Siyi

{{Short description|Four former counties in Guangdong, China}} {{Other uses}} {{Infobox Chinese |title=Sze Yup |pic=Location of Siyi within Guangdong China.png |piccap=Top: Location of Sze Yup (pink) within the province of Guangdong (gray) |c=四邑 |p=Sìyì |w=Ssu⁴-i⁴ |mi={{IPAc-cmn|si|4|yi|4}} |toi=ɬi33 yip55 |l=Four counties |y=Seiyāp |j=sei3 jap1 |c2=五邑 |p2=Wǔyì |y2=Nghyāp |j2=ng5 jap1 |l2=Five counties}}

The '''Siyi''' ('''Seiyap''' or '''Sze Yup''' in [[Cantonese]]; {{lang-zh|c=四邑|p=Sìyì|j=sei3 jap1|l=Four Counties}}) refers to the four former counties of [[Xinhui]] (Sunwui), [[Taishan, Guangdong|Taishan]] (Toisan), [[Kaiping]] (Hoiping) and [[Enping]] (Yanping) on the west side of the [[Pearl River Delta]] in Southern [[Guangdong|Guangdong Province]], China.<ref>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.”</ref><ref>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...”</ref>

==Geography== One of the early descriptions of the land came from the American missionary, [[William Speer (minister)|William Speer]], who lived there around 1850 and observed: "Towns embowered in [[bamboo]], a species of [[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."<ref name="Speer 1870">{{cite book |last1=Speer |first1=William |title=The oldest and the newest empire: China and the United States |date=1870 |publisher=S. S. Scranton & Co. |location=Pittsburgh, PA: Robert S. Davis & Co. (1877) |pages=1–681 |url=http://library.logcollegepress.com/Speer%2C+William%2C+The+Oldest+and+Newest+Empire+China+and+the+United+States.pdf}}</ref>{{rp|472}}

[[Xinhui]] is a city district and the other three are county-level cities; all four belong to [[Jiangmen|Jiangmen Prefecture]] administered from the city of [[Jiangmen]]. An alternative term, Wuyi ({{lang-zh|c={{linktext|五|邑}}|p=Wǔyì}}, [[Cantonese]]: {{lang-zh|l=five counties|j=Ng5 Yap1|labels=no}}), which refers to the five former counties of Xinhui, [[Taishan, Guangdong|Taishan]], [[Kaiping]] and [[Enping]] as well as [[Heshan, Guangdong|Heshan]], 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]].

==Dialects== The area gave rise to the [[Siyi Yue|Siyi dialects]], the most prominent of which is [[Taishanese]] (Toisanese/Hoisanese). Although Siyi and [[Cantonese]] both belong to the [[Yue Chinese|Yue branch]] of Chinese, Cantonese speakers cannot easily understand Siyi dialect.<ref>{{Citation | last = Szeto | first = Cecilia | year = 2001 | chapter = Testing intelligibility among Sinitic dialects | title = Proceedings of ALS2k, the 2000 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society | editor1-first = Keith | editor1-last = Allan | editor2-first = John | editor2-last = Henderson | chapter-url = http://www.als.asn.au/proceedings/als2000/szeto.pdf | access-date = 5 Jan 2014 }}</ref><ref>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."</ref><ref>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"</ref>

==Emigration== {{see also|Chinese emigration}} [[File:Num Pon Soon Melbourne.jpg|thumb|The Num Pon Soon building in [[Chinatown, Melbourne]]. The Num Pon Soon Society is a district society, a benevolent association aimed at supporting Siyi immigrants to [[Melbourne]] during the [[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]], [[Australasia]], North America and South America. Of the [[Chinese American]] population from that time until the 1950s, Sze Yup accounted for the vast majority, about 80%, along with people from [[Sanyi|Sanyi (Sam Yup)]] and [[Zhongshan|Zhongshan (Chung Shan)]].<ref name="pan">{{cite book|last1=Pan|first1=Lynn|author-link=Lynn Pan|title=[[The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas]]|date=1999|publisher=Harvard University Press|location=Cambridge, MA|isbn=0674252101|page=36}}</ref>

In America, people from Sze Yup generally worked as laborers; Sam Yup people worked as entrepreneurs; and Chung Shan people specialized in agriculture.<ref>{{cite book|title=Making of the American West: People and Perspectives|editor1-first=Peter|editor1-last=Mancall|editor2-first=Benjamin Heber|editor2-last=Johnson|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2007|chapter=Asians and Asian Americans in the West|first=Lisa|last=Hsia|pages=161–187}}</ref> The [[Punti–Hakka Clan Wars]] also erupted in the Sze Yup counties just prior to this time period of emigration.<ref>[http://www.apex.net.au/~jgk/taishan/phcwar.html Punti-Hakka Clan Wars and Taishan County] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070910212104/http://www.apex.net.au/%7Ejgk/taishan/phcwar.html |date=2007-09-10 }}</ref> In 1851, two ''Wui Gun'' (''huiguan''; {{lang-zh|t=會館||s=会馆|first=t|p=huìguǎn|j=wui⁶gun²}})<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/huiguan|title=Huiguan|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica |access-date=2 February 2018}}</ref> (native place associations) were established in [[San Francisco]]: the ''Sze Yup Wui Gun'' and the ''[[Sanyi|Sam Yup]] Wui Gun''.<ref>{{cite book|title=East Asian Americans and Political Participation: A Reference Handbook|url=https://archive.org/details/eastasianamerica00chit|url-access=registration|first=Tsung|last=Chi|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2005|page=[https://archive.org/details/eastasianamerica00chit/page/65 65]|isbn=9781576072905 }}</ref> 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.<ref name="pan" />

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]] in [[Chikan, Kaiping|Chekham]] and [[diaolou]] in [[Kaiping|Hoiping]] and [[Taishan, Guangdong|Toishan]] built in the early 20th century incorporate architectural features from both China and the West.<ref name="pan2">{{cite book|last1=Pan|first1=Lynn|title=The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas|date=1999|publisher=Harvard University Press|location=Cambridge, MA|isbn=0674252101|pages=28–29}}</ref>

Notable people: * Chen Xian Zhang ({{lang|zh-Hant|陳獻章}}): scholar of Ming dynasty * [[Liang Qichao]] ({{lang|zh-Hant|梁啓超}}): scholar of early modern China * Wu Xiang Shi ({{lang|zh-Hant|吳尚時}}; 1904–1947): geographer * [[Gary Locke|Gary Faye Locke]] ({{lang|zh-Hant|駱家輝}}): Chinese American, a politician, his ancestral hometown is Taishan City * [[Joey Yung]] ({{lang|zh-Hant|容祖兒}}): female singer of Hong Kong * [[Andy Lau]] ({{lang|zh-Hant|劉德華}}): male singer and actor of Hong Kong * [[Anutin Charnvirakul]] (陳錫堯): 32nd Prime Minister of Thailand

==Popular culture== [[Mark Twain]] references the See Yup Company, and the Ning Yeong Company, in ''[[Roughing It]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Twain |first1=Mark |title=Roughing It |date=1994 |publisher=The reader's Digest Association, Inc. |location=Pleasantville |isbn=0895776286 |pages=261–266}}</ref>

== See also == *[[Sanyi]] *[[Yue Chinese]]

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== * [http://www.chia.chinesemuseum.com.au/biogs/CH00027b.htm See Yup Society temple] in [[South Melbourne, Victoria]]

{{Guangdong topics}}

[[Category:Siyi| ]] [[Category:Historical regions of Asia]]