Chaoshan · History and culture
Five ways into Chaoshan: from administration to dialect
96 pieces in five routes. History and geography cover where people came from and what houses they built; the ritual year and rites cover how a year passes; heritage and crafts cover the work of hands; dialect and performance cover how people speak and how opera is played.
The four routes need not be read in order. To see how festivals are kept, go straight to the ritual year; to learn where Chaoshan people came from, go to history and geography. The two meet on the same matter — a god parade belongs both to the ritual year and to belief — and at that meeting they give links, not duplicate text.
Four routes and one feature
History and geographyFrom administrative change to how a house is built
Eight pieces: how Qing prefectures and counties were drawn, where migrants came from, how remittance letters travelled after emigration, and the two house types, sidianjin and xiashanhu.
History and geographyAdministrative historyMigration and remittance lettersRemittance lettersHouses and settlementsSidianjinXiashanhuZhanglin old port and red-headed junks
The ritual year and ritesHow a year passes, how a life passes
44 pieces: nine on the ritual year by month, four on rites in the order of a life, plus belief, banquet tables, kinship terms, the god-parade calendar and dress.
The ritual yearSpring Festival in ChaoshanLantern Festival and god paradesQingming tomb sweepingDragon Boat FestivalThe seventh of the seventh monthThe Yulan festivalMid-AutumnTile-kiln burningWinter solstice and solstice ballsRites of lifeChuhuayuan, coming of ageTraditional marriage ritesTraditional birthday ritesFuneral ritesFolk belief and god paradesYing LaoyeSanshan GuowangBanquet tablesTable ritesKinship termsGod-parade calendar
Heritage and craftsHow the work of hands is done
Twelve pieces: seven crafts — Chaoxiu embroidery, porcelain inlay, wood carving, Fengxi porcelain, Dawu clay figures, paper cutting and festival lanterns — plus three sub-entries on dress and embroidery and one heritage list. Each records its steps: wood carving runs select, rough out, refine, lacquer and gild; porcelain inlay runs form the core, cut the shards, set them, point the joints.
Heritage listChaoxiuChaozhou porcelain inlayChaozhou wood carvingFengxi porcelain and hand-pulled teapotsDawu clay figuresChaozhou paper cuttingChaozhou lanternsTraditional dress and ritual embroideryDaju blouseWedding red skirt and ceremonial embroidered dressDeity robes and gold-thread embroidery
Dialect and performanceHow the talk is spoken, how the opera is played
31 pieces: how Teochew is transcribed, thirty dialect words compared, and five performing arts — Teochew opera, Chaozhou music, song books, Yingge and rod puppetry.
Dialect and performanceTeochewTeochew compared with standard ChineseTeochew operaChaozhou musicChaozhou song booksYinggeChaozhou rod puppetry
FeatureOne thing, explained fully
One piece: Letters to Grandma follows remittance letters and matches each location to a real place in Jieyang, Shantou and Chaozhou.
Three things to know before reading
Nine entries on the year, built on the gazetteer
The nine entries — Spring Festival, Lantern Festival, Qingming, Dragon Boat, the seventh night, Yulan, Mid-Autumn, tile-kiln burning and the winter solstice — are built on the customs section of the prefectural gazetteer as quoted in the Gujin Tushu Jicheng. Present practice and old record are kept apart, so a reader can tell which line is the gazetteer and which is still done today. Where the gazetteer is silent, nothing is filled in from elsewhere.
One county, one custom: never merged into a single Chaoshan folklore
The seven counties — Haiyang, Chaoyang, Jieyang, Raoping, Chenghai, Puning, Huilai — keep the same festival differently. Entries give county differences in their own paragraph; anything marked pending has no county gazetteer behind it yet, and no neighbouring county’s practice is used to fill the gap. This is where this site differs most from most introductions.
Heritage listed only where a document exists
Heritage list Only the lists published by the State Council and Guangdong are used, with batch, year, number and applicant region recorded as published. Chaoxiu and Yingge entered the first national list in 2006; inlay entered the second in 2008, applied for by Shantou. Old crafts without a published document stay out of the list and are described on the craft pages instead.
Where to go next
For places, go to Destinations; for people and sources, go to Chaoshan Wiki; food has its own section under Chaoshan food.