Taishan, Guangdong - Wikipedia

Taishan, Guangdong - Wikipedia



Taishan, Guangdong
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Taishan

台山市

Toishan

County-level city

Taicheng Subdistrict

Location of Taishan City (pink) within Jiangmen City (yellow) and Guangdong



Taishan
Location of the city centre in Guangdong
Coordinates: 22°15′07″N 112°47′38″ECoordinates: 22°15′07″N 112°47′38″E
Country People's Republic of China
Province Guangdong
Prefecture-level city Jiangmen
Area

• Total 3,285.91 km2 (1,268.70 sq mi)
Population
(2010 census)
• Total 941,095
• Density 290/km2 (740/sq mi)
Time zone UTC+8 (China Standard)
Postal code
529200 - 529267
Area code(s) 750

Taishan, Guangdong
Simplified Chinese 台山
Traditional Chinese 臺山
Postal Toishan

showTranscriptions


Former names
Xinning
Traditional Chinese 新寧
Simplified Chinese 新宁
Postal Sunning

showTranscriptions



Taishan or Taishan County, alternately romanized in Cantonese as Toishan, in local dialect as Hoisan or Toisan (臺山) and formerly known as Xinning or Sunning (新寧)[a], is a county-level city in the southwest of Guangdong province, China. It is administered as part of the prefecture-level city of Jiangmen. During the 2010 census, there were 941,095 inhabitants, of which 394,855 were classified as urban. Taishan calls itself the "First Home of the Overseas Chinese". An estimated half a million Chinese Americans are of Taishanese descent.[3]


Contents
1Geography
1.1Climate
2History
3Administration
4Demographics
4.1Language
5Claims to fame
5.1Sports
5.2Music
5.3War Pilots
5.4Music and Entertainment
6Power stations
7Education
8Notable people
9Transportation
10Notes
11References
12External links
Geography[edit]

Taishan is located in the Pearl River Delta in southwestern of Jiangmen Prefecture. It contains 95 islands and islets, including Shangchuan Island, the largest island in Guangdong now that Hainan has become a separate province. Taishan is one of Guangdong's "Four Counties" (Sze Yup), which excluded Heshan and is now part of the Greater Taishan Region.
Climate[edit]

showClimate data for Taishan (1981−2010)

History[edit]

During the Ming dynasty, the area of present-day Taishan was carved out of Xinhui County on 12 February 1499 as Xinning County. Xinning was a source of migrant and emigrant workers, but a series of natural and political disasters in the 19th century exacerbated the situation. Aside from the disruption of the Sea Ban regulations (Haijin) themselves, their revocation led to an influx of northern settlers who began long-running feuds with the returning locals; this erupted into full-scale war in the 1850s and '60s.[4] The 1842 Treaty of Nanjing that ended the First Opium War opened China to greater foreign trade just before the California Gold Rush made the prospect of emigration to the United States appealing. Many also served as contract workers abroad, as in Hawaii and Cuba and—most famously—for the Central Pacific half of America's Transcontinental Railroad, where the Chinese made up 80% of the company's workforce as they laid track over the mountains and deserts of the west.[5] By 1870, there were 63,000 Chinese in the United States, almost all in California.[6]

Chin Gee Hee's Sun Ning Railway Company connected Xinning with its hinterland in 1908 and reached Jiangmen in 1913. It was notable as one of only three financed, built, owned, and run by the Chinese themselves before the 1949 Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War.[7]

In 1914, the new Republican government renamed the area Taishan County to avoid confusion with other places named Xinning.[8][9] (It is now, however, frequently confused in foreign sources with Mount Tai in Shandong.) During the Second World War, the Xinning Railway was destroyed to prevent its use by the Japanese.[7] Japanese soldiers entered Taicheng, the county seat, in March 1941 and killed nearly 280 people.

Taishan was promoted to county-level city status on 17 April 1992, reflecting its increasing level of urbanization.[9]
Administration[edit]

Chixi (labeled CH'IH-CH'I (CHIKKAI) 赤溪) (1954)

A part of Jiangmen, Taishan covers 3,286 km2 (1,269 sq mi) and is subdivided into 16 towns, which are in turn subdivided into 313 village residential committees (村居委会) and 3,655 natural villages (自然村).[9]

These Towns are:
NameChinese (S)Hanyu PinyinPopulation (2010)[10]
Taicheng Subdistrict 台城街道 Táichéng Jiēdào 246,844
Dajiang town 大江镇 Dàjiāng Zhèn 46,674
Shuibu town 水步镇 Shuǐbù Zhèn 42,578
Sijiu town 四九镇 Sìjiǔ Zhèn 37,402
Baisha town 白沙镇 Báishā Zhèn 52,462
Sanhe town 三合镇 Sānhé Zhèn 36,215
Chonglou town 冲蒌镇 Chōnglóu Zhèn 32,483
Doushan town 斗山镇 Dòushān Zhèn 48,229
Duhu town 都斛镇 Dōuhú Zhèn 42,657
Chixi town (Chihkai; Chihchi) 赤溪镇 Chìxī Zhèn 34,450
Duanfen town 端芬镇 Duānfēn Zhèn 45,729
Guanghai town 广海镇 Guǎnghǎi Zhèn 43,465
Haiyan town 海宴镇 Hǎiyàn Zhèn 73,212
Wencun town 汶村镇 Wèncūn Zhèn 49,565
Shenjing town 深井镇 Shēnjǐng Zhèn 52,767
Beidou town 北陡镇 Běidǒu Zhèn 28,091
Chuandao town 川岛镇 Chuāndǎo Zhèn 28,272

Taicheng (台城街道): sub-district and seat of the city but formerly a township.
Beidou (北陡镇): separated from other townships by Zhenhai Bay (镇海湾).
Haiyan (海宴镇): site of an Overseas Chinese farm (华侨农场).
Chuandao (川岛镇): includes Shangchuan and Xiachuan islands, and has been declared an Integrated Open Tourism Experimental Zone (旅游开发综合试验区).

