with an official imperial edict declaring them untouchable.[66][better source needed]

Macau and Portuguese rule

[edit]
Main articles: Macau, History of Macau, and Macanese people
Traditional Tanka people clothes in a Hong Kong museum.

The Portuguese, who were granted Macau during the Ming dynasty, often married Tanka women since Han Chinese women would not have relations with them. Some of the Tanka's descendants became Macanese people.

Some Tanka children were enslaved by Portuguese raiders.[67]

The Chinese poet Wu Li wrote a poem, which included a line about the Portuguese in Macau being supplied with fish by the Tanka.[68][69][70][71]

When the Portuguese arrived at Macau, enslaved women from Goa (part of Portuguese India), Siam, Indochina, and Malaya became their wives. Rarely were they Chinese women.[72] The Tanka women were among the only people in China willing to mix and marry with the Portuguese, with other Chinese women refusing to do so.[73]

The majority of marriages between Portuguese and natives was between Portuguese men and women of Tanka origin, who were considered the lowest class of people in China and had relations with Portuguese settlers and sailors.[74] Western men like the Portuguese were refused by high class Chinese women, who did not marry foreigners.[75]

Literature in Macau was written about love affairs and marriage between the Tanka women and Portuguese men, like "A-Chan, A Tancareira", by Henrique de Senna Fernandes.[76][77][78][79]

Qing dynasty

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Tanka people mostly worked as fishermen and tended to gather at some bays. Some built markets or villages on the shore, while others continued to live on their junks or boats. They claimed to be Han Chinese.[80]

The Qing edict said "Cantonese people regard the Dan households as being of the mean class (beijian zhi) and do not allow them to settle on shore. The Dan households, for their part, dare not struggle with the common people", this edict was issued in 1729.[81]

As Hong Kong developed, some of the fishing grounds in Hong Kong became badly polluted or were reclaimed, and so became land. Those Tankas who only own small boats and cannot fish far out to sea are forced to stay inshore in bays, gathering together like floating villages.[82]

Lifestyle and culture

[edit]

Masonry was unknown by the water-dwelling Tanka.[83]

Canton (Guangzhou)

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The Tanka also formed a class of prostitutes in Canton, operating the boats in Canton's Pearl River which functioned as brothels. They did not practice foot binding and their dialect was unique. They were forbidden to marry land-dwelling Chinese or live on land. Their ancestors were the natives of Southern China before the Cantonese expelled them to their current home on the water.[84]

Modern China

[edit]

Tanka were among the many people that remained in Nanjing in December 1939 before the Japanese massacred the population. Others included low-class citizens and shopkeepers who could not easily move their assets. [85]

During the intensive reclamation efforts around the islands of Shanghai in the late 1960s, many Tanka were settled on Hengsha Island and organised as fishing brigades.[86]

British Hong Kong

[edit]
Hong Kong boat dwellings in December 1970.

In 1937, Walter Schofield, then a Cadet Officer in the Hong Kong Civil Service, wrote that at that time the Tankas were "boat-people [who sometimes lived] in boats hauled ashore, or in more or less boat-shaped huts, as at Shau Kei Wan and Tai O". They mainly lived at the harbours at Cheung Chau, Aberdeen, Tai O, Po Toi, Kau Sai Chau and Yau Ma Tei.[87]

Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew (1845–1917) and Katharine Caroline Bushnell (5 February 1856 – January 26, 1946), who wrote extensively on the position of women in the British Empire, wrote about the Tanka inhabitants of Hong Kong and their position in the prostitution industry, catering towards foreign sailors. The Tanka did not marry with the Chinese, being descendants of the natives, they were restricted to the waterways. They supplied their women as prostitutes to British sailors and assisted the British in their military actions around Hong Kong.[88]

Ordinary Chinese prostitutes were afraid of serving Westerners since they looked strange to them, while the Tanka prostitutes freely mingled with western men.[89] The Tanka assisted the Europeans with supplies and providing them with prostitutes.[90][91] Low class European men in Hong Kong easily formed relations with the Tanka prostitutes.[92] The profession of prostitution among the Tanka women led to them being hated by the Chinese both because they had sex with westerners and them being racially Tanka.[93]

The Tanka prostitutes were considered to be "low class", greedy for money, arrogant, and treating clients with a bad attitude. They were known for punching their clients or mocking them by calling them names.[94] Though the Tanka prostitutes were considered low class, their brothels were still remarkably well kept and tidy.[95] A famous fictional story which was written in the 1800s depicted western items decorating the rooms of Tanka prostitutes.[96]

The stereotype among most Chinese in Canton that all Tanka women were prostitutes was common, leading the government during the Republican era to accidentally inflate the number of prostitutes when counting, due to all Tanka women being included.[97][98] The Tanka women were viewed as such that their prostitution activities were considered part of the normal bustle of a commercial trading city.[99] Sometimes the lowly regarded Tanka prostitutes managed to elevate themselves into higher forms of prostitution.[100][101]

Tanka women were ostracised from the Cantonese community, and were nicknamed "salt water girls" (ham sui mui in Cantonese) for their services as prostitutes to foreigners in Hong Kong.[102][103]

Tanka women who worked as prostitutes for foreigners also commonly kept a "nursery" of Tanka girls specifically for exporting them for prostitution work to overseas Chinese communities such as in Australia or America, or to serve as a Chinese or foreigner's concubine.[104]

A report called "Correspondence respecting the alleged existence of Chinese slavery in Hong Kong: presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty" was presented to the English Parliament in 1882 concerning the existence of slavery in Hong Kong, of which many were Tanka girls serving as prostitutes or mistresses to westerners.

