# Siyi

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Four former counties in Guangdong, China

For other uses, see [Siyi (disambiguation)](/source/Siyi_(disambiguation)).

Sze Yup Top: Location of Sze Yup (pink) within the province of Guangdong (gray) Chinese 四邑 Literal meaning Four counties Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Sìyì Wade–Giles Ssu4-i4 IPA [sɹ̩̂î] Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Seiyāp Jyutping sei3 jap1 other Yue Taishanese ɬi33 yip55 Alternative Chinese name Chinese 五邑 Literal meaning Five counties Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Wǔyì Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Nghyāp Jyutping ng5 jap1

The **Siyi** (**Seiyap** or **Sze Yup** in [Cantonese](/source/Cantonese); [Chinese](/source/Chinese_language): 四邑; [pinyin](/source/Pinyin): *Sìyì*; [Jyutping](/source/Jyutping): *sei3 jap1*; lit. 'Four Counties') refers to the four former counties of [Xinhui](/source/Xinhui) (Sunwui), [Taishan](/source/Taishan%2C_Guangdong) (Toisan), [Kaiping](/source/Kaiping) (Hoiping) and [Enping](/source/Enping) (Yanping) on the west side of the [Pearl River Delta](/source/Pearl_River_Delta) in Southern [Guangdong Province](/source/Guangdong), China.[1][2]

## Geography

One of the early descriptions of the land came from the American missionary, [William Speer](/source/William_Speer_(minister)), who lived there around 1850 and observed: "Towns embowered in [bamboo](/source/Bamboo), a species of [banyan](/source/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."[3]: 472

[Xinhui](/source/Xinhui) is a city district and the other three are county-level cities; all four belong to [Jiangmen Prefecture](/source/Jiangmen) administered from the city of [Jiangmen](/source/Jiangmen). An alternative term, Wuyi ([Chinese](/source/Chinese_language): [五](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BA%94)[邑](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%82%91); [pinyin](/source/Pinyin): *Wǔyì*, [Cantonese](/source/Cantonese): *Ng5 Yap1*; 'five counties'), which refers to the five former counties of Xinhui, [Taishan](/source/Taishan%2C_Guangdong), [Kaiping](/source/Kaiping) and [Enping](/source/Enping) as well as [Heshan](/source/Heshan%2C_Guangdong), 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](/source/Jiangmen_Star_Park).

## Dialects

The area gave rise to the [Siyi dialects](/source/Siyi_Yue), the most prominent of which is [Taishanese](/source/Taishanese) (Toisanese/Hoisanese). Although Siyi and [Cantonese](/source/Cantonese) both belong to the [Yue branch](/source/Yue_Chinese) of Chinese, Cantonese speakers cannot easily understand Siyi dialect.[4][5][6]

## Emigration

See also: [Chinese emigration](/source/Chinese_emigration)

The Num Pon Soon building in [Chinatown, Melbourne](/source/Chinatown%2C_Melbourne). The Num Pon Soon Society is a district society, a benevolent association aimed at supporting Siyi immigrants to [Melbourne](/source/Melbourne) during the [Victorian gold rush](/source/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](/source/Southeast_Asia), [Australasia](/source/Australasia), North America and South America. Of the [Chinese American](/source/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)](/source/Sanyi) and [Zhongshan (Chung Shan)](/source/Zhongshan).[7]

In America, people from Sze Yup generally worked as laborers; Sam Yup people worked as entrepreneurs; and Chung Shan people specialized in agriculture.[8] The [Punti–Hakka Clan Wars](/source/Punti%E2%80%93Hakka_Clan_Wars) also erupted in the Sze Yup counties just prior to this time period of emigration.[9] In 1851, two *Wui Gun* (*huiguan*; [traditional Chinese](/source/Traditional_Chinese_characters): 會館; [simplified Chinese](/source/Simplified_Chinese_characters): 会馆; [pinyin](/source/Pinyin): *huìguǎn*; [Jyutping](/source/Jyutping): *wui6gun2*)[10] (native place associations) were established in [San Francisco](/source/San_Francisco): the *Sze Yup Wui Gun* and the *[Sam Yup](/source/Sanyi) Wui Gun*.[11] 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.[7]