These “Natural Villages” (自然村) include:
Annanjiangchao (安南江潮).
Bihou (庇厚).
Jilong.
Guanbuli (官步里).

Demographics[edit]

If considering the total Greater Taishan Region or Sze Yap Region, which includes Kaiping, Xinhui, Enping and Taishan, there are about 8 to 9 million Taishanese people worldwide. According to American historian Him Mark Lai, approximately 430,000 or 70% of Chinese Americans in the 1980s were Taishanese according to 1988 data.[11] Currently some 500,000 Chinese Americans claim Taishanese origins.[11]

While Taishan itself has a population of about 1 million, there are around 1.3 million Taishanese people overseas, distributed in 91 countries and regions.[12] It is estimated that, up to the mid- to late-20th century, over 75% of all overseas Chinese in North America claimed origin in Taishan, so Taishan has been named the "Home of Overseas Chinese."[3][13]

Language[edit]

The main language of Taishan is Taishanese (台山話). While most Taishanese today use Mandarin in school or formal occasions, Taishanese is the de facto language. Schools require their students to speak Mandarin in the classroom, and teachers are required to lecture in Mandarin.

Taishanese is a language of the Yue Chinese, a large group which includes, but is broader than, the Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong and Guangzhou. Thus Cantonese and Taishanese are related but distinct. Cantonese is also widely known in Taishan, as it serves as the lingua franca of Guangdong Province.

Before the 1980s, Taishanese was the predominant Chinese language spoken throughout North America's Chinatowns.[3]

Claims to fame[edit]
Sports[edit]

Taishan is the birthplace of Chinese volleyball which was introduced by Overseas Chinese. Its teams have won many provincial and national championships.
Music[edit]

Taishan and Guangzhou are the birthplaces of Guangdong music.

War Pilots[edit]

One quarter of the "Flying Tigers" came from Taishan. This legendary group of American airmen fought the Japanese before the United States entered the Second World War.[14]
Music and Entertainment[edit]

Taishan hosts Jiangmen Star Park which has produced more international Chinese celebrities than any other region or city in China.

Parts of the movie Let the Bullets Fly were filmed in Taishan in 2010.[15][16]
Power stations[edit]

Electricity for Taishan is generated by the:
Guohua Taishan Power Station
Taishan Nuclear Power Plant
Education[edit]

Education enjoys significant support from Overseas Chinese professionals and businessmen. Many secondary schools were built and financed by Chinese living in the Special Administrative Regions, as well as various foreign countries, such as the United States, Canada, and Brazil. To honour their benefactors, these schools often bear their names or the names of their parents.

Peng Quan School (鹏权中学) is a prime example, which was constructed during 1999–2001, and is now integrated into Taishan's public school system. It is situated on the west side of Taicheng, and was built by a Hong Kong businessman.[17]

There are many middle schools and high schools in Taishan, but no academic universities. Students must study rigorously in order to be accepted at universities located in other cities.

Taishan schools include:

University:
Taishan Panshi Television University (台山磐石电视大学)

Secondary schools (including combined junior-senior high schools and senior high schools):

Taishan No. 1 High School (台山第一中学)
Taishan Overseas Chinese Middle School (台山市华侨中学)
Taishan Peiying Vocational Technical School (台山市培英职业技术学校)
Taishan Taishi Senior High School (台山市台师高级中学)
Taishan City Peng Quan School (台山市鹏权中学)
Taishan Litan Gengkai Memorial Middle School (台山市李谭更开纪念中学)
Taishan Peizheng School (台山培正中学)
Taishan Renyuan Middle School (台山市任远中学)
Taishan Guang Hai School (台山广海中学)
Taishan Shuibu Middle School (台山市水步中学)
Taishan Lishufen Memorial Middle School (台山市李树芬纪念中学)
Taishan Chonglou Middle School (台山冲蒌中学)
Taishan Xueye Junior Middle School (台山市学业初级中学)
Taishan Xinning Middle School (台山市新宁中学)
Taishan Yizhong Dajiang Experimental Middle School (台山一中大江实验中学)
Taishan Najin Middle School (台山市那金中学)
Taishan Ningyang Middle School (台山宁阳中学)
Notable people[edit]

