Where is the birthplace of Hakkas?

Less than 10 km east of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, there is a well-preserved ancient town of Hakka culture-Luodai. Not only does its original architectural style remain the same, but local residents are highly praised for sticking to the traditional Hakka language and customs. Experts who study Hakka culture say that it is very rare to preserve such a complete ancient culture in the suburbs of big cities.

Luodai Town, known as "the first Hakka town in the west", is located in the eastern suburb of Chengdu. Among the 23,000 residents in the town, 20,000 are Hakka. Chen, director of the Sichuan Hakka Culture Research Center and a researcher at the Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, said that it is really strange to have such a well-preserved Hakka area in the suburbs of metropolis, and it is unique in China. Hakka settlements in Fujian, Guangxi, Guangdong, Jiangxi and Taiwan Province provinces are far away from big cities.

The houses, courtyards and streets of Luodai Town are permeated with the architectural styles of the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. The most iconic building is Guangdong Guild Hall, which covers an area of more than 3,000 square meters and was donated by Guangdong Hakka in Qingganlong 1 1. It is one of the most complete and largest guilds in China. The couplets hanging in the central hall of the guild hall are antique: "The leaves smell like western Sichuan soil, and the Hakka dialect sounds like the ancient Central Plains". Huang Yuhong, the vice mayor who led the reporter on a tour, said that this couplet can best reflect the pioneering spirit of Hakka ancestors and their yearning for their hometown. There are Huguang Guild Hall, Jiangxi Guild Hall and North Sichuan Guild Hall in the ancient town. There are a large number of Hakka ancient houses on both sides of the thousand-meter-long old street in the ancient town. Walk into these single quadrangles and cross the patio. There is a hall in the middle above. The roof is decorated with "Chinese flowers" and "Aojianjian", and the roof is mostly covered with small blue tiles and thatch.

Chen said that there is a saying among Hakkas in the ancient town that they would rather sell their ancestral fields than lose their ancestral words. Most of them can speak Hakka, Sichuan dialect and Mandarin. Internal communication is all about Hakka. A woman who marries somewhere else will be reprimanded as "betraying her ancestors" and despised by her family if she returns to her mother's home and does not speak her mother tongue. Foreign women married here as a Hakka daughter-in-law, and had to learn Hakka dialect in a year or two.

Hakka dialect retains a large number of ancient Chinese phonology. Luodai people call Hakka dialect "Tukan dialect", which is consistent with Meixian dialect in Guangdong. The standard pronunciation of Hakka dialect, such as "getting dressed" and "falling into the water when it rains". Most residents in nearly ten towns around Luodai speak Hakka dialect, forming a peculiar Hakka "dialect island" in the eastern suburb of Chengdu where Sichuan dialect is spoken. With Luodai as the center, there are about 500,000 Hakkas living in more than a dozen surrounding towns, accounting for more than 80% of the local population. Their cultural identity is marked by whether they can speak Hakka, ancestral writing and family background. The local Hakkas have the custom of "Dragon Boat Festival". It is said that their tradition of dancing and burning dragons was brought by Hakkas surnamed Liu when they entered Sichuan from Jiangxi. Up to now, the Liu family lives in Baosheng Village, Luodai Town, and has been engaged in dragon dance activities for generations, forming relevant folklore and unique dragon dance programs: catching dragons, offering sacrifices to ancestors, welcoming dragons back to their nests, killing chickens to attract dragons, and dancing dragons with the finishing touch.

Chen said that there are 2.5 million Hakkas in Sichuan, which is the fifth largest Hakka settlement in China. The seeds of Hakka culture in Sichuan were sown in the unprecedented immigration movement of "Huguang filling Sichuan" in the early Qing Dynasty. As a group famous for its migration and reclamation spirit, some of the Hakka ancestors went north and west from the border area of Fujian, Guangdong and Jiangxi 300 years ago and finally took root in Bashu. At the same time, another part of Hakka ancestors traveled across oceans and moved to Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Southeast Asia and even around the world. The origin of Hakkas can probably be traced back to the southward migration of some Han people in the Yellow River valley in the early 4th century, and a large number of Han people migrated from Jiangnan to Jiangxi, Fujian, eastern Guangdong and northern Guangdong in the late 9th century (late Tang Dynasty) and13rd century. Xie, a researcher of Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences who is engaged in the study of Hakka culture, said: "It is quite strange in China culture that Hakka culture is mixed with other Han cultures without assimilation or disappearance."

Sichuan Hakka culture, which originated from the westward movement of immigrants in the early Qing Dynasty, is saturated with strong western spirit and provides spiritual support for the current western development. However, Chen Ye is worried: "With the development of modernization and urbanization, the traditional Hakka culture is also facing a huge impact. In recent years, Luodai has also become the most violent place where various cultures collide. We should try our best to avoid the disappearance of Hakka cultural characteristics.