Wenzhou people

Wenzhou people or Wenzhounese people is a subgroup of Oujiang Wu Chinese speaking peoples, who live primarily in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province. Wenzhou people are known for their business and money-making skills. The area also has a large diaspora population in Europe and the United States, with a reputation for being enterprising natives who start restaurants, retail and wholesale businesses in their adopted countries. About two-thirds of the overseas community is in Europe. Wenzhounese people have also made notable contributions to mathematics and technology.

Wenzhou people
溫州人/溫州漢人
uen tseu nyin
Total population
~8,000,000
Regions with significant populations
China China, Wenzhou (urban + rural areas)~6,000,000 (natives)
China China1,700,000 (rest of country)[1]
 Italy288,715 (90% of Chinese population).[2]
 France60,000–100,000[3]
 Spain~116,000 <70% (+ Qingtian)[4]
 Taiwanas part of the mainlander population[5]
 Australiapart of Chinese Australian population
 United States100,000[6]
 Netherlandspart of Chinese people in the Netherlands[7]
Languages
Wenzhou dialect, Zhenan Min, Standard Mandarin Chinese, etc.
Religion
Mahayana Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Irreligion, Chinese folk religion and a vastly growing Christian community
Related ethnic groups
Wu speaking people, Min speaking people, other Han Chinese

History

Wenzhou was the home territory of the Dong'ou Kingdom, which have been conquered by the Minyue Kingdom and later by the Han dynasty.

The majority of people in Wenzhou are descendants of immigrants and about 80% came from Fujian province. From the Tang, Song to Ming and Qing dynasties, a great number of families in Fujian province immigrated to Wenzhou with all their family members.[8]

Culture

Language

Wenzhou natives speak a unique form of Wu Chinese called Wenzhou dialect. However, geographic isolation and an admixture of Southern Min Chinese speakers from nearby Fujian Province, have caused Wenzhou's spoken language to evolve into a dialect that is notable for its highly divergent phonology. As a result, even people from other regions of Zhejiang and Fujian both have trouble understanding Wenzhounese. The Taizhou dialect, located directly to the north, has little to no mutual intelligibility with Wenzhou. Many Wenzhou natives also speak a Southern Min dialect called Zhenan Min.

The Wenzhou dialect preserves a large amount of vocabulary of classical Chinese lost in most other Chinese dialects, earning itself the nickname "the living fossil", and has distinct grammatical differences from Mandarin.[9][10]

Due to its high degree of eccentricity and difficulty for non-locals to understand, the language is reputed to have been used during the Second Sino-Japanese War during wartime communication as code talkers and in Sino-Vietnamese War for programming military code.[11][12]

Opera

Nanxi is a form of Chinese opera developed in Wenzhou, which is the earliest form of traditional Chinese Opera in the history of China.[13]

Philosophy

Wenzhou was home to the Yongjia School of thought, which emphasized pragmatism and commerce.[14] This philosophy is thought to have been a forerunner to modern capitalism in the region.[15]

People of Excellence and Land of Wisdom

There is a popular saying in China that reflects the status of the city of Wenzhou related to the Fengshui of Wenzhou which is "People of Excellence and Land of Wisdom"(人傑地靈), as the local Wenzhounese people are usually described in China as the people of excellence and the city of Wenzhou is usually praised as the city of wisdom.[16][17][18]

Birthplace of China's private economy

In the early days of economic reforms, local Wenzhounese took the lead in China in developing a commodity economy, household industries and specialized markets. Many thousands of people and families were engaged in household manufacturing to develop individual and private economy (private enterprise). Up till now, Wenzhou has a total of 240,000 individually owned commercial and industrial units and 130,000 private enterprises of which 180 are group companies, 4 among China's top 500 enterprises and 36 among national 500 top private enterprises. There are 27 national production bases such as "China’s Shoes Capital" and "China’s Capital of Electrical Equipment", China's 40 famous trademarks and China's famous-brand products and 67 national inspection-exempt products in the city. The development of private economy in Wenzhou has created the "Wenzhou Economic Model", which inspires the modernization drive in China.

