Tanka (ethnic Group)
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The Boat Dwellers, also known as Shuishangren (; "people living on the water") or Boat People, or the derogatory Tankas, are a sinicised ethnic group in
Southern China Northern China () and Southern China () are two approximate regions that display certain differences in terms of their geography, demographics, economy, and culture. Extent The Qinling–Daba Mountains serve as the transition zone between ...
who traditionally lived on junks in coastal parts of
Guangdong ) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty ...
,
Guangxi Guangxi,; officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam (Hà Giang Province, Hà Giang, Cao Bằn ...
,
Fujian Fujian is a provinces of China, province in East China, southeastern China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capital is Fuzhou and its largest prefe ...
,
Hainan Hainan is an island provinces of China, province and the southernmost province of China. It consists of the eponymous Hainan Island and various smaller islands in the South China Sea under the province's administration. The name literally mean ...
,
Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...
,
Zhejiang ) , translit_lang1_type2 = , translit_lang1_info2 = ( Hangzhounese) ( Ningbonese) (Wenzhounese) , image_skyline = 玉甑峰全貌 - panoramio.jpg , image_caption = View of the Yandang Mountains , image_map = Zhejiang i ...
and along the
Yangtze river The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...
, as well as
Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...
, and
Macau Macau or Macao is a special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most List of countries and dependencies by p ...
. The Boat Dwellers are referred to with other 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. The origins of the Boat Dwellers can be traced back to the native ethnic minorities of southern China known historically as the
Baiyue The Baiyue, Hundred Yue, or simply Yue, were various ethnic groups who inhabited the regions of southern China and northern Vietnam during the 1st millennium BC and 1st millennium AD. They were known for their short hair, body tattoos, fine swo ...
, who may have taken refuge on the sea and gradually assimilated into Han Chinese culture. However, they have preserved many of their native traditions not found in Han culture. A small number of Boat Dwellers also live in parts of
Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...
. There they are called Dan () and are classified as a subgroup of the Ngái ethnicity. Historically, the Boat Dwellers were considered outcasts. Since they lived by or on the sea, they were sometimes referred to as "sea
gypsies {{Infobox ethnic group , group = Romani people , image = , image_caption = , flag = Roma flag.svg , flag_caption = Romani flag created in 1933 and accepted at the 1971 World Romani Congress , ...
" by both Chinese and British.


Etymology and terminology

According to official Liu Zongyuan (773–819) of the
Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...
, there were Boat Dweller people settled in the boats of today's Guangdong Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The term "Tanka" (蜑家) may originate from ''tan'' (Cantonese: "egg") and ''ka'' (Cantonese: "family" or "people"), although another possible etymology is ''tank'' (" junk" or "large boat") rather than ''tan''. "Tanka" is now considered derogatory and no longer in common usage.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) lso 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 ..." The Boat Dwellers are now referred to in China as "people on/above water" (), or "people of the southern sea" (). 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. "Boat Dwellers" was proposed by Dr. Lee Ho Yin of
The University of Hong Kong The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is a public university, public research university in Pokfulam, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese by the London Missionary Society and formally established as t ...
in 1999, and it has been adopted by the Hong Kong Museum of History for its exhibition.Architectural Conservation Office, HKSAR Government. (2008). "Heritage Impact Assessment Report of the Yau Ma Tei Theatre & Red Brick Building", p.5
. (PDF). Retrieved on 2 March 2012.
Both the Boat Dwellers and the Cantonese speak
Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...
. However, Boat Dwellers living in Fujian speak
Min Chinese Min ( zh, t=, s=闽语, p=Mǐnyǔ, poj=Bân-gú / Bân-gír / Bân-gí; Bàng-uâ-cê, BUC: ''Mìng-ngṳ̄'') is a broad group of Sinitic languages with about 75 million native speakers. These languages are spoken in Fujian province and Chaoshan ...
. The Boat Dwellers of the
Yangtze The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...
region were called the Nine surnames fishermen households, while Boat Dweller families living on land were called the Mean households. There were two distinct categories of people based on their way of life: the
Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka-speaking Chinese, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas, are a southern Han Chinese subgroup whose principal settlements and ancestral homes are dispersed widely across the provinces of southern China ...
and Cantonese lived on land, while the Boat Dwellers and the Hoklo lived on boats and were classified as boat people. Though, like the Boat Dwellers, Cantonese and Hakka sometimes fished for a living, the land fishermen did not mix with the Boat Dweller fishermen. Boat Dweller people were barred from Cantonese and Hakka celebrations. British reports on Hong Kong described the Boat Dwellers, including Hoklo-speaking Boat Dwellers, living in Hong Kong "since time unknown." The
Encyclopedia Americana ''Encyclopedia Americana'' is a general encyclopedia written in American English. It was the first general encyclopedia of any magnitude to be published in North America. With '' Collier's Encyclopedia'' and ''Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclo ...
asserted that Boat Dweller people lived on boats in and around Hong Kong "since prehistoric times."


