What will Chinese living in Southeast Asia do when they visit Tomb-Sweeping Day?
The migration between China and this region has a long history, which can be traced back to around 1 century. However, mass migration began in the late Ming Dynasty and continued until the establishment of People's Republic of China (PRC). We usually talk about going to South Asia, which is also the immigration during these hundreds of years. According to statistics, during the 300 years from17th century to 20th century, the cumulative number of immigrants exceeded10 million. In the past few hundred years, there have been two high tides in Lower Nanyang.
The first climax appeared in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. With the demise of the Ming dynasty, a large number of remnants of the Ming army and adherents of the Ming dynasty were forced to move to Nanyang because of defeat or life. For example, in the Qingyunting Temple in Malacca, it is recorded that Li Weijing "left China Southern Airlines because of the vicissitudes of Ji Guozuo in the Ming Dynasty and hung his car in this country", which belongs to this category. After these immigrants entered the Nanyang society, they combined with the Chinese who had already lived in Nanyang and pretended to be adherents of the Ming Dynasty, forming a relatively stable Chinese community. While working in the local area to make a living, it is also inextricably linked with the anti-Qing movement in the homeland. For example, after the failure of the Heaven and Earth Society Uprising in the early Qing Dynasty, a part of Hong Men was founded in Nanyang, which was the representative of this kind of society. For a long time, these adherents of the Ming Dynasty who lived alone overseas even adopted a title called "Dragonfly" to express their hope for the revival of the former dynasty, and at the same time, it was also a kind of strengthening of their own and future generations' identity.
Qingyun Pavilion in Malacca
The second climax appeared in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, mainly targeting the poor who went out to work. During this period, China's national conditions were declining and wars were frequent. A large number of poor people in the southeast coast who can't live in their native land choose to seek opportunities overseas.
Stills of TV series "Lower Nanyang"
The causes of the migrant workers' tide in Lower Nanyang are 18 and19th century. With the development of Nanyang in the Netherlands, Britain and other countries, there is a large shortage of local labor. So these European colonists put their ideas on China. They have introduced a series of preferential policies, including giving land, free food and salt, temporary housing and so on, to attract China people to work. At that time, Guangdong and Fujian were vast and sparsely populated, and land annexation was also very serious at the end of feudal society, which made life very difficult for a large number of people at the bottom. Seeing that foreigners offered good conditions, they boarded a cargo ship bound for Nanyang. At the beginning, the concessions promised by foreigners were basically implemented. However, with the decline of the Qing government, the situation of Chinese workers went from bad to worse, and eventually they became "pigs" and were bullied by others.
2. Foreign land and hometown: A large number of Nanyang Chinese from Tomb-Sweeping Day have poured into Nanyang society, which not only brought sufficient labor force, but also brought cultural customs of their hometown, of which Tomb-Sweeping Day is an important one. However, due to the changes in geographical and social environment, the places where Tomb-Sweeping Day and China people live in Nanyang are naturally different from their hometowns.
In ancient China, Tomb-Sweeping Day was one of the earliest 24 solar terms. It is a time node based on the change of natural environment and is mainly used to guide agricultural production. There is not much humanistic connotation. Later, in the Tang and Song Dynasties, Tomb-Sweeping Day gradually merged the festivals with humanistic connotations, such as Shangsi Festival and Cold Food Festival, and produced the Tomb-Sweeping Day customs that we are familiar with in later generations, including ancestor worship, outing, inserting willows, cold food festival and so on. At this point, Tomb-Sweeping Day officially became an important festival with the unity of natural connotation and humanistic connotation.
Tomb-Sweeping Day, my hometown, is a festival with spring characteristics.
However, in tropical South Asia, the natural environment is quite different from that of China. The climate here is hot and humid all year round and there is no obvious spring. The beginning of April in the solar calendar is the rainy season in Nanyang, and heavy rains and thunderstorms often strike. At the same time, as immigrants, Chinese are in a foreign country and face a harsh social environment. The suspicion and even hostility of the local people forced the Chinese in Nanyang to hold a group and always live in a state of tension. Such a natural and social environment made the early Chinese in Nanyang have no energy to go for an outing, insert willows and other recreational activities. Therefore, among the Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, many customs in Tomb-Sweeping Day have gradually disappeared, and the only thing that can be preserved and continuously strengthened is the custom of ancestor worship.
In Tomb-Sweeping Day, the ancestor worship of Nanyang Chinese not only retains the custom of offering sacrifices to family ancestors in their native land, but also develops collective grave-sweeping activities organized by ancestral temples or fellow villagers every year to offer sacrifices to and comfort their ancestors. This is Tomb-Sweeping Day, a most distinctive place for Chinese in Nanyang.