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](/source/Tong_lau) in [Chekham](/source/Chikan%2C_Kaiping) and [diaolou](/source/Diaolou) in [Hoiping](/source/Kaiping) and [Toishan](/source/Taishan%2C_Guangdong) built in the early 20th century incorporate architectural features from both China and the West.[12]

Notable people:

- Chen Xian Zhang (陳獻章): scholar of Ming dynasty

- [Liang Qichao](/source/Liang_Qichao) (梁啓超): scholar of early modern China

- Wu Xiang Shi (吳尚時; 1904–1947): geographer

- [Gary Faye Locke](/source/Gary_Locke) (駱家輝): Chinese American, a politician, his ancestral hometown is Taishan City

- [Joey Yung](/source/Joey_Yung) (容祖兒): female singer of Hong Kong

- [Andy Lau](/source/Andy_Lau) (劉德華): male singer and actor of Hong Kong

- [Anutin Charnvirakul](/source/Anutin_Charnvirakul) (陳錫堯): 32nd Prime Minister of Thailand

## Popular culture

[Mark Twain](/source/Mark_Twain) references the See Yup Company, and the Ning Yeong Company, in *[Roughing It](/source/Roughing_It)*.[13]

## See also

- [Sanyi](/source/Sanyi)

- [Yue Chinese](/source/Yue_Chinese)

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-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.”

1. **[^](#cite_ref-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...”

1. **[^](#cite_ref-Speer_1870_3-0)** Speer, William (1870). [*The oldest and the newest empire: China and the United States*](http://library.logcollegepress.com/Speer%2C+William%2C+The+Oldest+and+Newest+Empire+China+and+the+United+States.pdf) (PDF). Pittsburgh, PA: Robert S. Davis & Co. (1877): S. S. Scranton & Co. pp. 1–681.{{[cite book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Cite_book)}}: CS1 maint: location ([link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:CS1_maint:_location))

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** Szeto, Cecilia (2001), ["Testing intelligibility among Sinitic dialects"](http://www.als.asn.au/proceedings/als2000/szeto.pdf) (PDF), in Allan, Keith; Henderson, John (eds.), *Proceedings of ALS2k, the 2000 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society*, retrieved 5 Jan 2014

1. **[^](#cite_ref-5)** 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."

1. **[^](#cite_ref-6)** 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"

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-pan_7-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-pan_7-1) [Pan, Lynn](/source/Lynn_Pan) (1999). *[The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas](/source/The_Encyclopedia_of_the_Chinese_Overseas)*. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 36. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [0674252101](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0674252101).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-8)** 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.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-9)** [Punti-Hakka Clan Wars and Taishan County](http://www.apex.net.au/~jgk/taishan/phcwar.html) [Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20070910212104/http://www.apex.net.au/%7Ejgk/taishan/phcwar.html) 2007-09-10 at the [Wayback Machine](/source/Wayback_Machine)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-10)** ["Huiguan"](https://www.britannica.com/topic/huiguan). *Encyclopedia Britannica*. Retrieved 2 February 2018.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-11)** Chi, Tsung (2005). [*East Asian Americans and Political Participation: A Reference Handbook*](https://archive.org/details/eastasianamerica00chit). ABC-CLIO. p. [65](https://archive.org/details/eastasianamerica00chit/page/65). [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [9781576072905](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9781576072905).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-pan2_12-0)** Pan, Lynn (1999). *The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas*. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. pp. 28–29. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [0674252101](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0674252101).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-13)** Twain, Mark (1994). *Roughing It*. Pleasantville: The reader's Digest Association, Inc. pp. 261–266. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [0895776286](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0895776286).

## External links

- [See Yup Society temple](http://www.chia.chinesemuseum.com.au/biogs/CH00027b.htm) in [South Melbourne, Victoria](/source/South_Melbourne%2C_Victoria)

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Siyi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siyi) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siyi?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.