Ernest John Eitel claimed in 1895 that all "half caste" people in Hong Kong were descended exclusively from Europeans having relationship with Tanka women, and not Chinese women. The theory that most of the Eurasian mixed race Hong Kong people are descended only from Tanka women and European men, and not ordinary Cantonese women, is backed up by other researchers who pointed out that Tanka women freely consorted with foreigners due to the fact that they were not bound by the same Confucian traditions as the Cantonese, and having a relationship with European men was advantageous for Tanka women. The ordinary Cantonese women did not sleep with European men, so the Eurasian population was formed only from Tanka and European admixture.[105][106][107][108][109]

During British rule some special schools were created for the Tanka.[110] In 1962 a typhoon struck boats belonging to the Tanka, likely including Hoklo-speaking Tanka mistaken for being Hoklo, destroying hundreds.[20][21][22]

During the 1970s the number of Tanka was reported to be shrinking.[111][112][113]

Shanghai

[edit]

Shanghai, with its many international concessions, contained prostitutes from various areas of China, including Guangdong province. This included the Tanka prostitutes, who were grouped separately from the Cantonese prostitutes. The Cantonese served customers in normal brothels while the Tanka served customers in boats.[114]

Surnames

[edit]

The Fuzhou Tanka have different surnames than the Tanka of Guangdong.[115] Qing records indicate that "Weng, Ou, Chi, Pu, Jiang, and Hai" (翁, 歐, 池, 浦, 江, 海) were surnames of the Fuzhou Tanka.[116] Qing records also stated that Tanka surnames in Guangdong consisted of "Mai, Pu, Wu, Su, and He" (麥, 濮, 吴, 蘇, 何), alternatively some people claimed Gu and Zeng as Tanka surnames.[117]

Dialect

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The Tanka dialect is a variety of Yue Chinese.[118] It is similar in phonology with Cantonese, with the following differences:

  • eu /œ/ is pronounced as o /ɔ/ (e.g. "Hong Kong")
  • /y/ is pronounced as /u/ or /i/
  • /kʷ/ is pronounced as /k/
  • no final -m or -p, so they are replaced by -ng /-ŋ/ or -t /-t/
  • /n/ is pronounced as /l/, like in some informal varieties of Cantonese
  • they also have the tone 2 diminutive change[119]

DNA tests and disease

[edit]

Tests on the DNA of the Tanka people found that the disease Thalassemia was common among the Tanka. Tests also stated that the ancestors of the Tanka were not Han Chinese, but were native people.[120][121]

The Tanka suffer from lung cancer more than the Cantonese and Teochew. The frequency of the disease is higher among Tanka. The rate among the Teochew is lower than that of the Cantonese.[122]