Ancestral shrine dedicated to ancestors
Wan Li's "cross-sea expedition" is extremely difficult, and the heavy physical labor environment in Nanyang is also very bad. Under the circumstances at that time, once I left home, I had little hope of going back in my life. Hanging overseas alone, once dead, without sacrifice, become a lonely soul. This fear can be said to be entangled in the hearts of every Chinese in Nanyang. It is precisely because of this concern that the early Chinese communities in Nanyang formulated the rules of public sacrifice and burial. The China members of each society formed an imaginary blood relationship through sworn marriage, and the members' funeral was solved by the members of each society. Whether you leave the blood of future generations or not, you can enter the righteous grave of the community behind you. Every year, Tomb-Sweeping Day can enjoy the incense offerings provided by people from all walks of life.
Many places in Nanyang have such cemeteries. For example, the memorial service for China in Bukit, Malacca, mentioned earlier, is recorded in the "Building an Altar Monument" in the ancestral temple, in order to settle the soul of "the bones cannot be returned". The inscription records: "The sages have always sacrificed their families. Today, more than 60 years have passed, but few altars have been erected, offering sacrifices every year, which is often hindered by wind and rain. It is also mentioned that "it is a day when there is no smoke, and a cup is a cup". At the same time, the "Smoke-free Festival" also shows that Nanyang Chinese have actually continued the custom of combining their native Tomb-Sweeping Day with the Cold Food Festival. Today, Guangdong Guild Hall in Taiping City has jurisdiction over several righteous graves such as Yishan, jiusan and Johor Bahru in Dubai, and the centennial cemetery on the left behind Lingnan Ancient Temple. Every spring and autumn, members of the guild hall will keep offering sacrifices.
Malacca Bukit China Zhong Yi Collective Sacrifice Monument
The custom of offering sacrifices to Yi tombs continues to this day, and it still affects every China person in Nanyang. Nowadays, Chinese in Nanyang pay homage to their ancestors in Tomb-Sweeping Day, even if they do it privately, they will go to several nearby graves to burn incense after the sacrifice. This is the situation described in the opening story.
Third, the yearning for hometown. Besides paying homage to our ancestors, we can also see something deeper from the emergence and development of their customs, that is, the consciousness and desire of our hometown.
As mentioned earlier, most of the early Nanyang immigrants were remnants of the Ming army or adherents of the Ming Dynasty. They take "Dragonfly" as the year number, and naturally have emotional identification with their homeland, North Korea and the country. This kind of emotional identity is the natural cohesion of overseas Chinese groups, which promotes the early Nanyang immigrants to survive and develop overseas in order to recover their homeland one day.
Hong Men is now the largest overseas Chinese organization.
However, such an emotional identification based on * * * understanding of life is time-sensitive. When the first generation and the second generation of immigrants are getting old, the original goal of "fighting against the Qing Dynasty and regaining sight" has been declared shattered. How can the descendants born and raised in Nanyang continue to maintain such national identity and maintain the "incense" of Chinese overseas? This is a big problem.
Confucius said: "China must enter China easily;" China into righteousness, is righteousness. "China's national identity never depends on geographical distance, or even on race and language. Just as the last quoted poem "Migration" said: "The post horse rushes around the square and lets you legislate everywhere. Being in a deep foreign land is still in my old country, and my hometown is my hometown after a long separation. "It is the principle that can make' a foreign land your hometown', that is, the five permanent members of' benevolence, righteousness, courtesy and wisdom'.
There is a saying in the Analects of Confucius: "Filial piety comes when you enter, benevolence comes when you leave, and benevolence comes when you are benevolent." Filial piety is the foundation of benevolence, a sacrifice to your parents and ancestors, and an important manifestation of filial piety. Through Tomb-Sweeping Day's sacrificial activities, the descendants of early immigrants and later immigrants repeatedly experienced this emotion in repeated ceremonies year after year in a sacred space-time environment. In this way, it is of great significance to maintain or even strengthen the "sense of hometown" of Chinese groups and safeguard their national identity.
It has been 300 to 400 years since the first generation came to Nanyang in the late Ming Dynasty. Nowadays, overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia have spread all over Southeast Asian countries, and many of them have even achieved high economic and political status in the local area. However, the Chinese in Nanyang have always been able to remember their Chinese identity, speak Chinese, behave rudely, and have not been assimilated by the local national culture. Among them, traditional festivals like Tomb-Sweeping Day, which appear repeatedly, should play an important role.