Education

As of 2010, 650,300 people in Wenzhou hold a college degree; 1,150,400 people hold a high school degree; 3,344,400 people hold a middle school degree; 2,679,900 people hold an elementary school degree. In every 100,000 people in Wenzhou, 7128 people hold a college degree; 12611 people hold a high school degree; 36663 people hold a middle school degree and 29379 people hold an elementary school degree. The population of illiterate people in Wenzhou is 645,100, which is 7.07% of its whole population.[19][20]

Regions

Wenzhou
Main article: Wenzhou § demographics

At the time of the 2010 Chinese census, 3,039,500 people lived in Wenzhou's city proper;[21] the area under its jurisdiction (which includes two satellite cities and six counties) held a population of 9,122,100 of which 31.16% are non-local residents from outside of Wenzhou.[22]

Rest of mainland China

There are around 1.7 million Wenzhounese people living in other parts of the country. In major cities such as Beijing or Shanghai there are "Zhejiang villages", enclaves where people from Wenzhou reside and do business.[23]

Italy

In 2010, an analysis conducted by the CESNUR and the University of Turin on the 4,000-strong Chinese community of Turin showed that at that time, 48% of this community was women and 30%, minors. Most of the Chinese in Italy—and virtually all of the Turin community—hail from the southeastern Chinese province of Zhejiang, primarily the city of Wenzhou.[2] The community in Turin is younger than other Chinese settlements in Italy, and for this reason it depends as a branch of the community of Milan.[24] Approximately 70% of the Chinese in Turin work in restaurant activity, and more than 20% work in commercial activity.[25]

Prato, Tuscany has the largest concentration of Chinese people in Italy, and all of Europe. It has the second largest population of Chinese people overall in Italy, after Milan.[26]

The Netherlands

The Netherlands currently has the third largest population of Wenzhounese in Europe.

Spain

About 70% of the Chinese people in Spain are from Wenzhou or Qingtian.[4]

United States

Wenzhou people in the United States are mostly concentrated on the East Coast, particularly around the New York City metropolitan area. Many Wenzhou people are owners of Chinese restaurants. They are the second largest group of Chinese undocumented immigrants in the United States, after Fuzhounese people. The total Wenzhou population in the US was estimated to be around 250,000 in 2016.

Japan

Japan was the destination for many Wenzhounese migrants in the beginning of the 20th century, however many of them returned following the rise of anti-foreign sentiment and ultimately the outbreak of the second Sino-Japanese War.

Notable Wenzhounese people

Mathematicians

Champions of board games
  • Bao Yizhong 鲍一中 (1500–1566), prominent Ming dynasty player of Go
  • Xie Xiaxun 谢侠逊 (1887–1987), father of Chinese chess, renowned as the "Supreme Commander of Chess" and "King of Chess" in China
  • Ye Rongguang 叶荣光 (1963–), first ever grandmaster of chess in the history of China
  • Zhu Chen 诸宸 (1976–), chess grandmaster and women's world champion
  • Ding Liren 丁立人 (1992–), chess grandmaster, ranked first in China and third in the world (as of April 2019)