Geographic distribution

Boat Dweller people are found throughout the coasts and rivers of the following regions: *Zhejiang:
Zhoushan Archipelago Zhoushan is an urbanized archipelago with the administrative status of a prefecture-level city in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang. It consists of an archipelago of islands at the southern mouth of Hangzhou Bay off the mainland c ...
, Taizhou Bay, Wenzhou Bay, Sanmen Bay, Hangzhou Bay, Xin'an River, Fuchun River, Lanjiang River * Fujian: Min River Mouth, Fuqing Bay, Xinghua Bay, Quanzhou Bay, Amoy Bay, Zhangzhou Water Front * Guangdong: Jieshi Bay, Honghai Bay, Daya Bay, Dapeng Bay, Zhujiang River Mouth, Leizhou Bay, Lingding Sea, Zhanjiang, Wanshan Archipelago * Guangxi: You River * Anhui: Xin'an River * Jiangxi: Gan River * Hainan:
Qiongzhou Strait The Qiongzhou Strait, also called the is the Chinese strait that separates Guangdong's Leizhou Peninsula from the island province of Hainan. It connects the Gulf of Tonkin on its west to the South China Sea on its east. The strait is on averag ...
, Sanya Bay * Beijing, Jiangsu, Henan, Hubei, Hunan: Grand Canal * Shanghai: city river * Hong Kong:
Kowloon Kowloon () is one of the areas of Hong Kong, three areas of Hong Kong, along with Hong Kong Island and the New Territories. It is an urban area comprising the Kowloon Peninsula and New Kowloon. It has a population of 2,019,533 and a populat ...
,
Hong Kong Island Hong Kong Island () is an island in the southern part of Hong Kong. The island, known originally and on road signs simply as "Hong Kong", had a population of 1,289,500 and a population density of , . It is the second largest island in Hong Kon ...
* Macau: Macau Bay


Origin


Mythical origins

Some Chinese myths claim that animals were the ancestors of the Barbarians, including the Boat Dweller people. Some ancient Chinese sources claimed that water snakes were the ancestors of the Boat Dwellers, saying that they could last for three days in the water, without breathing air.


Baiyue connection and origins in Southern China

The Boat Dwellers are considered by some scholars to be related to other minority peoples of southern China, such as the Yao and
Li people The Hlai, also known as Li or Lizu, are a Kra–Dai-speaking ethnic group, one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. The vast majority live off the southern coast of China on Hainan Island, where th ...
(Miao). The Amoy University anthropologist Ling Hui-hsiang wrote his theory of the Fujian Boat Dwellers as descendants of the Baiyue. He claimed that Guangdong and Fujian Boat Dwellers are definitely descended from the old Baiyue peoples, and that they may have been ancestors of the
Malay race The concept of a Malay race was originally proposed by the German physician Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840), and classified as a brown race. ''Malay'' is a loose term used in the late 19th century and early 20th century to describe ...
. The Tanka inherited their lifestyle and culture from the original Yue peoples who inhabited Hong Kong during the Neolithic era. 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. One theory proposes that the ancient Yue inhabitants of southern China are the ancestors of the modern Boat Dwellers. 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.) The
Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...
states that the ancestors of the Boat Dwellers were native people. The ancestors of the Boat Dwellers were pushed to the southern coast by Chinese peasants who took over their land. During the British colonial era in Hong Kong, the Tanka were considered a separate ethnic group from the
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. In Hong Kong, ''Punti'' designates Weitou dialect-speaking locals in contrast to non-Weitou speaker ...
("locals"),
Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka-speaking Chinese, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas, are a southern Han Chinese subgroup whose principal settlements and ancestral homes are dispersed widely across the provinces of southern China ...
, and Hoklo. The Boat Dwellers have been compared to the
She people The She people (; She Chinese: ; Cantonese: , Fuzhou: ) are an ethnic group in China. They form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. According to th2021 China Statistical Yearbook the total popul ...
by some historians, as both are ethnic minorities descended from natives of Southern China who now practice Han Chinese culture.


Yao connections

Chinese scholars and gazettes described the Boat Dwellers 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 The Song dynasty ( ) was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Fiv ...
(Sung dynasty; 960–1276/1279) government. The county gazetteer of Sun On in 1729 described the Boat Dwellers as "Yao barbarians." In modern times, the Boat Dwellers claim to be ordinary Chinese who happen to fish for a living, and speak the local dialect.


