Mythologies of the Teochew Tribe

The Teochew tribe or Chaoshanese, Teo-Swa people or Chaoshan people (rendered Têo-Swa in romanized Teoswa and Cháoshàn in Modern Standard Mandarin also known as Teo-Swa in mainland China due to a change in place names) is an ethnic group native to the historical Chaoshan region in south China who speak the Teochew language. Today, most ethnic Teochew people live throughout Chaoshan and Hong Kong, and also outside China in Southeast Asia, including in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The community can also be found in diasporas around the world, including the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and France. Teochew can be romanized in a variety of schemes, and are known in Mandarin as Cháoshan rén and in Cantonese as Chiushan yan. In referring to themselves as Sinitic people, Teochew people generally use Deung nang (Chinese: 唐人; pinyin: Tángrén; lit. 'Tang dynasty people'), as opposed to Hang nang (simplified Chinese: 汉人; traditional Chinese: 漢人; pinyin: Hànrén; lit. 'Han dynasty people'). Teochew people of the diaspora would generally use ting nang (Chinese: 唐人; pinyin: tangrén) to indicate Sinitic heritage in a cultural sense. Tingnang and tangren are broadly used by most of the southern Sinitic people living outside of China, referring to their maintaining a substantial cultural identity they consider to be Sinitic people. The identification of "tingnang" could perhaps be due to their early affiliation with the Tang dynasty. The Teochew people are those who speak the Teochew language and identify with Teochew culture, cuisine, and customs. The Swatow people are those who speak the Swatow language and identify with Swatow culture, cuisine, and customs. Kekyeo, Teochew, Swatow and Chaoshan people also commonly refer to each other as ga gi nang (Chinese: 家己儂; pinyin: Jiājǐrén; lit. 'our own people').

The theory concerning the Teochew people’s migratory origin has several variants. One that is circulating widely online is that our forebears were one of a few branches of Han Chinese, first displaced from northern China when the Jin dynasty lost control of its political heartland to invading "barbarians" in the 4th century. They managed to resettle in Putian district of Fujian province, but were uprooted again when the Mongol armies of Kublai Khan overran the Song dynasty in the 13th century. Eventually, they found sanctuary in the historical Teochew Prefecture, which was supposedly sparsely populated at the time. Due to long exposure and interaction with indigenous ethnic minorities whom they eventually displaced, Teochew people now have our own speech and cultural traits that are distinctive from other groups of Chinese. Currently, the belief that Teochew people have their origins in the north is widely accepted and propagated in mainland China. However, its formation is fairly recent, and may be traced to the writings of its chief proponent, the late Professor Jao Tsung-I (饒宗頤), in the 1949 Chaozhou Gazetteer (潮州志).

The history of the Teochew people has long been shrouded in mystery and, although there are many theories about their origins, there is still desperately little that is known about where they came from. Known alternatively as the Chaozhou people, they are a sub-group of the Han Chinese ethnic majority that are native to the Chaoshan region, which is largely made up of the cities of Chaozhou, Shantou, and Jieyang in Guangdong province. Nowadays, however, vast contingencies of Teochew people can be found throughout Southeast Asia, including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia. There are even some small communities of Teochew living in places as far-flung as the US, Canada, Australia, and France! Alongside the Hakka and the Cantonese people, the Teochew are estimated to have lived in the Chaoshan region for hundreds of years. According to the most widely believed theory, their ancestors originally lived in modern-day Henan province, but were forced south when the north was repeatedly invaded and captured by nomadic groups during the Jin Dynasty (265-420). Initially they settled in Fujian province, yet unfortunately it seems tragedy was doomed to follow them! They were uprooted again during the 13th century when Kublai Khan and his Mongol army invaded the area, which is when they finally moved to the sparsely populated Chaoshan region. At first, it seemed they were safe in their new home, but fate had more trouble in store for the Teochew! After the First Opium War (1839-1842), the coastal regions in which the Teochew lived were ravaged by bandits and plagued with famine. Many Teochew people decided to immigrate abroad via one of the four treaty ports established along the southern coast, so that they could enjoy a better quality of life and send money back home to their families. It is these people that served as the ancestors for the Teochew diaspora that we find throughout the world today. In fact, due to this mass migration, the Teochew people are now the second largest ethnic group in Singapore!