Adrienne Clarkson: Broadcast journalist and Governor General of Canada (1999–2005).
Alan Chin: American contemporary artist.
Anna May Wong: International movie star.
Annie Wu Suk-ching: Founder of Beijing Air Catering Ltd. and member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
Anthony Wong: Award-winning British Hong Kong actor, screenwriter and film director.
Arthur Chin: Kuomintang fighter pilot and flying ace.
Bill Lann Lee: U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the Clinton Administration.
Chen Yunchang: Actress considered to be the third "Queen of Chinese Cinema".
Chin Siu Dek: Grandmaster of Kung Fu San Soo.
Danny Chan: Hong Kong singer.
Donnie Yen: Hong Kong Chinese martial artist, actor, director, fight choreographer and producer.
Ed Lee: Mayor of San Francisco (2011–2017), born in Seattle but parents were immigrants from Taishan
Evan Low: Mayor of Campbell, California.
Flora Chan: Hong Kong actress and singer.
Frances Yip: Hong Kong singer.
Gary Locke: Governor of Washington State (1996–2006), U.S. Secretary of Commerce (2009-2011) and U.S. Ambassador to China (2011–2014).
Gordon Lam: Hong Kong actor.
Hiram Fong: U.S. Senator from Hawaii (1959-1977).
Hu Die: Actress considered to be the first "Queen of Chinese Cinema".
Inky Mark: Canadian politician, mayor of Dauphin (1994-1997) and Member of Parliament (1997-2004).
Jack Yan: Magazine publisher in New Zealand.
James Hong: American actor with over 500 television, film and video game credits, and former civil engineer.
James Tak Wu: Founder of Maxim's Catering Limited, Hong Kong's largest food and beverage corporation and restaurant chain.
James Wong Howe: American cinematographer.
John Tsang: Financial Secretary of Hong Kong.
Julius Chan: Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea (1980-1982, 1994-1997, 1997).
Karl Maka, (Chinese: 麥嘉) Hong Kong film producer, director, actor and presenter.
Ken Hom: American chef, author and television-show presenter.
Kin W. Moy: American diplomat, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and former Deputy Executive Secretary in the Office of Secretary of State Clinton.
Kylie Kwong: Australian chef, restaurateur, author and television-show presenter.
Leland Yee: California State Senator and convicted arms dealer.
Li Enliang: Chinese civil engineer and educator.
Margaret Chin: American politician on the New York City Council representing Chinatown.
Matt Fong: Treasurer of the State of California (1995-1999).
Mel Chin: American contemporary conceptual artist.
Myolie Wu: Hong Kong actress and singer.
Norman Kwong: championship-winning Canadian football player (1948, 1954, 1955, 1956) and Lieutenant-Governor of Alberta (2005-2010).
Patrick Soon-Shiong: Surgeon, billionaire and inventor of protein nanoparticle technology.
Patrick Yu: Hong Kong lawyer, Crown Counsel and founder of its first law school.
Wong Koon Chung: Lead guitarist for Beyond.
Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow: Mobster and Dragon Head of the San Francisco Chinese Freemasons.
Shawn Yue: Hong Kong actor and singer.
Tony Leung: Hong Kong actor.
Tyrus Wong: American painter, muralist, ceramicist, lithographer, designer and kite maker.
Wong Ka Keung: Bassist for Beyond.
Wong Ka Kui: Lead singer of Beyond.
Wong Kim Ark: Defendant in United States v. Wong Kim Ark - 169 U.S. 649 (1898).
Wu Lien-teh: Nominee for the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine
Yip Sai Wing: Drummer for Beyond.

Transportation[edit]

Taishan Railway Station [zh] which is built in resemblance with the former Ningcheng Station on Sunning Railway

Taishan is accessible by bus with a long-distance bus station in Taicheng, and through a port at GongYi on the Tan River which flows into the Pearl River Delta. The ferry service between GongYi and Hong Kong has been discontinued.

Ferry services connect the island of Shangchuan with the mainland, sailing between Sanzhou Harbour (三洲港) on Shangchuan Island and Shanzui Harbor (山咀港) in Chuandao Township. There are also daily ferry services between Sanzhou Harbour and the nearby island of Xiachuan.[18][19]

Taishan is served by the Shenzhen–Zhanjiang high-speed railway, opened in 2018. The Taishan Railway Station [zh] (台山站; 22.302197°N 112.810171°E) is located in within Taicheng Subdistrict, some 7 kilometers (4.3 mi) north of Taishan city center. The station has a couple dozen trains a day to Guangzhou South Railway Station.
Notes

The Toisan Shout – China Channel William Poy Lee

The Toisan Shout – China Channel



The Toisan Shout

8 min read
November 20, 2018

William Poy Lee

Coming to terms with a stigmatic linguistic identity – William Poy Lee

Suey Wan is an innocuous farmer’s village nestled among remote hills in the backwater heart of the fertile Pearl River Delta in Guangdong Province. My people’s six counties are collectively known as Toisan. Toisan’s origins are more legendary than historically established, but the first Chinese settlers are said to have arrived here during the chaotic last days of the Tang Dynasty, hoping to find peace in this then far-off corner of the expansive Chinese empire.

For a millennium, my forbears lived relatively unperturbed, rarely traveling farther than 20 miles away from their village, and eventually evolved their own version of the Cantonese dialect – the rustic, rough-sounding and salty jizz-juice tongue of Toisanese.
---
I have a confession to make. As a child, a third generation Chinese-American born in San Francisco, I was often ashamed of my parent’s Toisanese dialect. Of course, I spoke Toisanese at home without reservation. But in the company of non-Chinese neighbors, it seemed unmusical, clunky, and too loud. By contrast, American English flowed mellifluously, so easy on the ear. It was the language of modern times, of speed, military might, industrial capacity and amazing technology – whereas Toisanese was the language of farmers in some backwards old village in China.

My shame always was deepest when our patient and otherwise kind public school teachers reprimanded my friends and me during our rare lapses into Toisanese. These rebukes inevitably happened at recess, when we gave ourselves completely over to the freedom and joy of play. Spontaneously, someone would slip into the briefest, happy flurry of Toisanese. The recess teacher, scowling, would spin around in the direction of the offending sounds, shake her large, brass recess bell furiously, and rush over to the offender. She would shout over the clanging, “This is America. Speak only American. You will sit on the bench until recess is over.”

Sometimes, a teacher caricatured Toisanese in the most awful way, twisting her neck and moving her head back and forth and sideways like a chicken, as if to say, “What self-respecting person would want to speak this gibberish?” 

--

It didn’t matter that I excelled in reading and writing; one slip and the teacher somehow forgot that I had spoken “American” every minute of that day and every day since the beginning of the semester. These thunder-cracking harangues condemned Toisanese as a transgression equivalent to coming to school while burning with chicken pox and coughing in everyone’s face. In this milieu I began to doubt the worth of my first language, my family’s origins, and the place of my parents in American society.

It took me many years to feel right again about speaking Toisanese and then many more before I felt good about being a Toisan-Chinese. My awakening began tentatively when I entered Chinese language school at the age of eight. My acceptance of my background surged ahead in the late 1960s during the Civil Rights movement, when many people of color reconnected with the roots of their own suppressed heritage. But in my childhood in the 1950s, America was arrayed against the speaking of Toisanese.