Famous Tankas

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ [books.google.com.sg/books?id=HcPuCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA219]
  2. ^ Maria Jaschok; Suzanne Miers (1994). Maria Jaschok; Suzanne Miers (eds.). Women and Chinese patriarchy: submission, servitude, and escape. Zed Books. p. xvi. ISBN 1-85649-126-9. Tanka, a marginalised boat people which could be found in the Southern provinces of China.
  3. ^ Farewell to Peasant China: Rural Urbanization and Social Change in ... – Page 75 Gregory Eliyu Guldin – 1997 "In Dongji hamlet, most villagers were originally shuishangren (boat people) [Also known in the West by the pejorative label, "Tanka" people. — Ed.] and settled on land only in the 1950s. Per-capita cultivated land averaged only 1 mu ..."
  4. ^ Cornelius Osgood (1975). The Chinese: a study of a Hong Kong community, Volume 3. University of Arizona Press. p. 1212. ISBN 9780816504183. shii leung (shu lang) shii miu (shu miao) shui fan (shui fen) shui kwa (shui kua) sui seung yan (shui shang jen) Shui Sin (Shui Hsien) shuk in (shu yen) ShunTe Sian Sin Ku (Hsien Ku) sin t'it (hsien t'ieh) Sin Yan (Hsien Jen) sing
  5. ^ Great Britain. Colonial Office, Hong Kong. Government Information Services (1962). Hong Kong. Govt. Press. p. 37. The Tanka are boat dwellers who very seldom settle ashore. They themselves do not much use this name, which they consider derogatory, but usually call themselves 'Nam Hoi Yan (people of the southern sea) or 'Sui Seung Yan
  6. ^ National Physical Laboratory (Great Britain) (1962). Report for the year ... H.M.S.O. p. 37.
  7. ^ Hong Kong: report for the year ... Government Press. 1961. p. 40.
  8. ^ Hong Kong, Great Britain. Foreign and Commonwealth Office (1962). Hong Kong annual report. H.M.S.O. p. 37.
  9. ^ Great Britain. Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Hong Kong. Government Information Services (1960). Hong Kong. Govt. Press. p. 40.
  10. ^ Martin Hürlimann (1962). Hong Kong. Viking Press. p. 17. ISBN 9783761100301. The Tanka are among the earliest of the region's inhabitants. They call themselves 'Sui Seung Yan', signifying 'those born on the waters'; for they have been a population afloat as far back as men can remember—their craft jostle each other most closely in the fishing port
  11. ^ a b Valery M. Garrett (1987). Traditional Chinese clothing in Hong Kong and South China, 1840–1980. Oxford University Press. p. 2. ISBN 0-19-584174-3. The Tanka dislike the name and prefer 'Sui seung yan', which means 'people who live on the water'. Because of their different physique and darker skin, they were traditionally thought by those living on the land to be a race of sea gypsies and not Chinese at all
  12. ^ Far Eastern economic review, Volume 24. Review Pub. Co. Ltd. 1958. p. 280. The name "Hoklo" is used by the Hoklo, but the Tanka will not use the name "Tanka" which they consider derogatory, using instead "Nam hoi yan" or "Sui seung yan". Shore dwellers however have few dealings with either race of people and tend to call them both "Tanka". The Pui Tanka dialects both belong to the western section of
  13. ^ Architectural Conservation Office, HKSAR Government. (2008). "Heritage Impact Assessment Report of the Yau Ma Tei Theatre & Red Brick Building", p.5 Archived 18 September 2021 at the Wayback Machine. (PDF). Retrieved on 2 March 2012.
  14. ^ Österreichische Leo-Gesellschaft, Görres-Gesellschaft, Anthropos Institute (1970). Anthropos, Volume 65. Zaunrith'sche Buch-, Kunst- und Steindruckerei. p. 249. Far better known are the Cantonese-speaking boat people. These are the groups known as "Tanka" (Mandarin "Tanchia") in most of the literature.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  15. ^ Eugene Newton Anderson (1970). The floating world of Castle Peak Bay. Vol. 4 of Anthropological studies. American Anthropological Association. p. 13. ISBN 9780598271389. into two major groups: Cantonese ("Tanchia" or "Tanka" – a term of hatred) and Hoklo. The Hoklo speak a distinctive dialect of South Fukienese (South Min, Swatowese)
  16. ^ James Hayes (1996). Friends & teachers: Hong Kong and its people, 1953–87. Hong Kong University Press. p. 23. ISBN 962-209-396-5. Leaving aside the settled land population Hakka and Cantonese villagers, and the trickle of newcomers into the district, there were also the boat people, of whom the Tanka and Hoklo were the two principal groups. They were numerous and to be found everywhere in its waters
  17. ^ David Faure; Helen F. Siu (1995). David Faure; Helen F. Siu (eds.). Down to earth: the teruritorial bond in South China. Stanford University Press. p. 93. ISBN 0-8047-2435-0. In the Hong Kong region, the existence of groups of sea fishermen other than Tanka was quite common. On nearby Peng Chau, both Cantonese and Hakka villagers undertook sea fishing..... However, in all such cases... occupational blurring did not mean... intermarriage between land based fishermen, who clung to their own kind, and the Tanka. ... the Tanka boat people of Cheung Chau were excluded from participation in the ...jiao festival.
  18. ^ Great Britain. Colonial Office, Hong Kong. Government Information Services (1970). Hong Kong. Govt. Press. p. 219. The Hoklo people, like the Tanka, have been in the area since time unknown. They too are boat-dwellers but are less numerous than the Tanka and are mostly found in eastern waters. In some places, they have lived ashore for several
  19. ^ Hong Kong: report for the year ... Government Press. 1970. p. 219.
  20. ^ a b Grolier Incorporated (1999). The encyclopedia Americana, Volume 14. Grolier Incorporated. p. 474. ISBN 0-7172-0131-7. In Hong Kong, the Tanka and Hoklo peoples have dwelt in houseboats since prehistoric times. These houseboaters seldom marry shore dwellers. The Hong Kong government estimated that in December 1962 there were 46,459 people living on houseboats there, although a typhoon had wrecked hundreds of boats a few months earlier.
  21. ^ a b Scholastic Library Publishing (2006). Encyclopedia Americana, Volume 1. Scholastic Library Pub. p. 474. ISBN 0-7172-0139-2.
  22. ^ a b The Encyclopedia Americana, Volume 14. Grolier. 1981. p. 474. ISBN 0-7172-0112-0.
  23. ^ Deng, Gang (1999). Maritime Sector, Institutions, and Sea Power of Premodern China. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 55. ISBN 9780313307126.
  24. ^ He, Xi; Faure, David (13 January 2016). The Fisher Folk of Late Imperial and Modern China: An Historical Anthropology of Boat-and-Shed Living. Routledge. ISBN 9781317409663.
  25. ^ He, Xi; Faure, David (13 January 2016). The Fisher Folk of Late Imperial and Modern China: An Historical Anthropology of Boat-and-Shed Living. Routledge. ISBN 9781317409663.
  26. ^ Eugene Newton Anderson (1970). The floating world of Castle Peak Bay. Vol. 4 of Anthropological studies. American Anthropological Association. p. 13. ISBN 9780598271389. Some are reasonable, some improbable indeed. In the latter category fall some of the traditional Chinese legends, such as the story of the descent of the "Tanka" (and other "barbarians") from animals. These traditional tales are
  27. ^ Österreichische Leo-Gesellschaft, Görres-Gesellschaft, Anthropos Institute (1970). Anthropos, Volume 65. Zaunrith'sche Buch-, Kunst- und Steindruckerei. p. 249.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  28. ^ Wolfram Eberhard (1982). China's minorities: yesterday and today. Wadsworth. p. 89. ISBN 0-534-01080-6. Chinese sources assert that they can stay under water for three days and that they are descendants of water snakes. Not much else is said about them in Chinese sources, especially nothing about their language.