Historiography

Some southern Chinese historic views of the Boat Dwellers were that they were a separate aboriginal ethnic group, rather than a Han Chinese subgroup. Chinese Imperial records also claim that the Boat Dwellers were descendants of aboriginals. Tanka were also called "sea gypsies" (). The Boat Dwellers 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. 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 Boat Dwellers, since the aboriginals of Southern China were the ancestors of the Boat Dwellers. The Cantonese Punti had displaced the indigenous Boat Dwellers after they began conquering southern China. The
Nankai University Nankai University is a public university in Tianjin, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Construction. Nankai University was establ ...
of
Tianjin Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...
published the Nankai social and economic quarterly, Volume 9 in 1936, and it referred to the Boat Dwellers as aboriginal descendants before Chinese assimilation. The scholar Jacques Gernet also wrote that the Boat Dwellers were aboriginals known as pirates (''haidao''), which hindered
Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...
attempts to assert control in Guangdong.


Scholarly opinions on Baiyue connection

The most widely held theory is that the Boat Dwellers are the descendants of the native Yue inhabitants of Guangdong before the Han Cantonese moved in. 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 Boat Dwellers, according to this theory, are descended from an outcast Yue tribe who preserved their separate culture. Regarding the Fujian Minyue Boat Dwellers it is suggested that in the southeast coastal regions of China, there were many sea nomads during the
Neolithic era The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...
and they may have spoken ancestral
Austronesian languages The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken ...
, and were skilled seafarers. In fact, there is evidence that an Austronesian language was still spoken in Fujian as late as 620 AD. Some therefore believe that the Boat Dwellers were Austronesians who could be more closely related to other Austronesian groups such as Filipinos, Javanese, or Balinese. Eugene Newton Anderson in 1970 claimed that there was no evidence for any of the conjectures put forward by scholars on the Boat Dwellers' origins, citing Chen, who stated that "to what tribe or race they once belonged or were once akin to is still unknown". Some researchers say the origin of the Boat Dwellers is multifaceted, with some of them having native Yueh ancestors and others having ancestors from other places. A minority of scholars claim that the Boat Dwellers and the Han Cantonese are both descended from people indigenous to the region.


Genetics

Fujian Boat Dwellers have customs similar to Daic and Austronesian peoples. 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 The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka-speaking Chinese, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas, are a southern Han Chinese subgroup whose principal settlements and ancestral homes are dispersed widely across the provinces of southern China ...
and Teochew) in maternal lineages. It is hypothesized that the Fujian Boat Dwellers mainly originate from the ancient indigenous Daic people and have only limited gene flows from Han Chinese populations. Another study on the Boat Dwellers concluded that the Tanka people not only had a close genetic relationship with both northern Han and ancient
Yellow River The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of and a Drainage basin, watershed of . Beginning in the Bayan H ...
basin millet farmers but also possessed more southern East Asian ancestry related to Austronesian, Kra-Dai and Hmong-Mien people compared to southern Han. Boat Dweller people had their own unique genetic structure, but kept a close relationship with geographically close southern Han Chinese populations. The results supported the claim that the Boat Dweller people arose from the admixture between southward migration Han Chinese and southern indigenous people.


History


Sinicisation

The
Song dynasty The Song dynasty ( ) was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Fiv ...
engaged in extensive sinicisation of the region with Han people. 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. The Cantonese would often buy fish from the Tanka. In some inland regions, the Tanka accounted for half of the total population. The Tanka of
Quanzhou Quanzhou is a prefecture-level city, prefecture-level port city on the north bank of the Jin River, beside the Taiwan Strait in southern Fujian, China, People's Republic of China. It is Fujian's largest most populous metropolitan region, wi ...
were registered as barbarian households.


Ming dynasty

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.