Even more invalidating, so too was the rest of Guangdong Province, the home of Toisanese itself. Guangdong’s official speech was Cantonese, and Cantonese speakers considered Toisanese inferior. Mandarin was China’s official language, and all Cantonese were now forced to learn it. Cantonese and Mandarin are as different as French is from Italian, despite their common roots. Toisanese is a dialect of Cantonese, but just as Parisian French feel assaulted by Quebecois French, so too Cantonese speakers consider Toisanese an embarrassing variant. Official China, with little use for Cantonese, knew nothing of Toisanese. China had historically considered the province of Guangdong a distant backwater in the most backward corner of the empire, a place to exile unpopular magistrates, rebels, and criminals. And for Cantonese speakers, Toisan villages were their backwaters.

Becuase of Toisanese’s stigma as a hillbilly, down-in-the-delta variation of Big City Cantonese, there are no Toisanese novels, poems or operas. There is no legacy of Toisan royals with ornate summer palaces. The prolific Shaw Brothers Studio of Hong Kong did not make movies in Toisanese. Not even bit players speak Toisanese in Cantonese movies. Toisanese signified sweaty, impoverished backcountry peasants working oxen in mud all day, with syllables that are harsh to the normal ear and spoken at a decibel level equivalent to shouting. Those from Toisan who wanted to pass for a better class in Guangzhou or Hong Kong dropped Toisanese and picked up Cantonese as if shedding soiled, ill-fitting, rough cotton work clothes for the blue silk garments of scholars and merchants.



And yet most of the first Chinese-American pioneers were Toisanese. Arriving in the 1850s to join the California Gold Rush, we stayed to build the first transcontinental railway from the west, while Irish immigrants built it from the east. Grimly, we stuck it out through the 1880s, a reign of terror of anti-Chinese legislation, anti-miscegenation laws, race riots, lynchings and torchings of Chinatowns up and down the West Coast. The horror of life for California’s Chinese residents was so unrelenting that it gave rise to a popular expression, “He didn’t have a Chinaman’s chance.” Beginning in the 1900s, we eventually settled into an uneasy, institutionalized “Jim Crow” segregation within the surviving Chinatowns.

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 the language of the Basques of the Pyrenees, the U’wa Indians of Colombia, and the Hawaiians with their islands, our tongue was inseparable from the mana or power of our homeland. Like these other peoples, the Toisanese and their dialect are unofficial and under-recognized. Our character is unpretentious and practical. We became tough-skinned to life’s difficulties, and focused with an incredible drive on family, land, home, education and abundance.

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! A week’s labor seeding a field will be lost unless all hands run to shore it up. The shout would boom and echo across the fields.

During World War II, Toisanese warnings were of destruction and death. “Danger! Danger! 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. Don’t come back tonight. Your life depends upon it.” In the land of Toisan, there were no excuses for failure. 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. It’s the language of overly clever merchants and prickly double-entendres from the social elite, spoken in urbane quarters while wearing clean, fashionable clothes, and cosseted by elegant manners. Its basis was politeness masking a withering wit, preferably while eloquently describing the subtle fragrances of this year’s harvest or that rare tea handpicked by monkeys from misty high cliffs.

But even the Cantonese appreciated that the ear-splitting, spitting Toisanese dialect is at its oratorical finest when one is being downright rude and insulting, especially when disgracing the bones of your ancestors. It soars even higher when salty and sexually graphic. You know you’ve been told off when you’d been tongue-lashed in Toisanese.

Although Chinese school was the start of my eventual acceptance of my Toisanese heritage, it initially confirmed for me the shame of my dialect. The Chinese school principal and teachers trucked no Toisanese. My first grade teacher, Ms. Wong from Hong Kong, enforced this linguistic reign of terror with a drumstick. Rap went the drumstick at the slightest offense. Speak Cantonese and leave Toisanese behind! Meanwhile, my mother tutored me with a Toisanese-accented attempt at Big City Cantonese. I often cringed, imagining Ms. Wong’s sharp correction of my recitals the next day.

In time, however, my Cantonese improved. I did well in my recitation and written exams. My frustration at my shameful Toisanese roots softened. And soon enough, my resistance to my jagged bicultural identity melted away. ∎


This post, an excerpt from the author’s memoir The Eighth Promise: A Toisan Son Pays Tribute to His Toisanese Mother, originally appeared on the Anthill and has been slightly edited for clarity and style. Header image by Carol M. Highsmith and in the public domain.


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Published by William Poy Lee

A third generation San Franciscan, William Poy Lee is an author, lawyer, business consultant and educator who has lived in China for over five years. His memoir The Eighth Promise: A Toisan Son Pays Tribute to His Toisanese Mother is a Toisanese-Californian coming of age story in America’s tumultuous 60s and 70s. View all posts by William Poy Lee

THE EIGHTH PROMISE by William Poy Lee

THE EIGHTH PROMISE 

by William Poy Lee | Kirkus Reviews

THE EIGHTH PROMISE
A Memoir
by William Poy Lee


KIRKUS REVIEW


Attorney and architect Lee’s meandering memoir about growing up in an immigrant family.

First-time author Lee opens with his mother’s story, charting her move from a traditional Toisanese village to San Francisco. His descriptions of his mother’s early life understandably feel a bit removed, and the pace picks up when Lee turns to his own childhood and adolescence. He was born in the U.S. and, as a teenager in the late 1960s, sporadically participated in politics. 

At Berkeley, Lee grappled with class lines in the Asian-American community—middle-class Asians didn’t invite working-class kids like him to their parties. In 1972, Lee’s brother Richard was implicated in the slaying of another man. Richard was eventually convicted of first-degree murder, although Lee suspected his brother was in fact the victim of a “well-orchestrated conspiracy.” 