  29. ^ Tê-chʻao Chêng (1948). Acculturation of the Chinese in the United States: a Philadelphia study. University of Pennsylvania. p. 27. Among the aboriginal tribes, the "Iu" (傜) tribe is the largest, then "Lai" (黎), the "Yi" (夷) or more commonly called the "Miao" (苗), and the "Tanka" (疍家) The mixture of these peoples with the "Han" people therefore caused all the cultural variations and racial complexity
  30. ^ Murray A. Rubinstein (2007). Murray A. Rubinstein (ed.). Taiwan: a new history. M.E. Sharpe. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-7656-1494-0. which modern people are the Pai Yueh"...So is it possible that there is a relationship between the Pai Yueh and the Malay race?...Today in riverine estuaries of Fukien and Kwangtung are another Yueh people, the Tanka ("boat people"). Might some of them have left the Yueh tribes and set out on the seas? (1936: 117)
  31. ^ Mike Ingham (2007). Hong Kong: a cultural history. Oxford University Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-19-531496-0. In their turn the modern-day boat people of Hong Kong, the Tanka, have derived their maritime and fishing cultural traditions from this long lineage. Little is known about the Yue, but some archaeological evidence gathered from Bronze
  32. ^ Michael Ingham (18 June 2007). Hong Kong: A Cultural History. Oxford University Press, US. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-19-988624-1. of China following the Emperor Qin's conquests in the second century BC, Hong Kong, now integrated into the Donguan county of Guangdong province, started to be colonised or settled by non-indigenous peoples from further north
  33. ^ Eugene Newton Anderson (1972). Essays on south China's boat people. Vol. 29 of Asian folklore and social life monographs Dong fang wen cong. Orient Cultural Service. p. 2. Most scholars, basing themselves on traditional Chinese historians' work, have agreed that the boat people are descendants of the Yüeh or a branch thereof ( Eberhard 1942, 1968 ; Lo 1955, 1963 ; Ho 1965 ; and others influenced by them, such as Wiens 1954). "Yüeh" (the "Viet" of Vietnam) seems to have been a term rather loosely used in early Chinese writings to refer to the "barbarian" groups of the south coast
  34. ^ Österreichische Leo-Gesellschaft, Görres-Gesellschaft, Anthropos Institute (1970). Anthropos, Volume 65. Zaunrith'sche Buch-, Kunst- und Steindruckerei. p. 249.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  35. ^ Phil Benson (2001). Ethnocentrism and the English dictionary. Vol. 3 of Routledge studies in the history of linguistics. Psychology Press. p. 152. ISBN 0-415-22074-2. Tanka ... The boat-population of Canton, who live entirely on the boats by which they earn their living: they are descendants of some aboriginal tribe of which Tan was apparently the name.
  36. ^ "Tanka, n.1". Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 12 October 2014. Tanka, n.1 Pronunciation: /ˈtæŋkə/ Forms: Also tankia, tanchia. Etymology: < Chinese (Cantonese), < Chinese tan, lit. 'egg', + Cantonese ka, in South Mandarin kia, North Mandarin chia, family, people. The boat-population of Canton, who live entirely on the boats by which they earn their living: they are descendants of some aboriginal tribe of which Tan was apparently the name. Tanka boat, a boat of the kind in which these people live. 1839 Chinese Repository 7 506 The small boats of Tanka women are never without this appendage. 1848 S. W. Williams Middle Kingdom I. vii. 321 The tankia, or boat-people, at Canton form a class in some respects beneath the other portions of the community. 1848 S. W. Williams Middle Kingdom II. xiii. 23 A large part of the boats at Canton are tankia boats, about 25 feet long, containing only one room, and covered with movable mats, so contrived as to cover the whole vessel; they are usually rowed by women. 1909 Westm. Gaz. 23 Mar. 5/2 The Tankas, numbering perhaps 50,000 in all, gain their livelihood by ferrying people to and fro on the broad river with its creeks. Chinese repository · 1832–1851 (20 vols.). Canton Samuel Wells Williams · The middle kingdom; a survey of the geography, government … of the Chinese empire and its inhabitants · 1848. New York The Westminster gazette · 1893–1928. London [England]: J. Marshall http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/197535
  37. ^ Sun Yat-sen Institute for Advancement of Culture and Education, Nanking (1940). T'ien hsia monthly, Volume 11. Kelly and Walsh, ltd. p. 342. But from the position of the sites it might be supposed that the inhabitants were pushed onto the seacoast by the pressure of other peoples and their survival may have lasted well into historic times, even possibly as late as the Sung dynasty (AD 960), the date, as we shall see, when Chinese peasants first began to migrate into this region. The Tanka might, in theory, be the descendants of these earlier peoples. They too are an ancient population living on the seaboard without any trace of their earlier habitat. But as we have seen in the first chapter they have been so
  38. ^ Sun Yat-sen Institute for Advancement of Culture and Education, Nanking (1940). T'ien hsia monthly, Volume 11. Kelly and Walsh, ltd. p. 342. and they were probably evolved as a result of contact with foreign peoples, even as late as the Portuguese.
  39. ^ Middle East and Africa. Taylor & Francis. 1996. p. 358. ISBN 1-884964-04-4. When the British appropriated the territory in the nineteenth century, they found these three major ethnic groups—Punti, Hakka, and Tanka—and one minority, the Hoklo, who were sea-nomads from the northern shore of Guangdong and
  40. ^ Susan Naquin; Evelyn Sakakida Rawski (1989). Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century. Yale University Press. p. 169. ISBN 0-300-04602-2. The Wuyi mountains were the home of the She, remnants of an aboriginal tribe related to the Yao who practiced slash and burn agriculture. Tanka boatmen of similar origin were also found in small numbers along the coast. Both the She and the Tanka were quite assimilated into Han Chinese culture.
  41. ^ William Meacham (2008). The Archaeology of Hong Kong. Hong Kong University Press. p. 162. ISBN 978-962-209-925-8. Other sources mention "Yao" who also lived on Lantau. Chinese sources describe several efforts to bring these folk to heel and, finally, a campaign to annihilate them... Later sources refer to the Tanka boat people as "Yao" or "barbarian," and for centuries they were shunned and not allowed to settle on land. Even as late as 1729, the Sun On county gazetteer recorded that "in Guangdong there is a tribe of Yao barbarians called the Tanka, who have boats for homes and live by fishing." These presumed remnants of the Yueh and their traditional way of life were looked down upon by the Han Chinese through the centuries,
  42. ^ Wolfram Eberhard (1982). China's minorities: yesterday and today. Wadsworth. p. 89. ISBN 0-534-01080-6. Not much else is said about them in Chinese sources, especially nothing about their language. Today, Tanka in the Canton area speak the local Chinese dialect and maintain that they are Chinese whose profession is fishery.
