I am a Hakka (ePub)

The book is grand in scope, a 0.7-million-character dictionary of Hakka Chinese idioms, recording the Hakka Chinese called "e;Huaiyuan sound"e; in northwestern Jiangxi. The entries are arranged alphabetically, with definition accompanied by phonetic notation. Regarding the definition the author has consulted the latest scholarship but uses interesting and vivid prose, so that each entry is a vignette of the origin and usage of the idiom based on the author's lived experience. Many stories, full of the spirit of the time and local color, are real experiences of the author, or anecdotes told by his relatives. The materials are selected to introduce the folkways, mores, culture and tradition of Hakka people in a well-rounded way and from multiple perspectives. Rich in illustration and content, it is an encyclopaedia of Hakka Chinese. To help readers understand the text more directly the author has added less than 100 rare pictures to the entries, covering the entire landscape of Hakka Chinese, including characteristic ways of addressing people, traditional culinary art, artifacts and tools, funeral, abstract names, incantations, astronomy, magic and ghost. To make sure readers can learn more about Hakka language and culture in a light-hearted mood, the author has hand-picked a few hundred riddles, proverbs and jokes, and attached them at the end of the book.