The last quarter of the book recounts Lee’s dogged efforts to rescue his bother. He raised funds for Richard’s appeal, and even entered law school because he thought acquainting himself with the legal system might somehow help. 

The question of identity looms large in this plodding family narrative: What makes an American? How do Americans connect with their ancestral past? Traveling to Toisan in 1983 was the beginning of what Lee describes as “a slow reintegration of self.” As a first-generation American, he had always felt “as if I had been dropped out of the sky,” as if his American present and future had nothing to do with his parents’ past. The trip to Toisan helped bridge the gap. Lee’s prose is uninspired, and sometimes embarrassingly juvenile (a high school “Song and Yell” contest was “an orgasm of school spirit”). Throughout, the author weaves his mother’s own words, set off in italics; unfortunately, this seems gimmicky, and the constant veering from one voice to another is irksome rather than powerful.

Predictable, even trite.

-------

The Eighth Promise
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The Eighth Promise: An American Son's Tribute to His Toisanese Mother is a memoir written by William Poy Lee published in 2007 by Rodale Books. The paperback version was released October 2007. A translation into Mandarin Chinese is in development with the Chinese Professors of American language and Culture Studies.


Contents
1Plot synopsis
2Themes
3Awards and recognition
4References
5External links
Plot synopsis[edit]

The book interweaves a second generation Chinese American man's reflections on his upbringing in San Francisco in the 1960s and 70s with an oral history shared by his mother, Poy Jen, and her migration from Toisan, Guangdong.

The author's personal memoir is set against the background of San Francisco of the 1960s and 1970s. Lee reflects on his childhood in working class Chinatown, Chinese American participation in the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, and race relations through the era.

The oral histories begin in the Southern Chinese farming villages of Toisan, where Poy Jen was born in 1926. The author shares interviews conducted in his family's original Toisanese dialect, translated into English. Poy Jen makes her mother eight promises before she leaves war-torn China to join her husband in America in 1950.

Throughout the memoir, Lee traces the role of the promises in his own life and his mother's. The eighth promise serves as the thematic center of the book:


"It is the Eighth Promise -- to live with compassion toward all -- that I think of as the ever-living promise, the one for all of one's days. And this promise, this way -- perhaps arising to the level of a moral path -- strikes me as the distillation of all the wisdom of my kin."

Themes[edit]

The multiple levels of the narrative can be summarized as:
The author's personal story. As a memoir, the author talked about his humble origins, early education assimilation rites of passage and later activist involvement in high school and the Asian American movement. In later sections, he focused on his heartbreaking fight for his brother's right to a fair trial, when he was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life in the violent prisons of California.
The author's family story. Both his parents came from Toisan, a Southeastern village city in China's Pearl River Delta where thousands of people emigrated to North America from the 1850s through the twentieth century, originally as laborers and after the 1949 Communist assumption of power over mainland China, as refugees. 

His description of these Toisanese American pioneers succinctly sums up the history of these early Chinese Americans to the United States, a relatively unknown story of initial welcome, and later of ethnic cleansing as thousands were violently driven out from towns and cities throughout the West into a few urban enclaves that came to be known as Chinatowns.

San Francisco Chinatown’s evolution as a community with its capability of passing down positive traditions and providing institutional stability to its besieged community as well as its dark side of enforcing a Jim Crow system and as patrons and protectors of organized crime and of police and political bribery.

The author's defiance at being a stereotyped "model minority." After achieving goals in the corporate world as an international lawyer, the author reveals that he started to reflect on the meaning in life, the dual cultural tracks of his mother's Toisanese values and wisdom and of being a fully assimilated and successful American. He decided to write full-time and part of that included traveling back to China with his mother in 2000 to visit his ancestral village. The author now devotes part to his writing towards improving ethnic and cultural understanding between the two major cultures of America and China. Consequently, he spent three years finishing this book.

Awards and recognition[edit]

Media outlets such as NPR, Fora TV and universities such as University of Kansas have invited the author for speaking engagements and interviews. Although the book primarily depicts the life of a Chinese American, many of the most avid and vocal readers are from other ethnicities such as Hispanics and Italian Americans. In late October 2007, the book won the 2007 PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award for outstanding and original contribution to multicultural literature. The city of Ann Arbor, Michigan selected the book for its 2008 One city one book program, Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads.[1]

References[edit]

^ "Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads 2008: China and America: Bridging Two Worlds". Ann Arbor District Library. Retrieved 2008-05-03.
The Eighth Promise: An American Son's Tribute to His Toisanese Mother, William Poy Lee. Rodale Books, 2007, ISBN 978-1594864568

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William Poy Lee

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William P. Lee
Born	1951 (age 67–68) San Francisco
Occupation	Author, Political Activist
Language	English
Alma mater	University of California, Berkeley Hastings School of Law
Notable works	The Eighth Promise
Notable awards	PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award

William Poy Lee (Chinese: 李培湛) is an author and political activist currently living in Shanghai, China. His 2007 book The Eighth Promise is a memoir about two generations of Chinese Americans, in China and Chinatown, San Francisco.

Before becoming a writer, Mr. Lee worked as an international banking attorney and an advertising executive. Mr. Lee left the professional world and has traveled, lived and taught writing in China since 2008. As a political activist, his most recent endeavor is a website about Tibet, Tibet China Accuracy Project^[1]

References[edit]

1. ^ Kuai, James. "Insider Outsider: An Interview with Author William Poy Lee". University of Southern California. Retrieved 2013-03-10.

