Over the years, I sensed that the linguistic characteristics of Toisanese might be reflective of the inextricable bond between the Toisan land and its people. Like these other peoples, the Toisanese and their dialect are unofficial and under-recognized.
Our character is unpretentious and practical. Our dialect reflects life wrested from the mud, clay and stone of wet delta land, and the need to be heard over vast stretches of fields. In truth, the normal volume of spoken Toisanese is a shout. When spoken angrily, the listener is often finely sprayed with spittle.
Sentences explode out of the mouth like a mortar barrage, with consonants, vowels and all the tones meshed into a tight barbed clump of earthy sounds. Toisanese can arc over rice fields, penetrate a flock of noisy geese, cut through a grove of bamboo trees and curve around a hill.
Toisanese syllables sound like they are wrapped up like clogs of dirt embedded with stone, held together by the long, sinewy grasses we use for cooking. As the sentence lands, the remaining sounds hook your eardrums like fishing barbs. The dialect was designed for survival — year after year, day after day, sometimes minute by minute.
A self-reliant village of farmers needs to know immediately of any emergency, and the Toisanese shout served as our warning system, one that could carry over the curvaceous metes and bounds of our countryside.
A levee has just burst! The shout would boom and echo across the fields. Japanese soldiers are raiding the village for rice and vegetables, young girls to rape and young men to kill. Do not return to the village. Cross the river and run to the hiding place in the hills. Wait for us there. Make no noise. Your life depends upon it. There could only be survival, and Toisanese evolved to guarantee survival. A nuance-free language whose meanings are harshly, crudely and loudly clear, a language where layered linguistics of hidden meanings have no function or place.
By contrast, Big City Cantonese is melodic like a stanza of music, with seven tones and spoken at a normal volume. The one-upmanship of city sophistication propels its colloquialisms. Choy returned home and married Miss Chan Yook Hai b But immigration laws prevented Mrs.
When Mr. Choy Him retired to his village in , Mr. Choy Soo took over as the owner of the Paris Cafe. Like many men, Mr. Choy lived a double life. In Newdale, he worked long hours, lived alone and socialized with other bachelors and relatives in Brandon, Winnipeg, Gladstone and other prairie towns and villages.
But in China, he was regarded as part of the gentry class of men who were thriving in Canada or Gold Mountain, as it was called. Four years after the Chinese Immigration Act was repealed in , the family joined many others and escaped to Hong Kong, living there until when Mr. Choy was able to sponsor his wife and youngest daughter Sue-On to come to Canada. I have been wanted to search for my root and I just booked a flight to Guangzhou.
I have no idea where I should start. I don't speak or read chinese but i do speak cantonese but I believe its already been localized with our malaysian culture. Nice to meet you Jon! It's always interesting to read other people's experiences. Have fun in Guangzhou! Jon T. I have a somewhat funny, yet similar experience to everyone else that commented here.
I am 22 years old, and having grown up hearing Toisanese from my grandparents, I understand it pretty well, but I prefer not to actually speak it, for my accent is not that great. Due to my father recently marrying a woman from Hong Kong, I am now increasingly speaking in Cantonese and understanding that more. I am sad that soon my grandparents won't be here, and I won't hear this dialect on a daily basis anymore.
It is a rare treasure that is slowly dying out unfortunately. Hi soldme32! Because I want to retain what little Toisanese I know from my family, I decided to start this blog to help me remember it forever. I didn't appreciate it much when I was younger, but I really am regretting it now.
I joined a Facebook group for Toisanese speakers and realized that I didn't know a lot of Toisanese after all! I want to retain as much information as possible on this language and spread it to the world. Hi Karen - what is the FB group that you reference? I just stumbled upon this blog and am so thankful that you are doing this.
Karen: My grandfather came from Toisan province to Canada in His surname was Lee. I have over years of photographs that show my grandfather in China and Canada.
The Lee benevolent association in Calgary is years old and trace their family ancestor to Lao Tzu. I can trace my family tree back to Huang Di, the first yellow emperor of China. You should write down the stories told to you by your grandmother to remember your Chinese roots. In mainland China on the wall of every middle school are two large maps one map is of China and the other map is the map of the world.
Under the map of China it states remember that you were born in China. Under the map of the world, it states "no matter where you go in the world, you will always carry inside you the heart and stomach of china. Most overseas Chinese have assimilated into their new countries and have failed to keep in touch with their Chinese heritage and thus lose their identity of what it means to be Chinese. That was beautifully written, Ron. I went ancestor worshiping yesterday, and I learned something new about my grandfather's generation.
Apparently, when my grandfather was born, he was born with a given name "York Hong" not sure of the first Chinese character according to his generational line who uses the same character "York.
My grandfather's name hence became "Dat Hong. Also, I never realized that my grandfather had an English name as well: John, which my Aunt believes sounds like "York," but that's a bit of a stretch to me.
Anyway, on my grandfather's tombstone, it states in English that his name is "York Hong" but in Chinese, his name is written in Chinese as "Dat Hong. I have no idea how to trace my roots, but it's enough for me to know at least a bit about my grandparents and even my great grandparents. Ronald, you have a rich family history and I hope you can pass it to future generations and even the world.
