Since 2016, the Hakka Affairs Council (HAC) has been organizing the Hakka Community and New Southbound Policy Collaboration Program, gradually sending organizations and societies related to the Hakka people to Hakka villages in Southeast Asian countries, including in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Cambodia. Through cultural exchange, research into local cultural assets, as well as bilateral visits, collaboration between Hakka communities in Taiwan and Southeast Asia is deepened. Through interpersonal cultural links and community involvement between Hakka villages, promotion of new collaborative relationships and cultural exchange between Taiwan and Southeast Asian nations is achieved.

In 2017, a team in Taiwan combined community development with Hakka Bayin music, Hakka lion dance performance, as well as Hakka popular music. Led by the Hsinchu County Society for Strategic Development of Hakka Village Culture, the team of more than 40 members headed to Malaysia under a HAC cooperation and exchange agreement, and carried out the Siniawan Hakka Village Community Redevelopment and Creative Culture and Arts Entrenchment Initiative. The Hsinchu County Society for Strategic Development of Hakka Village Culture was committed to promoting the preservation and passing down of Hakka culture, and through exchanges with Hakka villages domestically and abroad, a sense of Hakka identity as well as links between communities is heightened. Society members mostly consist of Master’s and PhD students from National Chiao Tung University’s College of Hakka Studies – as such, they were able to conduct academic field study and research during the period of their southbound exchange.

Siniawan is approximately 3,000km away from Taiwan, and is situated about 30 minutes by car from the southwest of Kuching, the fourth largest city in Malaysia. Siniawan is not a Hakka village with only one ethnic group; it is made up of the indigenous Bidayuh, Chinese, and Malay peoples. Local population numbers around 8,000, with the ration being 6:3:1 respectively. Among the Chinese, 90% are Hakka, and the residents converse using a mix of English, Malay, Chinese, and Hopo Hakka language. Most of the Hakka people in this area hailed from the Hopo Village in Jiexi County, Guangdong.

In the 19th century, Chinese were already living in Siniawan, which blossomed as a result of the mining, pepper, and rubber industry, attracting a large number of Chinese immigrants with Hakka people the majority. The region prospered due to these peoples, and the Siniawan Pasar (Siniawan Market) was later build at the peak of Siniawan’s prosperity. 

However, due to political turbulence in Malaysia in the 20th century – including the Japanese occupation in 1941, British colonization from 1946 to 1960, anti-colonialism activity, underground armed resistance against Malayan left-wing groups, martial law, and the military takeover – the local Chinese people led a tough life.   

Generally, Southeast Asian Chinese relied on themselves to continue the Chinese societal and cultural heritage without the support of a government. They even had to organize their own schools for education. Amidst difficult living conditions in Southeast Asia, the Chinese peoples had to depend on groups and societies among their own ethnic groups for support, lending each other a helping hand on the basis of a shared community so as to bolster their development in the local areas. The Sarawak Hakka Community Association in Siniawan was a community of Chinese peoples forged under such circumstances. Established in 1934, it opened several Chinese schools, offering scholarships to help local Hakka youth to attend universities and even authored a series of books on the Hakka people, recording their culture and history. In the last 80-odd years, the association provided a range of services to the local Hakka communities, fighting for their welfare. The southbound exchange team from Taiwan paid a visit to the association in 2017, with both sides sharing their own Hakka culture with the other.

(Translator: James Loo

In collaboration with Fu Jen Catholic University, Department of English)