External links[edit]

• Author@Google, July 1, 2008: Intifada in SF Chinatown: The first modern Chinese American Civil Rights March - Summary of '68
• Author William Poy Lee Interview on NPR-KQED Forum

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Amazon Review
In the best-selling tradition of The Color of Water comes a beautifully written, evocative memoir of a relationship between a mother and son―and the Chinese-American experience

In The Eighth Promise, author William Poy Lee gives us a rare view of the Asian-American experience from a mother-son perspective. His moving and complex story of growing up in the housing projects of San Francisco's Chinatown in the 1960s and '70s unfolds in two voices―the author's own and that of his mother―to provide a sense of tradition and culture. It is a stunning tale of murder, injustice, fortitude, and survival. Already, this exquisitely wrought memoir is garnering rave notices.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly


Starred Review. While many immigrants are focused on assimilation, Lee's mother, Poy Jen Lee, came to America with a different agenda. In 1948, Poy Jen agreed to leave Suey Wan, her Toisan village in the Pearl River delta of China, to come to America as the wife of a Toisanese-American man. Before leaving, she made eight promises to her mother, among them that she'd find good husbands for her sisters and arrange immigration papers for her mother and brother; teach her children Chinese and Toisan customs, so they'd know their heritage; keep clan sisterhood strong; and cook traditional medicinal soups. The eighth promise bound Poy Jen to the fundamental Toisan ethos, "to live her life in complete compassion" for all people—her family, her Chun clan sisterhood and her larger community. In this remarkable memoir, mother and son, in alternating chapters, tell the story of their life in San Francisco's Chinatown from the 1950s to the present. Between American racism and power struggles in the Chinese community, it's a tribute to Toisan endurance that Poy Jen not only held her family together but also brought her children back to China to fortify their clan connection. Fans of Amy Tan and Maxine Hong Kingston shouldn't hesitate to embrace this formidable matriarch and the son she taught to cook her chi soups. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist


Born in San Francisco's Chinatown in 1951 to Chinese American parents, Lee attends Chinese-language school every day after his American school, and grows up with the handed-down teachings of his Toisanese (southeastern Chinese) mother embedded in his psyche. When he finally visits her ancestral village as an adult, he discovers the clan culture she has so faithfully described still thriving there. The women still carry out the marriage promises they made to their mothers, just as his mother did to her mother, especially the eighth and last promise: to live with compassion toward others. Upon his return he tapes 30 hours of conversation with his reminiscing mother, and intersperses his own words with her memories to create this enlightening, thought-provoking memoir. She shares centuries-old wedding traditions and soups to make strong, healthy offspring; he writes of getting involved in San Francisco's counterculture scene, including organizing the first Chinese American civil-rights march. Lee's story is part multigenerational saga and part tale of race-fueled political turmoil, fused with a refreshingly honest portrayal of a timeless mother-son bond. Deborah Donovan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review


“The Eighth Promise is the rare book that tells a story we have not heard before, yet poses questions that are eternal. Who are we, having left the land of our ancestors and settled among others similarly displaced? How do we find 'home' in the present when the past meant a thousand years in the same place? How do we honor parents--particularly our mothers--whose lives were the bridge that brought us safely to a more promising land? In this unusual, wise, insightful and healing memoir, William Lee Poy explores territory that reflects and intrigues us all.” —Alice Walker

“One of the very few books that completely conveys a life as lived from the inside and makes us as readers feel we are living it too.” —Gloria Steinem

“At once a family story, a political tale, a crucial piece of American history, a drama of betrayal and ultimate survival, The Eighth Promise promises to be a book that will be read by generations of readers.” —Kim Chernin, author of In My Mother's House

“In this remarkable memoir, mother and son, in alternating chapters, tell the story of their life in San Francisco's Chinatown from the 1950s to the present...Fans of Amy Tan and Maxine Hong Kingston shouldn't hesitate to embrace this formidable matriarch and the son she taught to cook her chi soups.” —Publishers Weekly starred review

“Peppered with wit and sarcasm, this gracefully told saga forgoes melodrama.” —Entertainment Weekly (Grade: A-)

“The Eighth Promise is a lively read and a significant contribution to the body of literature that continues to bubble up from the steaming cauldron that is the American immigrant experience.” —Salon.com

“Whatever our level of familiarity with the main ingredients of this story, it nevertheless continues to exert a powerful allure. After reading William Poy Lee's The Eighth Promise, we are reminded why: Each family has its own emotional landscapes, its own idiosyncrasies and neuroses. In the end, it is observing the way particular families respond to stress that makes such narratives so compelling.” —The San Francisco Chronicle

Read more
About the Author

WILLIAM POY LEE, formerly an architect and now a lawyer, lives in Berkeley, California. This is his first book.

21 customer reviews
Top Reviews

Gigi
5.0 out of 5 starsExcellent Life Lessons, Beautifully CraftedApril 8, 2015
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I have bought and shared more than a dozen copies of this book with friends and coworkers. The story is an amazing journey, full of life lessons. It's also a glimpse into the world of 1965 San Francisco, where Chinese-American relations with the politicians and people in power in San Francisco were tense. William Lee decides to interview his mother, to document the story about her life. In the self-effacing way, she says she has no story to tell. She says her life is uninteresting and boring. But William presses on and what unfolds is rich, touching, and original. It's a story that is full of authenticity, exposing the struggles faced by first and second generation Chinese immigrants who sacrificed greatly to come to America. It showed how the Taoanese Sisterhood method of "Talking in Round" crossed the ocean and brought understanding and solutions to discordant situations in the city and to racial problems in the prisons. It's a beautifully crafted piece and the eight promises are excellent guides. I work in the field of collaborative divorce and see this as an excellent tool for resolution of conflict.

