Siyi

Sze Yup
Top: Location of Sze Yup (pink) within the province of Guangdong (gray)
Chinese四邑
Literal meaningFour counties
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinSìyì
Wade–GilesSsu4-i4
IPA[sɹ̩̂î]
Yue: Cantonese
Yale RomanizationSeiyāp
Jyutpingsei3 jap1
other Yue
Taishaneseɬi33 yip55
Alternative Chinese name
Chinese五邑
Literal meaningFive counties
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinWǔyì
Yue: Cantonese
Yale RomanizationNghyāp
Jyutpingng5 jap1

The Siyi (Seiyap or Sze Yup in Cantonese; Chinese: 四邑; pinyin: Sìyì; Jyutping: sei3 jap1; lit. 'Four Counties') refers to the four former counties of Xinhui (Sunwui), Taishan (Toisan), Kaiping (Hoiping) and Enping (Yanping) on the west side of the Pearl River Delta in Southern Guangdong Province, China.

Geography

One of the early descriptions of the land came from the American missionary, William Speer, who lived there around 1850 and observed: "Towns embowered in bamboo, a species of banyan and other trees meet the eye on every hand. The level portion of the soil is cultivated as only the Chinese know how to do in order to obtain the utmost possible returns from Nature. The view appears like a great garden bounded by ranges of hills.": 472 

Xinhui is a city district and the other three are county-level cities; all four belong to Jiangmen Prefecture administered from the city of Jiangmen. An alternative term, Wuyi (Chinese: 五邑; pinyin: Wǔyì, Cantonese: Ng5 Yap1; 'five counties'), which refers to the five former counties of Xinhui, Taishan, Kaiping and Enping as well as Heshan, all administered by Jiangmen, has become an official title and is widely accepted by the local residents today. However, among overseas Chinese, the name Seiyap (Siyi) is still popular and frequently used, as Heshan County was established much later than the other four.

It is said that over 100 famous people come from the Siyi or Wuyi region of Guangdong Province, making the region famous for producing more entertainment stars than any other region in mainland China. As a result, the local government in Jiangmen which administers the Siyi or Wuyi cities of Taishan, Kaiping, Enping, Xinhui and Heshan, decided to build a Stars Park called Jiangmen Star Park.

Japanese attacked Taishan on 3 March 1941 for the first time. A Japanese flag was torn down by Taishanese villagers in Wenbian and Baishi after Japanese retreated from their first attack in Taishan, 8-9 Japanese ewre killed in an ambush by Taishanese in Daheng market and another 2 Japanese killed in a subsequent ambush which led to fighting and Japanese withdrawal. Japanese hiding in a bamboo grove were hit by a homemade cannon by Taishanese from Baishi village after two Japanese were knocked off their forces by gunfire from militia from Wenbian and Baishi villages along with Anbu and Changlingdong. The villagers formed the Daheng anti-Japanese task force to attack 50-60 Japanese led by 2 mounted officers on 8 March 1941, after a battle between Taishanese in Daheng and over 40 Japanese on 5 March were Japanese were killed and injured. 18 Japanese were killed after 2 Japanese boats were sunk by home made cannons and fish cannons by three Chinese fishing boats on 18 May 1941 in Taishan close to Xiachuan and Sahngchuan islands 7 watchtowers defended Nancun village against the Japanese and there were 60-70 men defending the towers. Sijiunan village was attacked by Taicheng-based Japanese on 5 July 1944. Japanese were ambushed at Baizu mountain by the village and wounded. The Japanese then attacked from six directions witth 1,200 men 5 days later. Japanese were wounded and killed with machine gun fire by 30 NRA soldiers at Nancun while a Japanese officer was shot from his horse by a musket shotgun at Zhujiao watchtower by militia and over 10 Japanese soldiers were killed by village militia at Nanying tower. After a day, the Japanese hit bombarded the towers with over 10 cannons and mortars. Many Chinese village militia then fought their way and broke out of the siege of Nancun, fighting their way out of the watchtowers, only 8 villagers were left in one tower to fight to the death. More than a 100 Japanese were killed in Nancun village at the siege of the towers. On the Chinese side 10 civilians and 25 militia were killed at the battle.

3 Japanese motorboats were damaged, one Japanese boat sunk by a homemade cannon and one Japanese boat sunk by ramming in a battle in Yinzhou lake in 1939 led by Captain Liang Huo of the Anti-Japanese city protection corps, owned by Industrial and Commercial shipping company chairman Zhu Keqin. Old home made cannons were used in clan feuds in Xinhui and Taishan county of Guangdong during the Republic of China.

Chinese villagers used gongs, rifles and home made cannons at Dihai to ambush Japanese. The ambush was carried out by Sansi Township Self-Defence Force, Taishan Fourth district self-Defence force and over 20 members of Dihai self defence force led by Yu Hejun, a township head, in Dihai, Taishan after Japan occupied Xinchang and Changsha on 24 June 1944.

In Enping, Guangdong, the Zhen family clan lived in Pingtang village. They founded the Pintang Village anti-Japanese team in the war, using home made muzzle loading cannons and homemade muskets. The cannons were manned by Zhen Juerong, Zhen Peilin and Zhen Chongpu. Pintgtang village was attacked on three sides, west, south and east and the battle took place in July 1945 after Japanese attacked Sha'an village where the Chen clan lived. The Zhen family evacuated all the children, women and elderly and had people guard sluice gates and dug moats to protect the village. All men of the clan from 18 to 45 fought in the militia with all guns they had. The village clan elders were Zhen Chongzuo, Zhen Chongbi, Zhen Jingli, Zhen Likan, Zhen Pinli and Zhen Chongxun. The fighting took place for 3 to 5 hours before the villager ammunition ran out, and then the Zhen clan withdrew from their empty village and left all the doors open, with only a single elderly deaf and mute woman in it, the mother of Zhen Shuyuan. The Japanese were terrified of a trap or trick when they saw the mute elderly woman standing in the empty village and then left.

