Sze Yap Cantonese represents the second largest Han group in Hong Kong after the group of people (

Punti ''Punti'' ( zh, t=本地, j=bun2 dei6, l=locals) is a Cantonese endonym referring to the native Cantonese people of Guangdong and Guangxi. ''Punti'' designates Weitou dialect-speaking locals in contrast to other Yue Chinese speakers and othe ...

) originating from the Guangzhou- Sam Yap region. The Sze Yap Cantonese comes from a region in

Guangdong 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 ...

in China called

Sze Yap The Siyi (Seiyap or Sze Yup in Cantonese; ) refers to the four former counties of Xinhui (Sunwui), Taishan, Guangdong, Taishan (Toisan), Kaiping (Hoiping) and Enping (Yanping) on the west side of the Pearl River Delta in Southern Guangdong, Guan ...

( 四邑), now called Ng Yap, which consists of the counties of

Taishan __NOTOC__ Taishan may refer to: *Mount Tai or Taishan (), Shandong, China * Taishan District, Tai'an (), named after the Mount Tai, a district in Tai'an, Shandong, China *Taishan, Guangdong (), a county-level city of Jiangmen, Guangdong, China ** G ...

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. ...

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 735,500 ...

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 200 ...

, Heshan and

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 inhabitants ar ...

. The Sze Yap Cantonese group have contributed much to what makes Hong Kong a success. Hong Kong people of Sze Yap origin represented about 18.3% of Hong Kong's total population in 1961, and 17.4% in 1971; today this population still increases as more immigrants from the

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 little ...

-speaking areas of Guangdong in mainland China continue to immigrate to Hong Kong. The Hong Kong census first began counting Sze Yap as an ancestral origin in 1961, and found that it was around 18.34% of the population, compared to 48.62% for the Guangzhou and Macau region. This census found that the district with the highest concentration of Sze Yap people was

Sham Shui Po Sham Shui Po is an area of Kowloon, Hong Kong, situated in the northwestern part of the Kowloon Peninsula, north of Tai Kok Tsui, east of Cheung Sha Wan and south of Shek Kip Mei (). It is located in and is the namesake of the Sham Shui ...

Language

(Chinese: 台

山 Radical 46 or radical mountain () meaning "mountain" is one of the 31 Kangxi radicals (214 radicals total) composed of three strokes. It is found in the names of mountains generally in east Asia. In the ''Kangxi Dictionary'', there are 636 charac ...

話,

: Hoi San Wah,

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 ar ...

: Toi San Wah,

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

: Taishan Hua) is the term used by many Sze Yap people in Hong Kong to refer their Sze Yap dialect to outsiders, even though each county has a distinct accent. For example, Kaiping people would refer themselves to non-Sze Yap

Han Chinese The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive v ...

people () and their dialect Taishanese. According to the 2011 Census and analysis done in the ''Routledge Handbook for Global Spanish'', the constituency with the highest concentration of Sze Yap speakers was Nam Cheong Central in

Culture

Today many Hong Kong people of Sze Yap origin have become successful in areas such as the entertainment industry, business and politics. Hong Kongers of Sze Yap origin include

Andy Lau Andy Lau Tak-wah (; born 27 September 1961) is a Hong Kong actor, singer-songwriter and film producer. He has been one of Hong Kong's most commercially successful film actors since the mid-1980s, performing in more than 160 films while maint ...

Beyond Beyond may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Beyond'' (1921 film), an American silent film * ''Beyond'' (2000 film), a Danish film directed by Åke Sandgren, OT: ''Dykkerne'' * ''Beyond'' (2010 film), a Swedish film directed ...

Danny Chan Danny Chan Pak-Keung (; 7 September 1958 – 25 October 1993) was a Hong Kong singer, songwriter, records producer and actor. He is widely recognised as the first modern day pop idol in Hong Kong, gaining fame alongside performers Alan Tam, ...

Kenny Kwan Kenny Kwan Chi-Bun (born December 30, 1980) is a Philippine-born Hong Kong singer-songwriter and actor, under the music label Emperor Entertainment Group. He was born in the Philippines but grew up in Hong Kong. At age 20, he and his friend, S ...

Joey Yung Joey Yung (, ; born 16 June 1980) is a Hong Kong singer and Cantopop diva signed to Emperor Entertainment Group. Since her debut in 1996, Yung has won numerous awards, including the JSG Most Popular Female Singer and Ultimate Best Female Si ...

Ronnie Chan Ronnie Chan Chi-chung (; born 1949) is a Hong Kong businessman. Education Chan earned bachelor's and master's degrees in biology from a California State University. He received an MBA from the University of Southern California in 1976. Chan ...

John Tsang John Tsang Chun-wah, GBM, JP (; born Mui; born 21 April 1951) is a Hong Kong former senior civil servant and government official who was the longest-serving Financial Secretary in the Special Administrative Region period to date. Born in ...

and

Andrew Li Andrew Li Kwok-nang (; born December 1948) is a retired Hong Kong judge, and a former Chief Justice of Hong Kong, who was the first to preside over the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal, established on 1 July 1997. Li was succeeded by Geoffre ...

. The "father of Hong Kong cinema",

Lai Man-Wai Lai Man-wai (; September 25, 1893 – October 26, 1953), also romanised as Lay Min-wei or M.W. Ray, considered the "Father of Hong Kong Cinema", was the director of the first Hong Kong film ''Zhuangzi Tests His Wife'' in 1913. In the film, Lai p ...

