A bed time story - The Seven Nanyang Brothers

With a heavy heart I am going to tell you another Bed time story. "The Seven Nanyang Brothers." I hoped I am not called as an insane in telling you this story, weather it is true or not, it is up for you to judge, for me it is only a hear say, I heard this from a Chinese friends...a Hainanese...This is a story about 7 brothers in a small country in Nanyang, the South China Sea..

The story began..... in the 19th century, the age of colonialism was at its height and the great Chinese Diaspora began. Many colonies lacked a large pool of laborers. Meanwhile, in the provinces of Fujian and Guangdong in China, there was a labor surplus due to the relative peace during the Qing dynasty. The Qing Empire was forced to allow its subjects to work overseas under colonial powers. Many Hokkien chose to work in Southeast Asia with their earlier links starting from the Ming era, as did the Cantonese. The city of Taishan in Guangdong province was the source for many of the economic migrants. For the countries in North America and Australia, great numbers of laborers were needed in the dangerous tasks of gold mining and railway construction. With famine widespread in Guangdong, this attracted many Cantonese to work in these countries to improve the living conditions of their relatives. Some overseas Chinese were sold to South America during the Punti-Hakka Clan Wars in the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong. Many people from the New Territories in Hong Kong emigrated to the UK (mainly England) and the Netherlands in the post-war period to earn a better living. (c.f. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Chinese)

The Hokkien brothers and Teochew brothers who traced their roots to Fujian and Taiwan came to this Nanyang country in the begining with the Cantonese brothers who spoke Cantonese (Yue) 粤语/粵語: who came from Guangdong, Guangxi, Hong Kong, Macau. These brothers came to nanyang very early, so they took all the better working opportunity, and they worked in every fields, opening many new plantations, and new towns, due to their hard labours, some of them even worked whole their life as hard labours, shopkeepers, businessmen, some the tea house owner, medical, teachers, etc....they were successful, some of them even became headman or the leaders in the Nanyang...they also brought many lands and buildings, and they begun to build better community , some time they build halls...schools...developing the locals...

Then also came the Hakka brothers, the (Kèjiā) 客家话/客家話: spoken by the Hakka people, a cultural group of the Han Chinese, the term "Hakka" itself translates as "guest families", and many Hakka people consider themselves to be descended from Song-era refugees from North China, many of these hakka also very hard working like the earlier brothers, they worked in various places and fields, some of them also became famous and rich, many also worked as farmers in the plantation, and they own many plantations and farms, and they brought lands, they also distribute their labour to develop the country with other brothers.

There also came the people who spoke 平话/平話: they came from the parts of the Guangxi. It is sometimes classed as a dialect of Cantonese. They also very hard working, and they mostly worked as the rubber tappers, and farmers..later they also owned many rubber plantations....they mostly preferred to live in the villages...Later these trends were changed, many of these brothers moved to town and they changed their forefather's working preferences.

Later many other Chinese brothers also came to work and stay at this Nanyang country, and they became permanent residents after they had succeed in their works and business, and many of them became rich due to their hard working and habit of money savings...

Lastly, the Hainan brothers also came. These brothers are speaking Hainanese, 儋州话/儋州話: spoken in Danzhou, Hainan. Because many working field already filled up by the brothers who came earlier, and so the Hainan brothers were hard to find new jobs, as a result many of them were encouraged by the other brothers who came earlier, to work with the white, the westerners, story were told they worked as a maid servant and male servant for the Westerner, due to this they learned western menu, later they become very fine coffee shop owner, they gone through many toiling and labours...one of them was the cultural shock in working with the westerner, and secondly the language barrier they had to face, because the Hainanese does not speaks western languages, they had hard time working with the western bosses, other brothers find out the Hainanese were a little weird after sometimes working as a servant for the foreigners. They were working under great pressure, cultural shock and language barrier.....after the Westerner left Nanyang, many of these Hainanese become great cook, they opened many Restaurants, with western menu, brew great coffee, great tasty toast and fantastic chicken rice....this is the last, and even later they become the first in the society...the head man! History has turned the clock back ward? Hainanese are a little bit weird? Do you think so? Why, people think so?

These Seven Nanyang Brothers still are very hard working until today, one thing common is, they do not give up in chasing their dreams, this time it is better for them to work hand in hand, do not fight, together they are determined to build a better future for the Nanyang, before they return home to Mainland, or before they emigrate to the West...or they continue to stay in the Nanyang.....to continue the Nanyang legacy...lets unite, unite, unite! Do not be proud about our success in the pass...

All of them are brothers? Yes! Same root? Yes! How about their fruits? What they want to achieve in Nanyang after this? Beside money, Is there any thing they forget to do which they must do? How to unite this 7 brothers? May God bless these 7 brothers. Amen. I hope you do not fell asleep when you are reading this Bed Time story...