ABSTRACT
It is not my intention to discuss here the problems of the origins, racial and cultural, of the boat-people of Kwangtung in general. The matter has been gone into very thoroughly by others far more competent than I-notably by Professor Ch’ en Hsü-ching 陳序經, formerly President of Lingnam University, in his ‘蛋民的硏究’-but it is relevant to recall that those water-people have usually been considered to be distinct. They have a particular name-’Tanka’ 蛋家† † or ‘Tanman’ 蛋民, which is interpreted as ‘Egg families’ or ‘Egg people’-though it is not unlikely that the ‘egg’ character was used originally to represent the sound only of the term used to designate the water people. In any case the term ‘Tanka’ is definitely resented by them when used by outsiders; and though water people will often use it both seriously and jokingly amongst themselves, they think of it as a term almost of abuse, rather in the same way that coloured people resent the term ‘nigger’. If the word ‘Tanka’ is to be used with any scientific exactness it can, in my opinion and in Hong Kong at least, be taken to refer to nothing more narrowly defined than ‘people who live on boats and speak Cantonese’. Though there are certain peculiarities of the dialect spoken by the Tanka water-people in general, though there are certain peculiar customs which they follow, and though it is usually easy to recognize a boatman on sight, these distinguishing traits are, I am convinced, all of a cultural, and not a racial, nature.