I'm sure a lot of people would be fascinated with it. I think most people are not interested in it because they do not understand it, but once they start understanding it a little bit, I'm sure they would want to know and learn more! Traditionally, the Chinese would give their surname first. My Chinese name is Lee Chun-Wah. Your grandfather's name would have been Hong York. When choosing an English name the Chinese would choose an English name that would sound similar to their Chinese name.
In Chinese there is no "Y" sounding consonant so the Chinese speaker would substitute a close Chinese equivalent in English that he could pronounce. He then used John Hong as his English name but if he were to follow the Chinese syntax, he would state his name as Hong John. Karen: If you want to know how to trace your Chinese roots go to Al Chinn's website. He has good explanations on the historical migration of the Chinese from the Pearl river delta to the various parts of the world.
Al gives directions on how to go about tracing your Chinese ancestry. I contacted Al Chinn about five years ago and he has now expanded his website and makes his money selling his genealogy books. His books are a little pricey for what you get but the provide you with a quick summary of the main lineage of your family tree. For a fee Al will translate old family documents, tombstones, etc and help trace your family tree.
Among the first wave of prospectors came a Chinese merchant, Ah Hong, an agent from a Chinese company in San Francisco, who was prospecting for business rather than for gold.
His findings reported in the San Francisco Daily Globe on May 16, , painted a sufficiently optimistic picture he claimed to have been offered a job as a cook at twenty dollars per day that soon many Chinese were travelling northward from California to Victoria. Karen: Because the overseas Chinese came from the same county or village they could keep in contact with each other when they immigrated to the United States or Canada through their associations.
There was the Hong or headquarters association all Chinese workers used this as a mail drop to receive mail from China,the Benevolent association to help house new workers until they got work , the mutual aid society a cooperative where the Chinese gave out monetary loans to establish a business and the secret society the masons who were the political society for the overthrow of the Ching government.
For the Calgary Lees' th anniversary in celebration of the Lee Benevolent association I created a Calgary Lees' website that delineates the history of all the Chinatowns across Canada, a history of Chinese migration, a history of our ancestors, and family histories. In one section, I have written a story of my grandfather's journey to Canada.
The same treatment was given to the American Chinese immigrant worker. Karen: I have my own blogsite that has my Chinese genealogy on the site as well as other information about my career. Karen: I am currently trying to organize my third tour group of mainland China for a 21 day 8 eight province tour. I require 20 people to make this trip a reality from September 8 to 30 in If I cannot get twenty people to sign up by April 30, I will cancel the tour. I journeyed to Fukien province in as a guest of 28 Chinese English teachers who I had toured around Alberta in For 15 days, I visited 10 cities, 3 world heritage sites, 2 islands and 2 river tours.
During my visit , I met a tour operator for one of the largest domestic tour companies within China and was able to create customized tours of China directly with a Chinese tour operator. I have created these tours at cost price and I accompany the group because I like to tour China in a group. If you know of any group in the United States that would like to do a group tour of China , I could customize a tour.
It would have to be a minimum group of Heyyyy im australian but im descendant of a family from toishan. Lee meaning plum i think. I do not have any chinese features. This is because my grandfathers great grandfather married a woman from England who had blonde hair and blue eyes. He would grow food, tea and herbs. He was also a gold miner and he dug alot of holes in the state of Victoria, Australian.
He lived in a town called Bendigo. He is believed to be Toishan because majority of people who came to australian in s where from that area looking for gold. Basically i been seeing all the comments here. I am wondering whether Charles is his real name? Is Li his name? The golden dragon musuem in bendigo did a family tree with us. Li would be your great grandfathers surname. Chew would be his first name. Chinese refer to each other by their surname first and their given name is second.
He probably gave himself the name Charles but it sounded similar to his first name Chew. Li shoo is really Lee Chew. If you have some one write out the Chinese ideographs for Lee Chew shoo you could get an English translation of what his name means. Chinese names often have symbolic meanings. This site is awesome, I never used to term Toishanese or ever heard of it, we just called it Toisan. Family's from Hoy Ping province. I received your email comment on my cell phone so I thought I would reply.
My Grandfather Lee Duck came to Lethbridge in My grandfather came from 49 namtong village in Toison which is next to Hoy Ping. There are four counties that make up this area in the Pearl river delta. Hoy Ping is about kilometers from Guanzhou if you take the expressway. This November on a China tour I organized, I took a side trip to 49 Namchung village to visit my grandfather's ancestral home. If you know the market day number of your village and village name you can actually find your village.
I hired a guide and a bus driver and took a mini-bus ride to my grandfather's house which is still standing after over a years. My grandfathers house is a four story concrete structure. My grandfather had four wives but only one wife in Canada which was my grandmother. My grandmother was bought and sold twice before my grandfather purchased her as his second wife. My guide could only speak Mandarin and English while my bus driver could speak Mandarin and Toison but no English.
So through a three way translation I was able to communicate with my new found cousin. We are both the same age but he is weather worn while I am a plump Chinese Canadian. The Chinese kept very good records and it is possible to trace your heritage back many generations.
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