Macau and Portuguese rule

When the Portuguese arrived at
Macau Macau or Macao is a special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most List of countries and dependencies by p ...
, enslaved women from
Goa Goa (; ; ) is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is bound by the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north, and Karnataka to the ...
(part of
Portuguese India The State of India, also known as the Portuguese State of India or Portuguese India, was a state of the Portuguese Empire founded seven years after the discovery of the sea route to the Indian subcontinent by Vasco da Gama, a subject of the ...
),
Siam Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...
,
Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia (historically known as Indochina and the Indochinese Peninsula) is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to th ...
, and Malaya became their wives. However, Tanka people also mixed and married with the Portuguese, though many other Chinese women did not. This is likely because the lower-class Tanka people were less tightly bound by expectations prohibiting
exogamy Exogamy is the social norm of mating or marrying outside one's social group. The group defines the scope and extent of exogamy, and the rules and enforcement mechanisms that ensure its continuity. One form of exogamy is dual exogamy, in which tw ...
than higher-class people were. Some of the Tankas' descendants became
Macanese people The Macanese people (, ) are a multiracial East Asian ethnic group that originated in Macau in the 16th century, consisting of people of predominantly mixed Cantonese and Portuguese as well as Malay, Japanese, Sinhalese, and Indian anc ...
. Tanka people would also supply fish for the Portuguese, as they did for the Cantonese, an activity which is mentioned in a poem by Chinese poet Wu Li. Some Tanka children were kidnapped and enslaved by Portuguese raiders. 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.


Qing dynasty

Tanka people mostly worked as
fishermen A fisherman or fisher is someone who captures fish and other animals from a body of water, or gathers shellfish. Worldwide, there are about 38 million commercial and subsistence fishers and fish farmers. Fishermen may be professional or recr ...
and tended to gather at some
bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...
s. Some built markets or villages on the shore, while others continued to live on their junks or boats. They claimed to be
Han Chinese The Han Chinese, alternatively the Han people, are an East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Greater China. With a global population of over 1.4 billion, the Han Chinese are the list of contemporary ethnic groups, world's la ...
. 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. 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.


Canton (Guangzhou)

The ancestors of the Tanka were the natives of Southern China before the Cantonese expelled them to the water, forbidding the Tanka to marry land-dwelling Chinese or live on land. They did not practice
foot binding Foot binding (), or footbinding, was the Chinese custom of breaking and tightly binding the feet of young girls to change their shape and size. Feet altered by foot binding were known as lotus feet and the shoes made for them were known as lotus ...
, and their dialect was unique. They also formed a class of prostitutes in Canton, operating the boats in Canton's Pearl River which functioned as brothels.


Modern China

Tanka were among the many people that remained in Nanjing in December 1939 before the Japanese massacred the population. During the intensive
land reclamation Land reclamation, often known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a waste landfill), is the process of creating new Terrestrial ecoregion, land from oceans, list of seas, seas, Stream bed, riverbeds or lake ...
efforts around the
islands of Shanghai The islands of Shanghai are those under the jurisdiction of the Shanghai municipal government. They comprise three large inhabited islands and a shifting number of smaller, uninhabited ones. Most are alluvial islands in the Yangtze River Delta ...
in the late 1960s, many Tanka were settled on Hengsha Island and organised as fishing brigades.


