Do Shanwei people belong to Chaoshan people?

On this issue, let's first analyze the cultural composition of Shanwei. Shanwei has lived in Huizhou for a long time and belongs to one of the top ten genera in Huizhou. As Huizhou Prefecture is the mainstream of Hakka culture, as a representative of immigrant culture, the cultural customs and language of Lu Fengxian in Haifeng County are mostly the same as that of Chaozhou Prefecture (Meizhou belonged to Chaozhou Prefecture in ancient times, so it is called "Zui"). Therefore, in order to distinguish Huizhou from other counties, it was called Hailufeng, and then Shanwei built its own city.

And the argument about the endless debate on the internet is nothing more than two points:

The first argument is that the Chaoshan area refers to the old jurisdiction of Chaozhou Prefecture, Shanwei does not belong to Chaozhou Prefecture, so it is not a Chaoshan person, while Meizhou belongs to Chaozhou Prefecture, but not a Chaoshan person, thus causing one of the hot spots of debate.

The second argument is that people who speak Chaoshan dialect are Chaoshan people, while Jieyang, Shantou and Chaozhou have more similarities in dialects due to geographical reasons, while Shanwei is far from the base camp, and most of Shanwei immigrants come from Zhangzhou, Fujian Province, which is slightly different from Chaozhou ancients who speak Quanzhou dialect, so they do not agree that Shanwei is Chaoshan people, while Nan 'ao in Shantou and Beishan in Puning speak Zhangzhou dialect, and eastern Lufeng in Shanwei speaks Quanzhou dialect, so the division of dialect differences is controversial.

In fact, in Shanwei, its own culture is not unified. For example, Lufeng, which accounts for more than half of Shanwei's total population, has the same cultural customs and oral habits as most areas in Chaoshan, so it has the strongest sense of identity with Chaoshan.

Haifeng, as a representative of Shanwei, is very different from Lufeng. Although the two places can communicate with each other, there are few or no traditional folk customs in Haifeng, such as singing and dancing, eight-tone gongs and drums, walking on stilts, etc., as well as traditional customs such as coming out of the garden for adult ceremony, eating gardenia on Mid-Autumn Festival in Yue Bai, eating gardenia on Dragon Boat Festival, and eating until the sun in winter, as well as traditional buildings such as Shanglugen. This has also caused Haifeng people to deny that they are Chaoshan people, while Lufeng people have no reason to deny that they are Chaoshan people. As for whether Shanwei is a Chaoshan person, at present, it is still based on personal identity. You can disagree, but this only represents you personally, not a region. Similarly, if you agree, it only represents you personally.