The Siyi (Seiyap or Sze Yup in

Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding a ...

; ) refers to the four former counties of

Xinhui Xinhui, alternately romanized as Sunwui and also known as Kuixiang, is an urban district of Jiangmen in Guangdong, China. It grew from a separate city founded at the confluence of the Tan and West Rivers. It has a population of about 735,50 ...

(Sunwui), Taishan (Toisan),

Kaiping Kaiping (), alternately romanized in Cantonese as Hoiping, is a county-level city in Guangdong Province, China. It is located ín the western section of the Pearl River Delta and administered as part of the prefecture-level city of Jiangmen. ...

(Hoiping) and

Enping Enping, alternately romanized as Yanping, is a county-level city in Guangdong province, China, administered as part of the prefecture-level city of Jiangmen. Enping administers an area of and had an estimated population of 460,000 in 2005 ...

(Yanping) on the west side of the

Pearl River Delta The Pearl River Delta Metropolitan Region (PRD; ; pt, Delta do Rio das Pérolas (DRP)) is the low-lying area surrounding the Pearl River estuary, where the Pearl River flows into the South China Sea. Referred to as the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Ma ...

in Southern

Guangdong Province Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

Geography

One of the early descriptions of the land came from the American missionary, William Speer, who lived there several years and observed: "Towns embowered in bamboo, a species of banyan and other trees meet the eye on every hand. The level portion of the soil is cultivated as only the Chinese know how to do in order to obtain the utmost possible returns from Nature. The view appears like a great garden bounded by ranges of hills."

is a city district and the other three are county-level cities, all four belong to Jiangmen Prefecture administered from the city of

Jiangmen Jiangmen (), alternately romanized in Cantonese as Kongmoon, is a prefecture-level city in Guangdong Province in southern China. As of the 2020 census, its three urban districts, plus Heshan City being conurbated, with 2,657,662 inhabitant ...

. An alternative term, Wuyi (,

: ), which refers to the five former counties of

, Taishan,

and

as well as Heshan, all administered by Jiangmen, has become an official title and is widely accepted by the local residents today. However, among overseas Chinese, the name Siyi (Cantonese: ) is still popular and frequently used as Heshan County was established much later than the other four. It is said that over 100 famous people come from the Siyi or Wuyi region of Guangdong Province, making the region famous for producing more entertainment stars than any other region in mainland China. As a result, the local government in Jiangmen which administers the Siyi or Wuyi cities of Taishan, Kaiping, Enping, Xinhui and Heshan, decided to build a Stars Park called Jiangmen Star Park.

Dialects

The area gave rise to the

Siyi dialects Siyi (Seiyap or Sze Yup in Cantonese; meaning "Four Hamlets") is a coastal branch of Yue Chinese spoken mainly in Guangdong province, but is also used in overseas Chinese communities. Within the province, it is mainly spoken in the prefecture-l ...

, the most prominent of which is

Taishanese Taishanese (), alternatively romanized in Cantonese as Toishanese or Toisanese, in local dialect as Hoisanese or Hoisan-wa, is a dialect of Yue Chinese native to Taishan, Guangdong. Although it is related to Cantonese, Taishanese has littl ...

(Toisanese/Hoisanese). Although Siyi and

both belong to the Yue branch of Chinese, Cantonese speakers cannot easily understand Siyi dialect.

Emigration

In the late 19th century and early 20th century, many people from the Siyi (or Sze Yup as it was then known) emigrated to

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland ...

Australasia Australasia is a region that comprises Australia, New Zealand and some neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically, physiogeographically, philologically, and ecologic ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sou ...

. Of the

Chinese American Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from ...

population from that time until the 1950s, Sze Yup accounted for the vast majority, about 80%, along with people from Sanyi (Sam Yup) and Zhongshan (Chung Shan). In America, people from Sze Yup generally worked as laborers; Sam Yup people worked as entrepreneurs; and Chung Shan people specialized in agriculture. The Punti-Hakka Clan Wars also erupted in the Sze Yup counties just prior to this time period of emigration. In 1851, two ''Wui Gun'' (''huiguan''; ) (native place associations) were established in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

: the ''Sze Yup Wui Gun'' and the ''

Sam Yup Sanyi () or Nanpanshun (), also known by Cantonese romanizations such as Sam Yup and Nam Pun Shun, refers to the three districts (former counties) of Nanhai, Panyu and Shunde surrounding Guangzhou and Foshan in Guangdong, China. Geography Th ...

Wui Gun''. Endowed with only limited arable lands, with much of the terrain either rocky or swampy, Sze Yup was the "pre-eminent sending area" of overseas Chinese. In addition to being a region of major emigration abroad, Sze Yup is a melting pot of ideas and trends brought back by overseas Chinese. For example, many tong lau in Chekham and diaolou in Hoiping and Toishan built in the early 20th century incorporate architectural features from both China and the West. Notable people: * Chen Xian Zhang (): scholar of Ming dynasty * Liang, Qi Zhao (): scholar of early modern China * Wu, Xiang Shi (吳尚時) (1904-1947): geographer * Gary Faye Locke (): Chinese American, a politician, his ancestral hometown is Taishan City * Joey Yung (容祖兒): female singer of Hong Kong * Andy Lau (劉德華): male singer and actor of Hong Kong

Popular Culture

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has pr ...

references the See Yup Company, and the Ning Yeong Company, in ''

Roughing It ''Roughing It'' is a book of semi-autobiographical travel literature by Mark Twain. It was written in 1870–71 and published in 1872, as a prequel to his first travel book ''The Innocents Abroad'' (1869). ''Roughing It'' is dedicated to Twai ...

''.

References

External links

See Yup Society temple
in

South Melbourne, Victoria South Melbourne is an inner suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3 km south of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Port Phillip local government area. South Melbourne recorded a population of 11,548 at ...