Academicians

Politicians

Economy

Others

References
  1. Wenzhou Yearbook, 2004
  2. Berzano, Luigi; Genova, Carlo; Introvigne, Massimo; Ricucci, Roberta; Zoccatelli, Pierluigi (2010). Cinesi a Torino: La crescita di un arcipelago (in Italian). Bologna: Il Mulino. ISBN 978-88-15-13791-3. p. 217: «Poche persone estranee alla catena migratoria dello Zhejiang sono approdate qui [in Turin] [...]»; p. 228: «La grande maggioranza dei cinesi presenti a Torino proviene dallo Zhejiang e in particolare da aree periferiche urbane e semiurbane, e villaggi, intorno a Wenzhou, in particolare dal distretto di Wencheng.»
  3. "1911–2007: Chinese Immigration in France". libcom.org. 12 January 2010. Retrieved 5 November 2016.
  4. Gómez, Luis (27 August 2012). "The New Chinese". El País. Retrieved 6 November 2016.
  5. ROC
  6. Lai, Him Mark (2004). Becoming Chinese American: A History of Communities and Institutions. Walnut Creek, California: AltaMira Press. p. 247. ISBN 0-7591-0457-3.
  7. Hong Liu, ed. (2006). The Chinese Overseas. Vol. 4: Homeland Ties and Agencies of Interaction. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-33862-X.
  8. Yu, Jianxing; Zhou, Jun; Jiang, Hua (2012). A Path for Chinese Civil Society: A Case Study on Industrial Associations in Wenzhou, China. Lanham: Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0-7391-7008-3.
  9. 温州话，古汉语的活化石. 中国温州 (in Chinese). 30 December 2010. Archived from the original on 11 September 2014. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
  10. 《珠三角熱話》 (in Cantonese). 無綫新聞. 15 December 2013.
  11. 网友总结最难懂方言:温州话让敌军窃听也听不懂. 网易新闻 (in Chinese). 17 May 2014. Archived from the original on 6 October 2015. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
  12. 关于越南战争期间中方使用的密码语言，有一说认为并不是温州话，而是来自温州苍南县（当时仍属平阳县）钱库一带的蛮话，参见 访今寻古之三：扑朔迷离说蛮话，苍南广电网
  13. 南戲的活化石：婺劇高 (in Chinese)
  14. Cao, Nanlai (2011). Constructing China's Jerusalem: Christians, Power, and Place in Contemporary Wenzhou. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-7080-4.
  15. Zhang, Jianjun (2008). Marketization and Democracy in China. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-45222-9.
  16. 郭璞:杰出的城市规划大师. 赣州杨公风水养生堂 (in Chinese). 16 August 2011. Retrieved 1 September 2016.
  17. "How To Raise Worth Of Apartments In Houston For Rent". Retrieved 1 September 2016.
  18. 中國風水最好的六個城市 真是人傑地靈(圖). china.com.cn (in Chinese). 20 March 2012. Archived from the original on 30 September 2015. Retrieved 5 November 2016.
  19. zh:温州市#cite note-69
  20. 温州总人口912.21万 近1/3为市外流入. 温州网 (in Chinese). 9 May 2011. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 6 November 2016.
  21. 温州市2010年第六次全国人口普查主要数据公报. 中国温州 (in Chinese). 10 May 2011. Archived from the original on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 24 August 2011.
  22. 浙江第六次全国人口普查数据公布 温州常住人口最多. 浙江在线 (in Chinese). 6 May 2011. Archived from the original on 30 September 2011. Retrieved 28 August 2011.
  23. Pieke, Frank N.; Mallee, Hein, eds. (1999). Internal and International Migration: Chinese Perspectives. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press. p. 256. ISBN 0-7007-1076-0.
  24. Berzano, Luigi; Genova, Carlo; Introvigne, Massimo; Ricucci, Roberta; Zoccatelli, Pierluigi (2010). Cinesi a Torino: La crescita di un arcipelago (in Italian). Bologna: Il Mulino. p. 216. ISBN 978-88-15-13791-3. [...] la co-munità di Torino, per via delle sua origine recente, pare per molti versi essere una propaggine di quella decisa-mente più ricca e stratificata di Milano.
  25. "Torino: l'integrazione dei cinesi passa per le seconde generazioni: Indagine del Cesnur sulla comunità del capoluogo piemontese". ImmigrazioneOggi (in Italian). 3 June 2010. Archived from the original on 22 July 2011. Retrieved 5 November 2016.
  26. Donadio, Rachel (12 September 2010). "Chinese Remake the 'Made in Italy' Fashion Label". New York Times. Retrieved 4 May 2011.
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