Chinese Name: 黃榮洛
Born: May 3, 1926
Birthplace: Miaoli County
(Northern Taiwan)
Huang Jung-lo was born in
Miaoli’s Nanzhuang in 1926. In 1945, Huang graduated from Taoyuan Agricultural Vocational
High School. He had served as a teacher of the school, in the Forestry Bureau,
and as the executive director of a farmers'
association, before finally returning to his hometown to inherit the rice mill
left by his father. When he was young, Huang liked to collect ancient books.
After the financial burden of raising the family was alleviated, he devoted
more efforts to salvaging ancient books, hoping to save more culturally
invaluable books.
Huang had received
Japanese education in the early days, and not
until at the age of 59 did he begin to learn Chinese writing. He devoted
himself to the study of Hakka literature and history. With firm perseverance, he
documented Hakka people’s culture and history by means of solid field
investigation experience and rich literature research. His published works
include “Taiwan Hakka Folklore Collection (台灣客家民俗文集)”, “Taiwan Hakka Traditional Mountain Song Lyrics
(台灣客家傳統山歌詞),” and “Bitter Passage to Taiwan: The
History of Taiwan's Reclamation and Conflicts (渡台悲歌:台灣的開拓與抗爭史話).”
In 1984, Huang obtained a replica of an official document written by Suzuki
Seiichiro (鈴木清一郎), “Taiwan’s Traditional Four Ceremonial
Occasions and Festivals (台灣舊冠婚葬祭和年中行事),” which records
the customs and habits of Minnan people in the Japanese occupation era. Although this book is precious, one cannot see Hakka
people’s culture reflected in it. This led Huang to invest in the study of
Hakka customs.
In 1986, “Bitter Passage to Taiwan (渡台悲歌)” was discovered in Hsinchu. It’s a manuscript of
lyrics written during Qing Dynasty (1644-1912)
in Taiwan. It describes how Hakka people crossed the Taiwan Strait to reach the
island and worked hard to develop the land. Consisting of 11 sheets, some of
which were damaged, the manuscript only contained lyrics and there was no
record of the music scores.
This work is a ballad
written by an unknown writer based on Hakka folk songs. It accurately reflected
the voices of the Hakka people at that time and describes the living
conditions, customs, religious beliefs, traditional culture, ethics and
morality of Hakka immigrants, and their relationship with “Hoklo” (the nickname
Hakka people used to call Minnan immigrants — those who came from Fujian
province and spoke Fujian dialects) — and indigenous tribal people.
Later, by collecting
materials and conducting field research, Huang wrote articles to interpret and
shed light on the stories based on the ballad. He published them in the book “Bitter Passage to Taiwan: The History
of Taiwan’s Reclamation and Conflicts,” which became an important publication
for Chinese and Japanese researchers working on Hakka culture and history.
Huang was a self-taught
literary historian and a pioneer of Taiwanese Hakka studies. He wrote
extensively about Hakka customs and traveled all over Taiwan to collect
information and do field investigations. He was very interested in history and spent
a lot of time exploring the history of Hakka immigration, including the contradictory
self-identity of the Hakka people in the anti-Qing and anti-Japanese
revolutionary events. Huang delved into history and folk traditions and wrote
to guard the Hakka people's essential spirit.