Hoklo

Growing up in the countryside of Tainan County, the village was almost entirely populated by Hoklo people, with no Hakkas, no mainlanders, and even less chance of aborigines settling there.

Today Hualien is a city of 110,000, unique in having almost equal numbers of Hakka, Hoklo, mainlander and aboriginal citizens: the last group are primarily Atayal and Ami.

From our friends and others, we gathered the following information concerning the number of inhabitants. Malays 6000, Bugis 5000, Fuhkeën and other Chinese 100 families, Hok-lo 1000 families, Khĕh 500 families.

It lies on the borders of the Hok-lo, and the Hakka or Kheh (or they call themselves Khah) populuation, Hok-lo is the name given to those who speak Tie Chew.

There are a few districts west of Macao where the Hakka and Hoklo population had dwindled down from 600,000 to 30,000, exclusive of the Punti slain in battles, starved, or sold into slavery.

Later on, a third class of natives, speaking another dialect (Tiehchiu, or Swatow dialect), settled at Shaukiwan, Tokwawan, Hunghom and Yaumati. These people, generally called Hoklos, were all seafaring men, bolder in character than either Hakkas or Puntis, and specially addicted to smuggling and piracy. Among all the pirates on the coast, these Hoklos were most dreaded on account of their ferocious and daring deeds.

One of the Hoklo elders (born in 1885) was by descent a Punti from Dapeng City, in eastern Xin'an; but, living among Hoklos and sharing the same occupation (a sea fisherman), and with a Hoklo mother and wife, he, the first settler's grandson, had become one with them, regarding the Hoklo dialect as his natural speech.

The revivalists’ goal is not only to keep Hoklo alive, but also to make it capable of challenging the hegemony of Mandarin Chinese as the officially defined "national language." For revivalists who advocate the complete alphabetization of Hoklo, traditional Chinese characters represent antiquated, unwholesome “feudalism,” and by contrast, the romanization system is a symbol of modernity. Using phonetic script to write Hoklo, they believe, will not only facilitate the felicitous expression of the Hoklo Taiwanese mind, but would also grant the less-ducated an easier access to various kinds of modern knowledge.

Huang, 45, was born in Sanhsia in Taipei County, but grew up in Taipei City speaking Mandarin and Hoklo (more commonly known as Taiwanese).