Dialects

The area gave rise to the Siyi dialects, the most prominent of which is Taishanese (Toisanese/Hoisanese). Although Siyi and Cantonese both belong to the Yue branch of Chinese, Cantonese speakers cannot easily understand Siyi dialect.

Emigration

The Num Pon Soon building in Chinatown, Melbourne. The Num Pon Soon Society is a district society, a benevolent association aimed at supporting Siyi immigrants to Melbourne during the Victorian gold rush.

In the late 19th century and early 20th century, many people from the Siyi (or Sze Yup as it was then known) emigrated to Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, Australasia, North America and South America. Of the Chinese American population from that time until the 1950s, Sze Yup accounted for the vast majority, about 80%, along with people from Sanyi (Sam Yup) and Zhongshan (Chung Shan).

In America, people from Sze Yup generally worked as laborers; Sam Yup people worked as entrepreneurs; and Chung Shan people specialized in agriculture. The Punti–Hakka Clan Wars also erupted in the Sze Yup counties just prior to this time period of emigration. In 1851, two Wui Gun (huiguan; traditional Chinese: 會館; simplified Chinese: 会馆; pinyin: huìguǎn; Jyutping: wui6gun2) (native place associations) were established in San Francisco: the Sze Yup Wui Gun and the Sam Yup Wui Gun. Endowed with only limited arable lands, with much of the terrain either rocky or swampy, Sze Yup was the "pre-eminent sending area" of overseas Chinese.

In addition to being a region of major emigration abroad, Sze Yup is a melting pot of ideas and trends brought back by overseas Chinese. For example, many tong lau in Chekham and diaolou in Hoiping and Toishan built in the early 20th century incorporate architectural features from both China and the West.

Notable people:

Mark Twain references the See Yup Company, and the Ning Yeong Company, in Roughing It.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Chinese American Names: Tradition and Transition – Page 118 Emma Woo Louie – 2008 "These were the Sam Yup and Sze Yup dialects, which the author spelled as “Saam Yup” and “Sz Yip,” respectively. Sam Yup means “Three Districts dialect,” which is akin to standard Cantonese, and Sze Yup means “Four Districts dialect.”
  2. ↑ Shanghai Girls – Page 8 Lisa See – 2010 "My first language was Sze Yup, the dialect spoken in the Four Districts in Kwangtung province, where our ancestral home is located...”
  3. ↑ Speer, William (1870). The oldest and the newest empire: China and the United States (PDF). Pittsburgh, PA: Robert S. Davis & Co. (1877): S. S. Scranton & Co. pp. 1–681.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  4. ↑ "日寇入侵苦难深重". 918爱国网.
  5. ↑ "[掌故傳聞] 臺山古今五百年 I".
  6. ↑ 陈, 廉中 (2018-03-06). "一支抗日的炮艇队：朱克勤抗日爱国的义举". 《广州抗战纪实》.
  7. ↑ 萨沙 (2017-01-19). "今天美国民众炫耀枪多？民国农民们笑而不语". 手机搜狐网. Archived from the original on 2025-12-10.
  8. ↑ "侨乡儿女御敌保家 谱写抗战感人壮歌". 中国江门网. 2016-07-12.
  9. ↑ 甄, 汉石. "广东恩平甄氏源流初探". 中國評論新聞. 广东恩平.
  10. ↑ Szeto, Cecilia (2001), "Testing intelligibility among Sinitic dialects" (PDF), in Allan, Keith; Henderson, John (eds.), Proceedings of ALS2k, the 2000 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society, retrieved 5 Jan 2014
  11. ↑ Phonology of Cantonese – Page 192 Oi-kan Yue Hashimoto – 1972 "... affricates and aspirated stops into consonant clusters is for external comparative purposes, because the Cantonese aspirated stops correspond to /h/ and some of the Cantonese affricates correspond to stops in many Si-yi (Seiyap) dialects."
  12. ↑ Language in the USA – Page 217 Charles A. Ferguson, Shirley Brice Heath, David Hwang – 1981 "Even the kind of Cantonese which the Chinese Americans speak causes difficulties, because most of them have come from the rural Seiyap districts southwest of Canton and speak dialects of that region rather than the Standard Cantonese of the city"
  13. 1 2 Pan, Lynn (1999). The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 36. ISBN 0674252101.
  14. ↑ Hsia, Lisa (2007). "Asians and Asian Americans in the West". In Mancall, Peter; Johnson, Benjamin Heber (eds.). Making of the American West: People and Perspectives. ABC-CLIO. pp. 161–187.
  15. ↑ Punti-Hakka Clan Wars and Taishan County Archived 2007-09-10 at the Wayback Machine
  16. ↑ "Huiguan". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2 February 2018.
  17. ↑ Chi, Tsung (2005). East Asian Americans and Political Participation: A Reference Handbook. ABC-CLIO. p. 65. ISBN 9781576072905.
  18. ↑ Pan, Lynn (1999). The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. pp. 28–29. ISBN 0674252101.
  19. ↑ Twain, Mark (1994). Roughing It. Pleasantville: The reader's Digest Association, Inc. pp. 261–266. ISBN 0895776286.