  43. ^ Leo J. Moser (1985). The Chinese mosaic: the peoples and provinces of China. Westview Press. p. 219. ISBN 0-86531-085-8. traditional response among the other peoples of the south China coastal region was to assert that the boat people were not Han Chinese at all, but rather a distinct minority race, the Tanka (PY: Danjia "dan people"), a people who had taken to the life on the water long ago. Often this view was embroidered with tales about how the Tanka had short legs, good only for shipboard life. Some stories alleged that they had six toes and even a tail. It was commonly asserted that they spoke their own aboriginal
  44. ^ C. Fred Blake (1981). Ethnic groups and social change in a Chinese market town. University Press of Hawaii. p. 2. ISBN 0-8248-0720-0. are therefore despised as local aborigines. Land people commonly call boat people "Tanka" ("egg folk"), which is a derogatory reference to their alleged barbarism. The aboriginal origin of boat people is alleged in imperial Chinese edicts (see chapter 2, note 6) as well as in
  45. ^ R. A. Donkin (1998). Beyond price: pearls and pearl-fishing : origins to the Age of Discoveries. Vol. 224 of Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society Held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge. American Philosophical Society. p. 200. ISBN 0-87169-224-4. the Southern Han (tenth century), government troops were sent to Ho-p'u to fish for pearls,121 it appears that operations were normally conducted, not by Chinese, but by one or other of the aboriginal (Yüeh) groups, notably the Tan. The Tan (Tan-hu, Tan-chia, Tanka) were ancient inhabitants of the littoral of South China. According to a twelfth-century source, those of Chin prefecture ( west of Lien) belonged to three groups, "the fish-Tan, the oyster-Tan, and the wood-Tan, excelling at the gathering of fish, oysters, and timber respectively."
  46. ^ American Oriental Society (1952). Journal of the American Oriental Society, Volume 72. Vol. 40 of American oriental series. American Oriental Society. p. 164. oyster-Tan, and the wood-Tan, excelling at the gathering of fish, oysters and timber respectively
  47. ^ Bob Dye (1997). Merchant prince of the Sandalwood Mountains: Afong and the Chinese in Hawaiʻi. University of Hawaii Press. p. 31. ISBN 0-8248-1772-9. But it also increased social contact between the three largest dialect groups, and that caused trouble, Punti.... treated Hakka .... as if they were uncultured aborigines... Hakka and Hoklo battled each other...as they fought Punti... All of these groups despised the Tanka people, descendants of aborigines
  48. ^ Andrew Grzeskowiak (1996). Passport Hong Kong: your pocket guide to Hong Kong business, customs & etiquette. World Trade Press. p. 25. ISBN 1-885073-31-3.
  49. ^ Shi Su; Burton Watson (1994). Selected poems of Su Tung-pʻo. Copper Canyon Press. p. 130. ISBN 1-55659-064-4. Tanka. Aboriginal people who lived on houseboats on the rivers around Canton. 103, line j.
  50. ^ Nan kai da xue (Tianjin, China). Jing ji yan jiu suo, Nankai University, Pa li-tai. Nankai Institute of Economics, Nankai University, Pa li-tai. Committee on Social and Economic Research (1936). Nankai social and economic quarterly, Volume 9. Nankai Institute of Economics, Nankai University. p. 616.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  51. ^ Jacques Gernet (1996). A history of Chinese civilization (2 ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 471. ISBN 0-521-49781-7. The Tanka were an aboriginal population of fishermen who lived permanently in their boats (hence the name ch'uan-min, 'boat people', sometimes given to them). They were famous pearl fishermen. Their piratical activities caused many difficulties to Shang K'o-hsi, the first military governor appointed to Kwangtung by the Ch'ing, and thus indirectly helped the Southern Ming resistance and attempts at secession.
  52. ^ Eugene Newton Anderson (1970). The floating world of Castle Peak Bay. Vol. 4 of Anthropological studies. American Anthropological Association. p. 13. ISBN 9780598271389. The most widely accepted theory of the origins of these people is that they are derived from the aboriginal tribes of the area. Most scholars (Eberhard, 1942; Lo, 1955, 1963; Ho, 1965; and others influenced by them) have agreed that the
  53. ^ Eugene Newton Anderson (1970). The floating world of Castle Peak Bay. Vol. 4 of Anthropological studies. American Anthropological Association. p. 14. ISBN 9780598271389. meant little more than "Barbarian." the Yueh seem to have included quite civilised peoples and also wild hill tribes. The Chinese drove them south or assimilated them. One group maintained its identity, according to the theory, and became the boat people. Ho concludes that the word Tan originally covered a specific tribe, then was extended like Man further north to cover various groups. At first it referred to the Patung Tan people, then to the Lingnan Tan, i.e.
  54. ^ Chen, Jonas Chung-yu (24 January 2008). "[ARCHAEOLOGY IN CHINA AND TAIWAN] Sea nomads in prehistory on the southeast coast of China". Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association. 22. doi:10.7152/bippa.v22i0.11805 (inactive 2 November 2024).{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link)
  55. ^ Goodenough, Ward H. (1996). Prehistoric Settlement of the Pacific. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. p. 43. ISBN 087169865X. OL 1021882M.
  56. ^ Eugene Newton Anderson (1970). The floating world of Castle Peak Bay. Vol. 4 of Anthropological studies. American Anthropological Association. p. 13. ISBN 9780598271389. and boat people are such as one would expect between groups leading such different ways of life. in culture, the boat people are Chinese. Ward (1965) and McCoy (1965) point out that the land people are probably not free from aboriginal intermixture themselves, and conclude that the boat people are probably not more mixed. As Ward states, "(l)... the boat-people's descent is probably neither more nor less 'non-Han' than that of most other Cantonese-speaking inhabitants of Kwangtung.
  57. ^ Eugene Newton Anderson (1970). The floating world of Castle Peak Bay. Vol. 4 of Anthropological studies. American Anthropological Association. p. 15. ISBN 9780598271389. Neither theory for the origin of the boat people has much proof. Neither would stand up in court. Chen's conclusion is still valid today: "...to what tribe or race they once belonged or were once akin to is still unknown." (Chen, 1935:272)
  58. ^ 梁廣漢 (1980). Profile of historic relics in the early stage of Hong Kong. 學津書店. p. 57. Tanka – They are boat-dwellers. Some of the Tanka are descendants of the Yueh ( jgi ), an aboriginal tribe in Southern China. Therefore, these Tanka can be regarded as the natives in the area. However, some Tanka came to the area in a
  59. ^ Luo, Xiao-Qin; Du, Pan-Xin; Wang, Ling-Xiang; Zhou, Bo-Yan; Li, Yu-Chun; Zheng, Hong-Xiang; Wei, Lan-Hai; Liu, Jun-Jian; Sun, Chang; Meng, Hai-Liang; Tan, Jing-Ze (6 August 2020). "Uniparental Genetic Analyses Reveal the Major Origin of Fujian Tanka from Ancient Indigenous Daic Populations". Human Biology. 91 (4): 257–277. doi:10.13110/humanbiology.91.4.05. ISSN 1534-6617. PMID 32767896. S2CID 221011288.
