The
Boat people or
Tankas is an ethnic group in
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
that has traditionally lived on
junksA junk is a Chinese sailboat design dating from ancient times and still in use today. Junks were originally developed during the Han Dynasty and were used as ocean going vessels as early as the 2nd century AD. They were further evolved in the later dynasties, and were built and used throughout...
in coastal parts of
GuangdongGuangdong is a province on the southern coast of People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
,
GuangxiThis article is about a region of China. For the sociological concept, see Guānxi.Guangxi is a Zhuang autonomous region of the People's Republic of China....
,
Fujian' is a province on the southeast coast of China. Fujian borders Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
,
HainanHainan is the smallest province of the People's Republic of China . Although the province comprises some two hundred islands scattered among three archipelagos off the southern coast, all but three percent of its land mass is on Hainan Island , from which the province takes its name...
, and
ZhejiangZhejiang is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. The word Zhejiang was the old name of the Qiantang River, which passes through Hangzhou, the provincial capital...
provinces, as well as
Hong KongHong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a highly autonomous territory of the People's Republic of China, facing Guangdong to the north and the South China Sea to the east, west and south...
and
MacauThe Macau Special Administrative Region , commonly known as Macau or Macao , is one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China, the other being Hong Kong...
. Though many now live onshore, some members of the older generations still live on their narrow boats and pursue their traditional livelihood of
fishingFishing is the activity of catching fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....
. Originally the Tankas were a non-Chinese ethnic group and were classified by the Qing government as "mean".
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The
Boat people or
Tankas is an ethnic group in
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
that has traditionally lived on
junksA junk is a Chinese sailboat design dating from ancient times and still in use today. Junks were originally developed during the Han Dynasty and were used as ocean going vessels as early as the 2nd century AD. They were further evolved in the later dynasties, and were built and used throughout...
in coastal parts of
GuangdongGuangdong is a province on the southern coast of People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
,
GuangxiThis article is about a region of China. For the sociological concept, see Guānxi.Guangxi is a Zhuang autonomous region of the People's Republic of China....
,
Fujian' is a province on the southeast coast of China. Fujian borders Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
,
HainanHainan is the smallest province of the People's Republic of China . Although the province comprises some two hundred islands scattered among three archipelagos off the southern coast, all but three percent of its land mass is on Hainan Island , from which the province takes its name...
, and
ZhejiangZhejiang is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. The word Zhejiang was the old name of the Qiantang River, which passes through Hangzhou, the provincial capital...
provinces, as well as
Hong KongHong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a highly autonomous territory of the People's Republic of China, facing Guangdong to the north and the South China Sea to the east, west and south...
and
MacauThe Macau Special Administrative Region , commonly known as Macau or Macao , is one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China, the other being Hong Kong...
. Though many now live onshore, some members of the older generations still live on their narrow boats and pursue their traditional livelihood of
fishingFishing is the activity of catching fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....
. Originally the Tankas were a non-Chinese ethnic group and were classified by the Qing government as "mean". The
Yongzheng EmperorThe Yongzheng Emperor , born Yinzhen was the fourth emperor of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and the third Qing emperor to rule over China, from 1722 to 1735. A hard-working ruler, Yongzheng's main goal was to create an effective government at minimum expense...
freed them and several other "mean" groups from this status in a series of edicts from 1723 to 1731. They mostly worked as fishermen and tended to gather at some
bayA bay is an area of water mostly surrounded or otherwise demarcated by land. Bays generally have calmer waters than the surrounding sea, due to the surrounding land blocking some waves and often reducing winds....
s. Some built markets or villages on the shore, while others continued to live on their junks or
boatA boat is a watercraft of modest size designed to float or plane, to provide passage across water. Usually this water will be inland or in protected coastal areas. However, boats such as the whaleboat were designed to be operated from a ship in an offshore environment. In naval terms, a boat is...
s. The Tankas arrived in Hong Kong around the 7-9th century from the Malay Oceanic. As Hong Kong developed, some of the fishing grounds in Hong Kong became badly polluted or were reclaimed, and so became land. Those Tankas who only own small boats and cannot fish far out to sea are forced to stay inshore in bays, gathering together like floating villages.
A small number of Tankas also live in parts of
VietnamVietnam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam , is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea to the east...
. There they are called
Dan and classified as a subgroup of the
NgáiThe Ngái are an ethnic group in Vietnam and other nearby countries of mainland Southeast Asia. The Ngái are Chinese-speaking but are classified separately from the urban ethnic Chinese or Hoa....
ethnicity.