The May Day holiday is coming up and it's similar to Labor Day in the US. The kids are off from school for two days and it makes for a long weekend. So, we're packing up and taking off when Matthew gets off the school bus and heading to Xiamen. Ina and her family will be joining us as well and that will be fun. Xiamen is about 1.5 hours away from Shanghai and it's got very balmy weather. Xiamen is better known by it's former name of Amoy and it became a foreign concession in 1903 with most of the foreigners living on the tiny islet of Gulang Yu just off Xiamen. By the 1930's there were about 500 resident foreigners and nine consulates. Over the past four centuries, it was host to the Portuguese, British, French and Japanese.
We're going to wander around Xiamen and then go visit a Hakka Earthen Fortress (tulou) located in Yongding about 128 miles outside of Xiamen. The Hakka are Han who emigrated south from near Kaifeng in five waves beginning more than 1,000 years ago. Many kept moving around southern China because of civil war, famine and discrimination by earlier Han arrivals. Unlike other Han, the Hakka women did not bind their feet and worked alongside men in the fields and tended to marry only other Hakka. They maintained what they claim is something close to early Chinese that is unintelligible to speakers of Mandarin, Cantonese and Min Nan Hua.
The Hakka are an officially recognized minority and they are known for their hospitality to outsiders. The direct translation of the word Hakka means "guest family". My great-great-grandfather is of Hakka descent and settled in Hong Kong. This will be interesting for me to explore the village and discover information about my background.