  60. ^ He, Guanglin; Zhang, Yunhe; Wei, Lan-Hai; Wang, Mengge; Yang, Xiaomin; Guo, Jianxin; Hu, Rong; Wang, Chuan-Chao; Zhang, Xian-Qing (19 July 2021). "The genomic formation of Tanka people, an isolated "Gypsies in water" in the coastal region of Southeast China". American Journal of Biological Anthropology. 178: 154–170. doi:10.1002/ajpa.24495.
  61. ^ Eugene Newton Anderson (1970). The floating world of Castle Peak Bay. Vol. 4 of Anthropological studies. American Anthropological Association. p. 15. ISBN 9780598271389. and others, pers. comm.). Certainly the Sung court did do so (Ng, 1961), and may well have been instrumental in the settlement of the region. At the fall of the Ming dynasty almost four hundred years later, in 1644 ad, loyalists are
  62. ^ Far Eastern economic review, Volume 24. Review Pub. Co. Ltd. 1958. p. 280. Historically there can be little doubt that the boat-people and a few of the hill villagers are of non-Chinese origin, but all now regard themselves as Chinese and speak Chinese dialects, the only traces of aboriginal descent (apart)
  63. ^ Edward Stokes (2005). Edward Stokes (ed.). 逝影留踪・香港1946–47. Hongkong Conservation Photography Foundation. p. 141. ISBN 962-209-754-5. The coastal dwelling Cantonese, more shrewd than the boat people, lived off – indeed sometimes battened onto – the needs and superstitions of the Tanka and Hoklo. The Cantonese marketed the boat people's fish, supplied their wants
  64. ^ Paine, Lincoln (6 February 2014). The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World. Atlantic Books. ISBN 9781782393573.
  65. ^ Asia Major, Friedrich Hirth, pg 215
  66. ^ "huji 戶籍 (www.chinaknowledge.de)".
  67. ^ Charles Ralph Boxer (1948). Fidalgos in the Far East, 1550–1770: fact and fancy in the history of Macau. M. Nijhoff. p. 224. Some of these wants and strays found themselves in queer company and places in the course of their enforced sojourn in the Portuguese colonial empire. The Ming Shih's complain that the Portuguese kidnapped not only coolie or Tanka children but even those of educated persons, to their piratical lairs at Lintin and Castle Peak, is borne out by the fate of Barros' Chinese slave already
  68. ^ Chaves, p. 53: Wu Li, like Bocarro, noted the presence in Macau both of black slaves and of non-Han Chinese such as the Tanka boat people, and in the third poem of his sequence he combines references to these two groups: Yellow sand, whitewashed houses: here the black men live; willows at the gates like sedge, still not sparse in autumn.
  69. ^ Chaves, p. 54: Midnight's when the Tanka come and make their harbor here; fasting kitchens for noonday meals have plenty of fresh fish. . .The second half of the poem unfolds a scene of Tanka boat people bringing in fish to supply the needs of fasting Christians.
  70. ^ Chaves, p. 141: Yellow sand, whitewashed houses: here the black men live; willows at the gates like sedge, still not sparse in autumn. Midnight's when the Tanka come and make their harbor here; fasting kitchens for noonday meals have plenty of fresh fish.
  71. ^ Chaves, p. 53: The residents Wu Li strives to reassure (in the third line of this poem) consisted — at least in 1635 when Antonio Bocarro, Chronicler-in-Chief of the State of India, wrote his detailed account of Macau (without actually having visited there) — of some 850 Portuguese families with "on the average about six slaves capable of bearing arms, amongst whom the majority and the best are negroes and such like," as well as a like number of "native families, including Chinese Christians . . . who form the majority [of the non-Portuguese residents] and other nations, all Christians." 146 (Bocarro may have been mistaken in declaring that all the Chinese in Macau were Christians.)
  72. ^ João de Pina-Cabral, p. 39: To be a Macanese is fundamentally to be from Macau with Portuguese ancestors, but not necessarily to be of Sino-Portuguese descent. The local community was born from Portuguese men. [...] but in the beginning the woman was Goanese, Siamese, Indo-Chinese, Malay – they came to Macau in our boats. Sporadically it was a Chinese woman.
  73. ^ João de Pina-Cabral, p. 39: When we established ourselves here, the Chinese ostracised us. The Portuguese had their wives, then, that came from abroad, but they could have no contact with the Chinese women, except the fishing folk, the Tanka women and the female slaves. Only the lowest class of Chinese contacted with the Portuguese in the first centuries. Later the strength of Christianisation, of the priests, started to convince the Chinese to become Catholic. [...] But, when they started to be Catholics, they adopted Portuguese baptismal names and were ostracised by the Chinese Buddhists. So they joined the Portuguese community and their sons started having Portuguese education without a single drop of Portuguese blood.
  74. ^ João de Pina-Cabral, p. 164: I was personally told of people that, to this day, continue to hide the fact that their mothers had been lower-class Chinese women—often even tanka (fishing folk) women who had relations with Portuguese sailors and soldiers.
  75. ^ João de Pina-Cabral, p. 165: In fact, in those days, the matrimonial context of production was usually constituted by Chinese women of low socio-economic status who were married to or concubies of Portuguese or Macanese men. Very rarely did Chinese women of higher status agree to marry a Westerner. As Deolinda argues in one of her short stories,"8 should they have wanted to do so out of romantic infatuation, they would not be allowed to
  76. ^ João de Pina-Cabral, p. 164: Henrique de Senna Fernandes, another Macanese author, wrote a short story about a tanka girl who has an affair with a Portuguese sailor. In the end, the man returns to his native country and takes their little girl with him, leaving the mother abandoned and broken-hearted. As her sailorman picks up the child, A-Chan's words are: 'Cuidadinho . . . cuidadinho' ('Careful . . . careful'). She resigns herself to her fate, much as she may never have recovered from the blow (1978).
  77. ^ Christina Miu Bing Cheng, p. 173: Her slave-like submissiveness is her only attraction to him. A-Chan thus becomes his slave/mistress, an outlet for suppressed sexual urges. The story is an archetypical tragedy of miscegenation. Just as the Tanka community despises A-Chan's cohabitation with a foreign barbarian, Manuel's colleagues mock his 'bad taste' ('gosto degenerado') (Senna Fernandes, 1978: 15) in having a tryst with a boat girl.
  78. ^ Christina Miu Bing Cheng, p. 173: As such, the Tanka girl is nonchalantly reified and dehumanised as a thing ( coisa). Manuel reduces human relations to mere consumption not even of her physical beauty (which has been denied in the description of A-Chan), but her 'Orientalness' of being slave-like and submissive.
  79. ^ Christina Miu Bing Cheng, p. 170: We can trace this fleeting and shallow relationship in Henrique de Senna Fernandes' short story, A-Chan, A Tancareira, (Ah Chan, the Tanka Girl) (1978). Senna Fernandes (1923–), a Macanese, had written a series of novels set against the context of Macau and some of which were made into films.
  80. ^ （水上居民）不见"连体船" Archived 22 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Gzlib.gov.cn (25 February 2008). Retrieved on 2 March 2012.
  81. ^ Hansson, p. 119: An imperial decision in 1729 stated that "Cantonese people regard the Dan households as being of the mean class (beijian zhi liu ^i§;£. Jft) and do not allow them to settle on shore. The Dan households, for their part, dare not struggle with the common people.