2 people found this helpful

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RockawayRa
5.0 out of 5 starsA real five star gemApril 26, 2007
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

I was referred to this book by a Chinese American friend, and I just loved it. Since I live in San Francisco, I was very interested in the fascinating history of early Chinatown with sad parts about corrupt politics and gang violence, the latter taking a personal toll on the author's family. The most fascinating part, however, had to do with Lee's mother, a remarkable Toisan female leader. His realization of her unique leadership of the community, and the values of the Toisan clan were moving and important. I must say that I have been referring the book to everyone I know, Asian or not. It was a moving book that I really enjoyed.

6 people found this helpful

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Andrew L. Yee Jr.
5.0 out of 5 starsA Thoughtful Insight into Our CultureAugust 10, 2008
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This was one of the most thoughtful personal readings that I have read in a long time. It gives insight into our culture as we know it. Many of us, myself included, have had one or both parents come to the U.S. from Hong Kong area. As children we may have not fully understood what they were trying to impart regarding their experiences growing up. Yet we held on to these oral histories. It is refreshing to see that someone has chosen to reduce the oral histories to written stories and share with others. I found that there is re-affirmation,common experiences and comfort in this book. It was well worth the read and is worth re-reading. Thank you.

2 people found this helpful

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Randy
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat book for a bookclubMay 2, 2007
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

I read this book with my bookclub. The hostess knew William and invited him to join us, so we had the pleasure of meeting the author! He is extremely interesting and articulate. His book is a fabulous journey of discovery. The stories his mother tells are truly amazing. The manner in which he presents the 2 different voices is extremely successful, alternating between his story and his mother's. The culture of Southern China, which formed the basis for his mother's story, is inspiring. The 8 promises (and especially the 8th) are equally applicable to today's world and would change the world if everyone allowed themselves to follow them! Don't miss this book.

8 people found this helpful

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Linda L. McGlothlin
3.0 out of 5 starsalso the parts where his mother was speaking were my favorite. howeverJuly 28, 2017
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

very interesting details of Chinatown in san fran in 60's and 70's , also the parts where his mother was speaking were my favorite. however ,mr lee seems to have written an ode to himself rather than his mother.


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Yu Kinwei
3.0 out of 5 starsconfused ABCJanuary 13, 2011
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I am of the same generation as the author and an ABC, American Born Chinese, as well. I grew up in a Hoisan household,not in the complex and rich world of SF's Chinatown. My sisters and I had to suffer the isolation of life in Pittsburgh among approximately a hundred other Hoisanese immigrants and their children.
While the account of the author's brother was tragic and revealing about the political climate of San Francisco at that time. What really made me wonder was the idyllic recollection of his household and relationship with his mother. Any Hoisanese worthy of his "hom ngui" (salted fish)can recall the horrible insults, put-downs and threats that were common such as in my house by our mother. Perhaps he was one of the lucky ones?
I don't know?

Getting Centrelink while homeless? - Jobs

Getting Centrelink while homeless? - Jobs






Getting Centrelink while homeless?

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Showlr93
I'm new here, please be nice
ref: whrl.pl/RdT9L9
posted 2014-Mar-18, 7:47 pm AEST
O.P.

Hey guys,

I've been in a bit of a depressing situation. I'm 20, and lost my job in early Jan and have been aggressively applying for every job I've seen that required my experience or no experience at all and have struggled. I'm good with interviews and usually I always get the job during first contact... But for the first time ever everything is just not going too well.
I have 2k credit card debt from paying myself through school and only three digits left in my account with no income at all and no support from anyone. Long long story short I was abused as a kid by my parents which led to suicide attempts at a very young age and now with ptsd, and now I just can't even look at them. After losing my job I had to move back, I don't talk to them I just climb through the window of my bed room and just lock myself in it while looking for work while every now and then sneaking out to use the bathroom when no ones home.
I eat whatever I can find for less than $2, usually once a day and its mostly junk like a packet of dorito's. I went out and got help last year, and for the first time I talked to someone that wasn't a friend about my problems, and was told that it wasn't anything clinical just a result from traumatic experiences and was told I should move out and stay away from the toxic environment.
I can't get centrelink because I need my parents tax assessment, and they won't give it to me. So then I tried applying for parents unable to exercise their responsibilities but was told by a phone CSR that they need to be in a more serious situation like being in prison to be eligible for it. I asked about unable to live at home, and was told I'd have to be homeless to apply for that.
So I've determined that, that is probably my only option. Unless there is another way? I'm running out of money, and barely can afford food, I apply for at least 10+ jobs a day, rejected from 2 interviews, and just no responses from the rest.
I'm giving it 2 weeks before going homeless.
But I'm wondering how exactly getting centrelink works as a homeless person? Do I just walk into centrelink and apply? Would it be safe to keep documents with me as a homeless person?


Fickle Guy©
Whirlpool Forums Addict
ref: whrl.pl/RdT9Ov
posted 2014-Mar-18, 7:58 pm AEST


I am sorry to hear about your unfortunate recent times.

You wouldn't need to be homeless to qualify for a payment, given your age you should be eligible for youth allowance and if you live AWAY from your parents house, their assets shouldn't be taken into consideration.

http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/enablers/centrelink/youth-allowance/income-assets-test

Also you should consult a Centrelink employee (again) to explain your situation, hopefully you could get a payment for extreme hardship.

totallyfree
Section Moderator
ref: whrl.pl/RdT9Pr
posted 2014-Mar-18, 8:01 pm AEST


You have a few options, but all of them involve going to Centrelink and using the phone there.

Ideally you want to make a claim for Youth Allowance Job Seeker with an Unable to Live at Home Assessment. I don't know how this would work if you're still 'living' at home... but it can be done if you're homeless.

You also should be applying for a low income health care card (do this first – it can be processed in the office for urgent cases) as most charitable organisations that can help you require a concession card.
Form is here:
http://www.humanservices.gov.au/spw/customer/forms/resources/ss050-1401.pdf
Or the office will have a paper copy – but have a look at the PDF to see what you'll need to provide evidence wise.