The term “Teochew” as it is used in Singapore and many other places around the world takes on several different meanings. Simply put, it is an English-language romanisation of the Chinese characters 潮州 as pronounced in the Teochew or Chaozhou dialect, a term which first entered historical records in AD 591 as the name of a prefecture in southern China. Other variant spellings include “Tiochiu” and “Teochiu” (also in the Teochew dialect), “Chiu Chow” in the Cantonese dialect, and of course, “Chaozhou” in Mandarin or hanyu pinyin.

Teochew /tiˈoʊtʃuː/ or Chiuchow /ˈtʃuːtʃaʊ/ (潮州; peng'im: Dio⁵ziu¹ [ti̯o˥˥꜖꜖.tsi̯u˧˧]) is a historical area that is mostly within the modern Chaoshan region, eastern Guangdong, China.

Teochew may also refer to:

Teochew dialect, a dialect of Southern Min Chinese, commonly used in eastern Guangdong and Southeast Asia
Teochew people, a group of people originating from eastern Guangdong, known as the Teochew prefecture during the Qing dynasty
Teochew cuisine, a branch of Chinese cuisine created by the Teochew people
Teochew opera, a branch of traditional Chinese opera originating from Chaoshan

The most common modern romanization for the characters is Chaozhou using Hanyu Pinyin. Teochew is a local romanisation of 潮州.

Teochew — sometimes romanized as Chiuchow or Chaozhou — refers to Han Chinese people from the Chaozhou prefecture, located in the eastern Guangdong province of China. In the 1800s, following war and famine, many Teochew emigrated from China, shaping the modern-day Teochew diasporic population. Currently, sizable Teochew populations are located in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam and the U.S., among other countries.

Teochew or Chaozhou (Chinese: 潮州話; pinyin: Cháozhōuhuà, Chinese: 潮汕話; pinyin: Cháoshànhuà, Chinese: 潮語; pinyin: Cháoyǔ, Teochew endonym: Diê⁵ziu¹ uê⁷, Shantou dialect: Dio⁵ziu¹ uê⁷) is a dialect of Chaoshan Min, a Southern Min language, that is spoken by the Teochew people in the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong and by their diaspora around the world. It is sometimes referred to as Chiuchow, its Cantonese rendering, due to English romanization by colonial officials and explorers. It is closely related to some dialects of Hokkien, as it shares some cognates and phonology with Hokkien. The two are mutually unintelligible, but it is possible to understand some words. Teochew preserves many Old Chinese pronunciations and vocabulary that have been lost in some of the other modern varieties of Chinese. As such, Teochew is described as one of the most conservative Chinese languages. Native Teochew speakers find the neutral tone in Mandarin the most difficult one to master. Teochew has lost the alveolar nasal ending [-n], and so Teochew speakers often replace it with the velar nasal [-ŋ] when they speak Mandarin. The southern Min dialects all lack a front rounded vowel, and so a typical Teochew accent supplants the unrounded counterpart [i] for [y]. Teochew, like its ancient ancestor, lacks labiodentals, and so its speakers use [h] or [hu] instead of [f] when they speak Mandarin. Teochew has no retroflex consonants in its northern dialects, and so [ts], [tsʰ], [s], and [z] replace [tʂ], [tʂʰ], [ʂ] and [ʐ] in the Teochew accent in Mandarin.

The Teochew’s were originally from the Yellow River Valley and migrated to their present location on the Guangdong coast via Fujian province. Their language and culture are unique. Their food and Chaozhou culture is celebrated in more places than Chaozhou and not just by the people from that region. There are Chaozhounese people on every continent except maybe Antarctica. They’re a proud group of people with a collective track record that is admirable by any standards of human achievement. The only mentions in this episode were of the Teochew’s of South East Asia and the US. There are plenty of other lesser-known or unknown histories of Teochew’s in Canada, Europe, Mexico, Central, and South America, and of course Australia and New Zealand. The great 19th-century Chinese diaspora is filled with stories, legends, and historic events. The Chiu Chow people are a major part of everything that happened. They contributed not only to the society and the economy of their adoptive homelands, they still kept their ties with the eight districts of Chao-Shan.