Hakka Chinese
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Hakka villagers welcome spring with 'down-to-earth' ritual
Centuries-old religious festivals usually do not involve mud-wrestling, flying clods of earth or water fights. But villagers from Ninghua county of Sanming city in Southeast China's Fujian province took part in all three with gusto on Feb 22, as they greeted the arrival of spring by throwing themselves into one of China's most unique cultural rituals. People from Ninghua observe this religious ceremony-cum-carnival on the seventh day of the first month of the Lunar New Year each year. The riotous occasion is designed to awaken the sleeping earth and welcome the spring before local farmers begin plowing the fields. Naochuntian, which literally translates as "Frolic in Spring Fields", is said to date back centuries and is an important part of the culture of the Hakka, a sub-group of China’s majority Han ethnic group with its own distinct culture. Fujian is a crucible of this essentially diasporic community, formed from waves of migrants from North China who fled south to escape war and social upheaval from the Qin Dynasty (BC 221 - 207) onwards. Fireworks, firecrackers and drumbeats broke the stillness of morning to announce the start of the festival as a parade of young men carrying a bright red sedan chair, on which rested a statue of the god of five cereals, made their way through the village. But as the young men reached a muddy field, the stately procession suddenly turned wild as a crowd of villagers arrived to bombard the sedan chair bearers with mud balls. From there, the whole thing spins into everybody chasing, wrestling with each other, splashing muddy water and tossing mud balls. When the revelry calms down and everybody is thoroughly caked in mud, the participants wash themselves clean and carry the god of five cereals back to his temple. This process of gamboling and sweating to their hearts' content is designed to help the villagers form closer community bonds and to please the god of five cereals. The event is an important ritual for the Hakka, whose culture centers on farming and education with a strong emphasis on the cohesiveness of the family and the clan. The cultural tradition was formed over the years as part of the Hakka culture that is believed to go back to the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) or perhaps even earlier. Hakka culture has become increasingly prominent around the world in recent years, not only due to the success of overseas Hakka diasporas in Southeast Asia, Australia and many other regions, but also due to the rising interest in the group among Chinese researchers. Often presented as a living fossil of ancient Han culture, many researchers are dedicating themselves to studying Hakka culture as a window into China's ancient cultural heritage. Now, more and more aspects of Hakka culture are gaining worldwide recognition. The tulou, a traditional Hakka style of earthen building, was added to UNESCO's World Heritage list in 2008. These huge round or square structures were designed to house an entire clan and protect them from attack, a monument to the importance of the family in Hakka culture.
World Leaders in Singapore Sunday for Lee's Funeral
BANGKOK — Dozens of world leaders will be in Singapore on Sunday for the state funeral of the small country's first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew. Lee was greatly admired in the region where other leaders sought to emulate him and replicate his success. In Bangkok, Beijing, Jakarta and other Asian capitals, Lee Kuan Yew served as a role model for leaders hoping to reproduce the magic that took Singapore from a colonial backwater to one of the world's most prosperous and efficient nations. One of his many such admirers: former Thai prime minister Anand Panyarachun, who says as a Southeast Asian, he feels “a great sense of loss.” “His wisdom, his advice, his insight have always been sought by leaders of other nations,” he said. Autocrats envied the well-educated pragmatist's ability to maintain a one-party government in a nanny state that eschewed liberalism, except for economic policies. Curtis Chin, a former U.S. ambassador to the Asian Development Bank, says many of Mr. Lee's less successful fellow leaders in the region failed to absorb his most important lessons. “So when we think about what others can learn from Lee Kwan Yew they may be citing some things," he said. "But unfortunately too many leaders of Asia today have not learned about the rule of law, the good governance, the accountability, the battle against corruption that Lee Kwan Yew also was all about.” Lee rejected the notion of an “Asian model” for development but articulated Asian values which, in his eyes, made individual rights subservient to collective security and growth. Thus it is no surprise that over the decades many of China's leaders expressed admiration for the rapid transformation of Singapore under the leadership of Lee, an ethnic Hakka Chinese. Lee made “historical contributions to the bilateral relationship” between Beijing and Singapore, says China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei. “Mr. Lee Kuan Yew is a uniquely influential statesman in Asia. And he is also a strategist embodying oriental values and international vision,” said Hong Lei. The official delegation from the United States will be led by former president Bill Clinton and will include former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, a contemporary of Lee's, who said the Singaporean leader was a "close personal friend, a fact that I consider one of the great blessings of my life."
