An ancient people watch their floating life fade
FOR six generations, Chan Kuai-hung’s family has worked and lived on the rivers of southern China, roving on wooden boats that served as fishing vessels and homes. But Chan said his generation would be the last to take up this floating life.
“They don’t fish anymore,” said Chan, a 55-year-old with craggy, stonehard hands from a lifetime of rowing and hauling fishing nets. “No one in the family is taking up this tradition.”
He was among a dozen men and women living on the river in Datang, a town in Guangdong province, who had gathered to light firecrackers to celebrate a recent marriage. About 200 boats from their community floated offshore, and on the riverbank families sorted catches of fish and clams. But the newlyweds, like most young people from here, had no plans to join that life on the water, Chan said.
“Our culture is on the verge of extinction because young people under 30 head into the city for work,” said a woman who had overheard our conversation. She was shy about talking to outsiders, like many residents here, and gave only her surname, Lam.
“Look at our hands; you can see that we do hard manual labour,” Lam said, extending her calloused fingers.
“Our life depends on the weather and the waters.”
The residents of this floating village are members of the Tanka group, an ancient people scattered across southern China who have survived on coastal waterways and on the margins of society. But Guangdong is a caldron of urban growth. Cities have engulfed once-quiet towns, and the Tanka way of life is disappearing.
A cement plant on the shore opposite the village in Datang discharged fumes into the air. Apartment blocks have risen along the riverfront. The briny, tidal water of the Bei River, the residents’ lifeblood, has been dredged and is polluted, overfished and crowded with ships.
“Many Tanka people who have settled onshore haven’t told their children about their Tanka background,” said Wu Shuitian, a professor at Guangzhou University who studies the Tanka people. “The Tanka life on the water is disappearing, and it’s also disappearing as a culture.”
Yet Tanka people rarely voiced regret for the passing of their old ways. Their dislocated lives left little room for nostalgia or even for remembering their folk songs, called saltwater songs. Fishing and living on boats, many said, were a means of survival, not cultural preservation.
“We have no choice but to hang on to our old way of life, because it’s the only skill we know,” Chan said. “I don’t want our tradition to be preserved if the younger generation doesn’t want to keep it.”
Drivers speeding over the expressway bridge across the river in Datang can glimpse a seemingly random crowd of fishing boats and larger houseboats for families of four or more.
But the Tanka community here forms a tight web that spans the river and the shore. The riverbank is a jumble of fishing nets, poultry coops and shanties. Chickens and ducks, which families raise for extra food, strut along the shore. Each family seems to own one or two dogs.
“My dad said there’s no future in fishing,” said Chan Kin-chor, a 25-year-old electrician who had dropped by to help his father-in-law fix a boat. “When you walked through here, how many people born after 1990 did you see?”