You also want to speak with a Social Worker I'm guessing? They are either in office or over the phone can assist with some local referrals to welfare agencies – I'm guessing food and accommodation are your primary concerns?

You'll need 100 points of ID (drivers licence, medicare card, bank card) and I'd also get a statement of your bank accounts from your last day of work – your bank can bring a black and white transaction list for free if you can't get it at 'home'.

Additionally, as soon as you present your ID also ask to be registered for level 3 online services and phone services. You'll get a temp online password and a temp PIN – go straight over to the self service area and set both of these up.

Ultimately what all of this *should* lead to is
a. an urgent assessment of your claim INCLUDING an unable to live at home assessment
b. waiver of the ordinary one week waiting period
c. urgent processing of the health care card (issued with a temp card in the office)
d. activation of full online services (to get your mail online) and phone self service

I'd also suggest that as soon as you get your first payment you possibly set up a PO box ($107/year) that will give you a fixed postal address to receive mail. I'm guessing you don't want your parents to get your mail? Additionally, if Centrelink gets a returned to sender letter your payment may be cancelled due to whereabouts unknown.

Bigreader
Whirlpool Forums Addict
ref: whrl.pl/RdT9Qe
posted 2014-Mar-18, 8:05 pm AEST


Ok I'm sending you virtual support. You are in a tough spot.

As tough as it is where you are is better than homeless. But regard it as a stepping stone.

Tomorrow you need to seek out the homeless services in your area. Google them – they will be run by the salvos or Anglicare or brother of st Lawrence or Oz child etc.

There will also be mental health services also. They often work out of the local hospital so start there.

One of the above should help you with a case worker. The case worker will then help you with centrelink.

In the mean time churches and the salvos will help you out with food.

Go and see them in person rather than ringing or emailing.

Yvonne P
Forum Regular
ref: whrl.pl/RdT9Qm
posted 2014-Mar-18, 8:06 pm AEST


Hello,
I have actually been in your situation and been fighting homelessness for 4 years.

Here is a small plan, find a place thats rents single single rooms.

Apply for centrelink WITHOUT rent assistance and mark that you live there. They will give you access to online resources so dont worry about mail.

Once you have payment move in THEN add rent assistance.

*there are a few places here and there that rent single rooms for reasonable prices.

totallyfree
Section Moderator
ref: whrl.pl/RdT9Rm
posted 2014-Mar-18, 8:11 pm AEST


Lydia Bewley writes...

They will give you access to online resources so dont worry about mail.

Some forms, confirmation letters are still sent via paper mail. Having worked for Centrelink, one of the biggest problems for them is the address they have listed – returned mail, mail going missing, being assigned the wrong office due to incorrect address etc.

Given that the OP is going to be transient I'd recommend a PO box if there is no one/where else they can trust with their mail.


Yvonne P
Forum Regular
ref: whrl.pl/RdT9RQ
posted 2014-Mar-18, 8:13 pm AEST


totallyfree writes...

Given that the OP is going to be transient I'd recommend a PO box if there is no one/where else they can trust with their mail.

I would have said PO box, BUT he might not have any money to start one.

totallyfree
Section Moderator
ref: whrl.pl/RdT9Wn
posted 2014-Mar-18, 8:23 pm AEST


Lydia Bewley writes...

I would have said PO box, BUT he might not have any money to start one.

Which is why I said after first payment. It's not the first priority, but if the OP is going to be (potentially) moving between hostels, budget accom etc then a fixed mailing address can be a godsend.

S2Broadband
Whirlpool Enthusiast
ref: whrl.pl/RdT93w
posted 2014-Mar-18, 8:53 pm AEST


Showlr93 writes...

I'm 20... But for the first time ever everything is just not going too well.

Hehe, that part made me laugh. :)

But I'm wondering how exactly getting centrelink works as a homeless person? Do I just walk into centrelink and apply?

Yes. They will be able to help you. There are even emergency advances for people in your situation. Go in. Explain your situation. Ask for help.

Would it be safe to keep documents with me as a homeless person?

I don't think homelessness and safety have a whole lot to do with one another.

Scandalicious
Whirlpool Forums Addict
ref: whrl.pl/RdT931
posted 2014-Mar-18, 8:55 pm AEST


totallyfree writes...

Some forms, confirmation letters are still sent via paper mail.

The only letters I receive from centrelink are for my HCC. OP, do you have a trusted friend who would be willing to collect your mail at their place for you?

JJthejetplane
Whirlpool Forums Addict
ref: whrl.pl/RdT94P
posted 2014-Mar-18, 8:58 pm AEST


Sorry to hear about all these issues OP at such a young age. I reckon you should make an appointment to see a centrelink social worker at a branch or ring and ask for a social worker at the call centre. They have experience with claimants that don't no fixed address or unable to live at home etc.

ttoks
Participant
ref: whrl.pl/RdVaqJ
posted 2014-Mar-18, 10:53 pm AEST


I actually think you may be in some trouble, depending on that family situation.

My now wife was homeless at 15, and due to being homeless, found it almost impossible to gain centerlink, because, she was told, she had to have a residential address to be eligible for any sort of payment, she was homeless for 3 months before finding somewhere to bored (housework in exchange for a roof over her head) and was then able to get onto centerlink.

brad-corp
Whirlpool Forums Addict
ref: whrl.pl/RdVb8f
posted 2014-Mar-19, 1:12 pm AEST


http://www.homelessnessnsw.org.au/

I'm from QLD, so not sure how good this service is, but call them in the morning. Advise them that you can no longer live with your parents, are actively job seeking and require assistance with accessing housing. They should be able to put you in contact with a youth support service that can assist with short term/temp housing (this will probably not be very good) and a case worker to assist you with your job hunting, centrelink issues and what not. If you demonstrate to them that you are working hard to get your life right, they will work hard to help you.

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