Funeral Sunday for Singaporean Leader Who Others Tried to Emulate
BANGKOK — Dozens of world leaders, including the prime ministers of Australia, India and Japan, the president of South Korea, and Chinese vice president Li Yuanchao, will be in Singapore on Sunday for the state funeral of the small country's first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew. Lee served as a role model for Asian politicians hoping to reproduce the magic that took Singapore from a colonial backwater to one of the world's most prosperous and efficient nations. Lee died Monday at the age of 91 following a long illness. His casket is lying in state at Singapore's Parliament House through Saturday to allow the public to pay its last respects. Thousands lined the streets Wednesday as the flag-draped casket was slowly towed for hours on a gun carriage from Istana (the official residence of the largely ceremonial president) to Parliament House, where mourners patiently waited in a queue stretching two kilometers. Lee served as prime minister from 1959, when Britain granted self rule, taking Singapore in and out of a troubled union with Malaysia before declaring independence in 1965. Lee stepped down in 1990 after becoming the longest-serving prime minister in the world. But he kept the leadership of his dominant People's Action Party until 1992 and in subsequent years remained Singapore's supreme figure as senior minister and then minister mentor. His son, Lee Hsien Loong, became prime minister in 2004 and is still in that post. One of the senior Lee's many admirers is former Thai prime minister Anand Panyarachun who said that as a Southeast Asian, he feels “a great sense of loss.” “His wisdom, his advice, his insight have always been sought by leaders of other nations,” said Anand, who served as Thailand's prime minister in the early 1990's. The current Thai prime minister, Prayuth Chan-ocha, who seized power in a coup last year, somewhat puzzlingly lamented Lee had worked too hard all his life and this is why the nonagenarian had died too young. The retired general is to attend Lee's funeral where he might run into the man whose influence he wants to permanently eradicate from Thai politics -- self-exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, ousted by the military in 2006 and a Lee protege, who sought to create a "Thailand Inc." in the image of his Asian mentor's "Singapore Inc." Others from Asia, so far, also confirming their attendance at Sunday's state funeral: the presidents of Indonesia and Myanmar and the prime minister of Cambodia. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, a former South Korean foreign minister, issued a statement saying he was deeply saddened by Lee's death, calling him “a legendary figure in Asia.” Autocrats in Asia envied Lee's ability to maintain a one-party government in a nanny state that eschewed liberalism, except for economic policies. Curtis Chin, a former U.S. Ambassador to the Asian Development Bank, said in a VOA interview in Bangkok many of the Singaporean's less successful fellow leaders in the region failed to absorb his most important lessons. “So when we think about what others can learn from Lee Kwan Yew they may be citing some things,” said Chin. “But unfortunately too many leaders of Asia today have not learned about the rule of law, the good governance, the accountability, the battle against corruption that Lee Kwan Yew also was all about.” Contrasting Lee with authoritarian-style leader Mathathir Mohamad, who led neighboring Malaysia as prime minister between 1981 and 2003, Robert D. Kaplan, in his 2014 book Asia's Cauldron, assessed the Singaporean as constituting a “more worthy model of leadership... without Mahathir's decidedly nasty prejudices and petty meanness while harboring a more acute strategic vision.” Lee, a well-educated pragmatist, rejected the notion of an “Asian model” for development but articulated Asian values that, in his eyes, made individual rights subservient to collective security and growth. Thus it is no surprise that over the decades many of China's leaders expressed admiration for the rapid transformation of Singapore under the leadership of Mr. Lee, an ethnic Hakka Chinese whose ancestral home is in Meizhou in southern China's Guangdong province. Lee made “historical contributions to the bilateral relationship” between Beijing and Singapore, said China's foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei. “Lee Kuan Yew is a uniquely influential statesman in Asia. And he is also a strategist embodying oriental values and international vision,” said Hong. The leader of Taiwan's ruling Kuomintang party, Eric Chu, noted Lee "offered Taiwan many of his ideas on city management." At home, Lee gave direction to ethnic Chinese, Malays and Indians who had been under British and then Japanese colonial rule on a crowded little island. “So when countries try to take some of the things that have been done, it hasn't worked and may not work in a country of much bigger size,” said Chin, now an Asia Fellow of the Milken Institute. Lee guided his small nation to independence at a turbulent time in the mid-1960's. Besides continuing animosity with Malaysia, the neighborhood faced ethnic, religious and territorial problems, not to mention the Vietnam War, when Singapore agreed in 1967 with Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand to form the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). "For Lee Kuan Yew to play that kind of role, and if you want to make economic progress, you have to make things stable politically" and he accomplished that amid great risk, recalled associate professor Li Kui-Wai of the economics and finance department at City University of Hong Kong. Speaking before parliament Tuesday, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who is also to attend Lee's funeral, noted the Singaporean "spurred this country at a critical time in our history," a reference to Lee's 1980 comment that Australia was in danger of becoming the "poor white trash" of Asia. Not all of the assessments of Lee's legacy this week have been laudatory. There is a “dark side to what he leaves behind - too often, basic freedoms and human rights were sacrificed to ensure economic growth,” commented Rupert Abbott, Southeast Asia director for the non-governmental organization Amnesty International. “Restrictions on freedom of expression and the silencing of criticism is still part of the daily reality for Singaporeans.” Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, acknowledges Lee's “tremendous role in Singapore's economic development is beyond doubt.” But he questioned whether the city-state can now have “that long overdue conversation” about political liberalization. Former ambassador Chin asserts that Singapore “is evolving and must now face the reality of social media,” which is not as restrained as the country's licensed and controlled traditional news outlets that refrain from criticizing the leadership and government in the country of 5.5 million people. Lee's admirers and detractors do agree on one thing: the father of modern Singapore was a uniquely talented and successful statesman whose influence extended far beyond his relatively modest domain.
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1 Naochuntian, which literally translates as "Frolic in Spring Fields", is said to date back centuries and is an important part of the culture of the Hakka, a sub-group of China’s majority Han ethnic group with its own distinct culture.
2 Noodle is the main staple of Hakka people (a branch of Han Chinese who speaks Hakka Chinese).
3 Leizhou's cultural heritages, colorful folk customs, and natural scenery were showed off at the Zhuhai International Convention & Exhibition Center for more than 1,000 guests. Leizhou culture is one of the four famous cultures from Guangdong, the other three being Cantonese, Teochew and Hakka.
4 Most were Hoklo Chinese from Fujian (Fukien) province or were Hakka Chinese, largely from Guangdong.