, has ancestry from the Sze Yap region of Guangdong province. As a result, Sze Yap people have dominated in the Hong Kong

entertainment industry Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and Interest (emotion), interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have dev ...

and play most major roles in the music and movie sectors. In many Hong Kong films,

can be heard, especially in many of

Karl Maka Karl Maka (born 29 February 1944) is a 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 city and special administrative ...

's films, such as ''Merry Christmas'' and ''

Aces Go Places ''Aces Go Places'', (), also known in the United States as ''Diamondfinger'' or ''Mad Mission'', is a 1982 Hong Kong action comedy film directed by Eric Tsang, and starring Samuel Hui and Karl Maka. It is the first installment in the ''Aces ...

''. It is said that over 100 famous people come from the Sze Yap region of Guangdong, making the region famous for producing more stars than any other city/region in mainland China. As a result, the local government in

which administers the Sze Yap or Ng Yap cities of

, Kaiping, Enping,

, and Heshan, decided to build a Stars Park called Jiangmen star park (). The Cangdong Dialou village has been the setting of several films. Part of the film ''

Let the Bullets Fly ''Let the Bullets Fly'' is a 2010 Chinese action comedy film written and directed by Jiang Wen, based on a story by Ma Shitu. The film is set in Sichuan during the 1920s when the bandit Zhang (Jiang Wen) descends upon a town posing as its new gove ...

'' was shot in

, and the movie stars Chow Yun-fat, who is of Sze Yap ancestry. It's also the filming location of ''The Grandmaster'', an Yip Man film starring Sze Yap descendant Tony Leung. People from Kaiping (Hoi Ping) established the

Hoi Ping Chamber of Commerce Secondary School Hoi Ping Chamber of Commerce Secondary School ( Chinese: 旅港開平商會中學, abbr. HPCCSS) is a Band 1 EMI secondary school located in Ho Man Tin, Kowloon Hong Kong. Hoi Ping is also well known for its school athletic team which ranked th ...

Homantin Ho Man Tin is a mostly residential area in Kowloon, Hong Kong, part of the Kowloon City District. History Section of lists of villages in the book ' (literally ''The History of Xin'an County'') published in twenty fourth year of Jiaqing er ...

, Kowloon.

Business

Besides dominating the entertainment industry, Sze Yap people are quite dominant and influential in Hong Kong's Business Industry, such as the

Bank of East Asia The Bank of East Asia Limited, often abbreviated to BEA, is a Hong Kong banking and financial services company, headquartered in Central, Hong Kong. It is currently the largest independent local Hong Kong bank, and one of two remaining famil ...

() (the Li family’s ancestry is in Heshan),

Lee Kum Kee Lee Kum Kee Company Limited () is a Hong Kong-based food company which specializes in manufacturing a wide range of Chinese and Asian sauces. Founded by Lee Kum Sheung in 1888 in Nanshui, Guangdong. Lee Kum Kee produces over 200 Chinese-style sau ...

(),

Hang Lung Properties Hang Lung Properties, formerly Amoy Properties and currently subsidiary of Hang Lung Group, is a property developer in Hong Kong. It is a member of Hang Seng Index Constituent Stocks ( blue chip) and is headquartered in the Standard Chartere ...

Maxim's Catering Maxim's Caterers Limited () is a Hong Kong based food, beverage and restaurant chain. It is jointly owned by Dairy Farm International Holdings Limited and Hong Kong Caterers Ltd. Founded in 1956, the company operates over 1,000 outlets in Hon ...

(),

Hysan Development Hysan Development Company Limited is a Hong Kong property investment, management and development company that is listed on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong. The company was formed in Hong Kong in 1923, when businessman Lee Hysan acquired plots of ...

Li & Fung Li & Fung Limited is a Bermuda-incorporated, Hong Kong-based supply chain manager. In 2020, it was reportedly struggling to turn its century-old business around for years. On 13 February 2017, it was removed from the blue chip index: Hang Seng ...

(),

Lui Che-woo Lui Che Woo, GBM, MBE, JP () (born 9 August 1929, Jiangmen, China) is a Hong Kong business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is a member of the standing committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Jiangmen, P ...

Galaxy Entertainment Group Galaxy Entertainment Group ("GEG") ( is a company that owns and operates hotels and casinos in Macau through its subsidiary, Galaxy Casino S.A. History The company, known formerly as K. Wah Construction Materials, disposed of its construction ma ...

and K. Wah International Holdings Ltd and many others.

Lee Hysan Lee Hysan or Lee Hy-san (1879 – 30 April 1928) was a Hong Kong businessman who was involved in the opium trade and refinery, as well as land development in British Hong Kong during the early 1900s. He was nicknamed the ''Opium King'' in Hong ...

, who was born in the Kingdom of Hawaii, had ancestry in

. His company Dysan Development is now the largest commercial property landlord in the

Causeway Bay Causeway Bay is an area and a bay on Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong, straddling the border of the Eastern and the Wan Chai districts. It is a major shopping, leisure and cultural centre in Hong Kong, with a number of major shopping centres. ...

area.

Hong Kong immigration

As many Sze Yap in Hong Kong who are either second, third or fourth generation Hong Kongers, Taishanese people speak Cantonese as their usual language and some may not know their ancestral origin. Therefore, that makes it hard to know the exact population, but based on the 1960s Hong Kong Census, it is probably right now about over 30% – 40%.

Statistics

1961 Census data of Sze Yap speakers by district

Average: 4.35 Standard Deviation: 2.29 Coefficient of Variation: 0.78

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Taishanese People In Hong Kong Chinese culture in Hong Kong Siyi People in Hong Kong Hong Kong society