  82. ^ "Life in floating village of Cambodia – Khmer Post". Archived from the original on 29 June 2013. Retrieved 3 May 2013.
  83. ^ Sun Yat-sen Institute for Advancement of Culture and Education, Nanking (1940). T'ien hsia monthly, Volume 11. Kelly and Walsh, ltd. p. 336. The evidence of dwelling therefore supports the theory that one section of the population is culturally different from the other. On the one hand are the Tanka and Hoklo who do not know the use of stone in building, who live by fishing and who represent in fact a water culture. On the other hand is the culture of the wall-
  84. ^ Robert Hans van Gulik (1974). Sexual life in ancient China: a preliminary survey of Chinese sex and society from ca. 1500 B.C. till 1644 A.D. Brill Archive. p. 308. ISBN 90-04-03917-1. The prostitutes and courtezans of Canton belonged to a special ethnic group, the so-called tanka (tan-chia, also tan-hu), descendants of South- Chinese aborigines who had been driven to the coast and there engaged in fishing, especially pearl-fishing. They were subject to various disabilities, ia interdiction of marriage with Chinese, and of settling down on shore. They speak a peculiar dialect, and their women do not bind their feet. It was they who populated the thousands of floating brothels moored on the Pearl River at Canton.
  85. ^ Suping Lu (2019). The 1937–1938 Nanjing Atrocities. Springer. p. 33. ISBN 978-9811396564. Archived from the original on 23 September 2023. Retrieved 23 February 2020.
  86. ^ White, Lynn T. III. "Shanghai–Suburb Relations, 1949–1966" in Shanghai: Revolution and Development in an Asian Metropolis, p. 262. Cambridge University Press (Cambridge), 1981.
  87. ^ W. Schofield: "The islands around Hong Kong (text of a talk given in 1937)", from Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch, Vol. 23, 1983 Archived 18 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  88. ^ Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew; Katharine Caroline Bushnell (2006). Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers. Echo Library. p. 11. ISBN 1-4068-0431-2.
  89. ^ Maria Jaschok; Suzanne Miers (1994). Maria Jaschok; Suzanne Miers (eds.). Women and Chinese patriarchy: submission, servitude, and escape. Zed Books. p. 237. ISBN 1-85649-126-9. I am indebted to Dr Maria Jaschok for drawing my attention to Sun Guoqun's work on Chinese prostitution and for a reference to Tanka prostitutes who served Western clients. In this they were unlike typical prostitutes who were so unaccustomed to the appearance of western men that 'they were all afraid of them'.
  90. ^ Henry J. Lethbridge (1978). Hong Kong, stability and change: a collection of essays. Oxford University Press. p. 75. ISBN 9780195804027. but another source of supply was the daughters of the tanka, the boat population of kwangtung
  91. ^ Henry J. Lethbridge (1978). Hong Kong, stability and change: a collection of essays. Oxford University Press. p. 75. ISBN 9780195804027. The Tanka, it seems, not only supplied foreign shipping with provisions but foreigners with mistresses. They also supplied brothels with some of their inmates. As a socially disadvantaged group, they found prostitution a convenient
  92. ^ Henry J. Lethbridge (1978). Hong Kong, stability and change: a collection of essays. Oxford University Press. p. 210. ISBN 9780195804027. In the early days, such women were found usually among the Tanka boat population , a pariah group that infested the Pearl River delta region. A few of these women achieved the status of 'protected' woman (a kept mistress) and were
  93. ^ Fanny M. Cheung (1997). Fanny M. Cheung (ed.). EnGendering Hong Kong society: a gender perspective of women's status. Chinese University Press. p. 348. ISBN 962-201-736-3. twentieth century, in women doubly marginalised: as members of a despised ethnic group of Tanka Boat people, and as prostitutes engaged in "contemptible" sexual intercourse with Western men. In the empirical work done by CT Smith (1994)
  94. ^ Virgil K. Y. Ho (2005). Understanding Canton: rethinking popular culture in the republican period. Oxford University Press. p. 256. ISBN 0-19-928271-4. A Cantonese song tells how even low-class Tanka prostitutes could be snobbish, money-oriented, and very impolite to customers. Niggardly or improperly behaved clients were always refused and scolded as ' doomed prisoners' (chien ting) or 'sick cats' ('Shui-chi chien ch'a', in Chi- hsien-hsiao-yin c.1926: 52), and sometimes even punched (Hua-ts'ung-feˆn-tieh 1934)
  95. ^ Virgil K. Y. Ho (2005). Understanding Canton: rethinking popular culture in the republican period. Oxford University Press. p. 249. ISBN 0-19-928271-4. Even the tiny floating brothels on which the 'water-chicken' (low-class Tanka prostitutes) worked were said to be beautifully decorated and impressively clean (Hu P'o-an et al. 1923 ii. 13, ch. 7).42 A 1926 Canton guidebook also
  96. ^ Australian National University. Institute of Advanced Studies (1993). East Asian history, Volumes 5–6. Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University. p. 110. In a late nineteenth-century popular novel, the bed-chamber of a 'saltwater girl ' (low-class Tanka prostitute who served foreigners), is described as nicely decorated with a number of Western household objects, which startles the young observer who is crazy about things western
  97. ^ East Asian history, Volumes 5–6. Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University. 1993. p. 102. Ethnic prejudice towards the Tanka (boatpeople) women persisted throughout the Republican period. These women continued to be mistaken for prostitutes, probably because most of those who peddled ferry services between Canton and
  98. ^ Virgil K. Y. Ho (2005). Understanding Canton: rethinking popular culture in the republican period. Oxford University Press. p. 228. ISBN 0-19-928271-4. though the possibility should not be ruled out that this rather alarming estimate was based on the popular misconception that most Tanka women (women from the boat-people community) worked as prostitutes
  99. ^ Peter Hodge (1980). Peter Hodge (ed.). Community problems and social work in Southeast Asia: the Hong Kong and Singapore experience. Hong Kong University Press. p. 196. ISBN 962-209-022-2. EJ Eitel, for example, selected the small group of Tanka people in particular as that section of the population among whom prostitution and the sale of girls for purposes of concubinage flourished. They were associated with the commerce and shipping of a busy and expanding entrepot,
  100. ^ Ejeas, Volume 1. Brill. 2001. p. 112. A popular contemporary magazine which followed closely the news in the 'flower business' (huashi) so recorded at least one case of such career advancement that occurred to a Tanka (boat-people) prostitute in Canton.44 To say that all
  101. ^ Brill Academic Publishers (2001). European journal of East Asian studies, Volumes 1–2. Brill. p. 112. at least one case of such career advancement that occurred to a Tanka (boat-people) prostitute in Canton.44 To say
  102. ^ Henry J. Lethbridge (1978). Hong Kong, stability and change: a collection of essays. Oxford University Press. p. 75. This exceptional class of Chinese residents here in Hong Kong consists principally of the women known in Hong Kong by the popular nickname " ham-shui- mui " (lit. salt water girls), applied to these members of the so-called Tan-ka or boat