British Hong Kong

In 1937, Walter Schofield, then a Cadet Officer in the Hong Kong Civil Service, wrote that at that time the Tankas were "boat-people ho sometimes livedin boats hauled ashore, or in more or less boat-shaped huts, as at
Shau Kei Wan Shau Kei Wan or Shaukiwan is a neighborhood in the Eastern District, Hong Kong, Eastern District of Hong Kong Island. The area is bordered by Chai Wan to the east, Mount Parker (Hong Kong), Mount Parker to the south, Sai Wan Ho to the west, and ...
and
Tai O Tai O () is a fishing town, partly located on an island of the same name, on the western side of Lantau Island in Hong Kong. The village name means ''large inlet'', referring to wiktionary:outlet, outlet for the waterways (Tai O Creek and Tai ...
". They mainly lived at the harbours at
Cheung Chau Cheung Chau (; ) is an outlying island of Hong Kong, located southwest of Hong Kong Island. It is also called Dumbbell Island () due to its dumbbell-like shape. It has been inhabited for longer than most other places in Hong Kong, and had ...
,
Aberdeen Aberdeen ( ; ; ) is a port city in North East Scotland, and is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, third most populous Cities of Scotland, Scottish city. Historically, Aberdeen was within the historic county of Aberdeensh ...
, Tai O,
Po Toi Po Toi (commonly , originally ) is the main island of the Po Toi Islands and the southernmost island of Hong Kong, with an area of 3.69 km2. Name It is said that the island used to produce dried seaweeds (), which were shaped like the ...
,
Kau Sai Chau Kau Sai Chau is an island located off the coast of Sai Kung Peninsula, Hong Kong, with an area of 6.70 km2, making it the 6th largest island of Hong Kong. It is under the administration of Sai Kung District. The island was formerl ...
and
Yau Ma Tei Yau Ma Tei is an area in the Yau Tsim Mong District in the south of the Kowloon Peninsula in Hong Kong. Name ''Yau Ma Tei'' is a phonetic transliteration of the name (originally written as ) in Cantonese. It can also be spelt as Yaumatei, Y ...
. Many Tanka women worked as prostitutes to British sailors, and Tankas assisted the British in their military actions around Hong Kong. The Tanka also assisted the Europeans with supplies. Due to their marginal position in Chinese society, and the fact that they lacked access to many of the privileges that societal integration could afford them, Tanka people were not as tightly bound by social pressure and Confucian ethics as other ethnic groups when interacting with foreigners. In many cases, closeness with foreigners could serve as a "ladder to financial security, if not respectability," especially for women, many of whom became sex workers. Other Chinese prostitutes were afraid of serving Westerners since they looked strange to them, but the Tanka prostitutes freely mingled with Western men. Tanka people were already ostracized from the Cantonese community, and the perception of women as prostitutes compounded this. Tanka women were criticized as "low-class" and rude, and were nicknamed "saltwater girls" (''ham sui mui'' in Cantonese). Stereotypes about Tanka women were so common among Chinese people in Canton that, during the Republican era, the Chinese government inflated their count of prostitutes by assuming large numbers of Tanka women were prostitutes without evidence. Despite the negative perspective of them, the brothels run by Tanka prostitutes were reportedly very well kept and tidy. Some Tanka women who worked as prostitutes for foreigners also kept a "nursery" of Tanka girls in order to export them for prostitution work in overseas Chinese communities, such as in Australia or America, or to serve as concubines. In 1882, a report ("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 concerning the existence of slavery in Hong Kong, of which many were Tanka girls serving as prostitutes or mistresses to Westerners.
Ernest John Eitel Ernst Johann Eitel or alternatively Ernest John Eitel (13 February 1838 – 10 November 1908) was a German-born Protestant who became a notable missionary in China and civil servant in British Hong Kong, where he served as Secretary for Education ( ...
claimed in 1895 that all "half-caste" people in Hong Kong were descended exclusively from Europeans' relationships with Tanka women, rather than Chinese women. Though this claim is somewhat historically supported, it has also been criticized as a "myth" spread by other Chinese peoples to express xenophobia towards Hong Kong's Eurasian community. During British rule some special schools were created for the Tanka. In 1962 a typhoon struck boats belonging to the Tanka, likely including Hoklo-speaking Tanka mistaken for being Hoklo, destroying hundreds. During the 1970s the number of Tanka living on boats was reported to be shrinking.


Shanghai

Tanka women also worked as prostitutes in Shanghai, where they were grouped separately from the Cantonese prostitutes. They continued to live on boats.


Surnames

The Fuzhou Tanka have different surnames than the Tanka of Guangdong. Qing records indicate that "Weng, Ou, Chi, Pu, Jiang, and Hai" (翁, 歐, 池, 浦, 江, 海) were surnames of the Fuzhou Tanka. 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.


Dialect

The Tanka dialect is a variety of Yue Chinese. 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


DNA tests and disease

Tests on the DNA of the Tanka people found that the disease
Thalassemia Thalassemias are a group of Genetic disorder, inherited blood disorders that manifest as the production of reduced hemoglobin. Symptoms depend on the type of thalassemia and can vary from none to severe, including death. Often there is mild to ...
was common among the Tanka. Tests also stated that the ancestors of the Tanka were not Han Chinese, but were another Chinese ethnicity. The Tanka suffer from
lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma, is a malignant tumor that begins in the lung. Lung cancer is caused by genetic damage to the DNA of cells in the airways, often caused by cigarette smoking or inhaling damaging chemicals. Damaged ...
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.


Famous Tankas

* Sinn Sing Hoi * Henry Fok, Hong Kong billionaire businessman and politician * Timothy Fok


See also

*
Pang uk ''Pang uk'' () is a kind of stilt house found in Tai O, Lantau Island, Hong Kong. ''Pang uk'' are built on water or on small beaches. A fire broke out in 2000 destroying some of the houses in Tai O, and some were later rebuilt. They were onc ...
* Fuzhou Tanka *
Aberdeen floating village The Aberdeen Floating Village is a Port, fishing port located in the Aberdeen, Hong Kong, Aberdeen area of the Southern District, Hong Kong, Southern District of Hong Kong. The port contains approximately 600 Junk (ship), junk boats used for ...
in Hong Kong * Yau Ma Tei Boat People in Hong Kong


References


Bibliography

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tanka People Fujian Guangdong Guangxi Hainan Society of Hong Kong Society of Macau Ethnic groups in Macau Ethnic groups in Vietnam Ethnic groups in China Asian diaspora in Hong Kong Subgroups of the Han Chinese