  103. ^ Peter Hodge (1980). Peter Hodge (ed.). Community problems and social work in Southeast Asia: the Hong Kong and Singapore experience. Hong Kong University Press. p. 33. ISBN 962-209-022-2. exceptional class of Chinese residents here in Hong Kong consists principally of the women known in Hong Kong by the popular nickname "ham-shui- mui" (lit. salt water girls), applied to these members of the so-called Tan-ka or boat
  104. ^ Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew; Katharine Caroline Bushnell (2006). Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers. Echo Library. p. 13. ISBN 1-4068-0431-2. or among Chinese residents as their concubines, or to be sold for export to Singapore, San Francisco, or Australia.
  105. ^ Meiqi Lee (2004). Being Eurasian: memories across racial divides. Hong Kong University Press. p. 262. ISBN 962-209-671-9. EJ Eitel, in the late 1890s, claims that the 'half-caste population in Hong Kong ' were from the earliest days of the settlement almost exclusively the offspring of liaisons between European men and women of outcast ethnic groups such as Tanka (Europe in China, 169). Lethbridge refutes the theory saying it was based on a 'myth' propagated by xenophobic Cantonese to account for the establishment of the Hong Kong Eurasian community. Carl Smith's study in the late 1960s on the protected women seems, to some degree, support Eitel's theory. Smith says that the Tankas experienced certain restrictions within the traditional Chinese social structure. Custom precluded their intermarriage with the Cantonese and Hakka-speaking populations. The Tanka women did not have bound feet. Their opportunities for settlement on shore were limited. They were hence not as closely tied to Confucian ethics as other Chinese ethnic groups. Being a group marginal to the traditional Chinese society of the Puntis (Cantonese), they did not have the same social pressure in dealing with Europeans (CT Smith, Chung Chi Bulletin, 27). 'Living under the protection of a foreigner,' says Smith, 'could be a ladder to financial security, if not respectability, for some of the Tanka boat girls' (13 ).
  106. ^ Maria Jaschok; Suzanne Miers (1994). Maria Jaschok; Suzanne Miers (eds.). Women and Chinese patriarchy: submission, servitude, and escape. Zed Books. p. 223. ISBN 1-85649-126-9. He states that they had a near- monopoly of the trade in girls and women, and that: The half-caste population in Hong Kong were, from the earliest days of the settlement of the Colony and down to the present day, almost exclusively the offspring of these Tan-ka people. But, like the Tan-ka people themselves, they are happily under the influence of a process of continuous re-absorption in the mass of Chinese residents of the Colony (1895 p. 169)
  107. ^ Helen F. Siu (2011). Helen F. Siu (ed.). Merchants' Daughters: Women, Commerce, and Regional Culture in South China. Hong Kong University Press. p. 305. ISBN 978-988-8083-48-0. "The half-caste population of Hongkong were . . . almost exclusively the offspring of these Tan-ka women." EJ Eitel, Europe in China, the History of Hongkong from the Beginning to the Year 1882 (Taipei: Chen-Wen Publishing Co., originally published in Hong Kong by Kelly and Walsh. 1895, 1968), 169.
  108. ^ Henry J. Lethbridge (1978). Hong Kong, stability and change: a collection of essays. Oxford University Press. p. 75. The half-caste population in Hong Kong were, from the earliest days of the settlement of the Colony and down to the present day [1895], almost exclusively the off-spring of these Tan-ka people
  109. ^ Eitel, p. 169.
  110. ^ Acton, T. A. (1981). "Education as a By-product of Fish Marketing" (PDF). Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch. 21: 121. ISSN 1991-7295. How does it come about that this pleasing mixture of American Youth camp and English public-school sports day should come to represent" the emotional high point of the year for these fifteen schools which cater for the Shui-sheung-yan (water-folk), traditionally the lowest of all Hong Kong's social strata. Organised quite separately from them.
  111. ^ Bill Cranfield (1984). All-Asia guide (13 ed.). Far Eastern Economic Review. p. 151. ISBN 9789627010180. The rural population is divided into two main communities: Cantonese and Hakka. There is also a floating population — now declining — of about 50.000 boat- people, most of whom are known as Tanka. In mid-1970 Hongkong seemed once again
  112. ^ William Knox (1974). William Knox (ed.). All-Asia guide (8 ed.). Far Eastern Economic Review. p. 86. The rural population is divided into two main communities: Cantonese and Hakka. There is also a floating population—now declining—of about 100000 boatpeople, most of whom are known as Tanka. In mid-1970 Hongkong seemed once again
  113. ^ Cheah Cheng Hye; Donald Wise (1980). All-Asia guide (11 ed.). Far Eastern Economic Review. p. 135. ISBN 9789627010081. The rural population is divided into two main communities: Cantonese and Hakka. There is also a floating population—now declining—of about 100000 boatpeople, most of whom are known as Tanka. In mid-1970 Hongkong seemed once again
  114. ^ Bangqing Han; Ailing Zhang; Eva Hung (2005). Ailing Zhang; Eva Hung (eds.). The sing-song girls of Shanghai. Columbia University Press. p. 538. ISBN 0-231-12268-3. Prominent among the regional groups were two from Guangdong province: the Tanka girls, who lived and worked on boats, and the Cantonese girls, who worked in Cantonese brothels.
  115. ^ Hansson, p. 117: Unless a change of surnames occurred for some unknown reason, or unless the ' water names' are not the real names of the Fujian boat people, it would seem that the Dan people lacked Chinese-style surnames at the time the Fujian branch
  116. ^ Hansson, p. 116: In a late Qing dynasty work which has a section on boat people that mainly refers to those in Fujian, common surnames are said to be Weng 翁 ('old fisherman'), Ou 歐, Chi 池 (pond), Pu 浦 (river bank), Jiang 江 (river) and Hai 海 (sea). None of those surnames is a very common one in China and a few are very rare.
  117. ^ Hansson, p. 116: Some of them list the five names Mai 麥, Pu 濮, Wu 吴, Su 蘇 and He 何 The Huizhou prefectural gazetteer even states that there are no other boat people surnames, while others also add Gu 顧 and Zeng 曾 to make seven
  118. ^ Bai, Yun 白云. 2007. Guangxi Danjiahua yuyin yanjiu 广西疍家话语音研究. Nanning: Guangxi People's Publishing House 广西人民出版社.
  119. ^ Zhuang (2009). {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)
  120. ^ McFadzean A.J.S., Todd D. (1971). "Cooley's anaemia among the tanka of South China". Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. 65 (1): 59–62. doi:10.1016/0035-9203(71)90185-4. PMID 5092429.
  121. ^ Cooley's anaemia among the tanka of South China, A.J.S. McFadzean, D. Todd[permanent dead link‍]. Tropicalmedandhygienejrnl.net. Retrieved on 2 March 2012.
  122. ^ Asiaweek, Volume 15. Asiaweek Ltd. 1989. p. 90. Koo has found too that cancer rates differ among Hongkong's Chinese communities. Lung cancer is more prevalent among the Tanka, or boat people, than among local Cantonese. But they in turn have a higher incidence than Chiuchow (Teochew)
  123. ^ "白手起家、美女、兄弟鬩牆，所有戲劇元素都到齊：富可敵國的香港霍家傳奇". 5 January 2015.

Bibliography

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