South Pacific Studies Vol.40, No.2, 2020

Differentiated Concepts of Home for
Boat Dwellers in Southern Fujian, China
FUJIKAWA Miyoko

Faculty of Humanities, Nanzan University, 18 Yamazato-cho, Showa-ku,
Nagoya, 466-8673 Japan
E-mail: fujimiyo@nanzan-u.ac.jp

Abstract
This paper discusses how the nomadic people determine “home”, using the case of the “lianjiachuan
yumin（ 連 家 船 漁 民 ）”. They are people who used to live on boats in Southern Fujian, China. Since theacquisition of land for settlement in the 1960s, they left a water-dependent lifestyle and shifted to one thatwas mostly dependent on land. In order to identify how current lianjiachuan yumin define “home”, thispaper focuses on the following three points. First, this paper will deal with the stories called “Contributions
and Sacrifices to the Birth of Communist Regime” and “Victims of a Huge Typhoon”. These stories
emphasize the legitimacy of the state order which suddenly allowed people to take land even if it waspossessed by someone else. Second, this paper will examine beliefs which take on a folk approach thattrusts in the power of God―allowing a person to become the owner of land which was borrowed fromsomeone else. Thirdly and finally, this paper will focus on the practice of confirming the existence of home
within the context of space. The third shows that the ancestors of the lianjiachuan yumin have spread bycommunicating and traveling outside of the fishing villages and the state, creating multiple-spaces outside
their previously defined boundaries.
Key words: boat dweller, finding roots, land and community, homes, settlement

Received: 08 January, 2019
Accepted: 17 October, 2019

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South Pacific Studies Vol.40, No.2, 2020

Background to the question“Why do people leave the place they were born and select nomadism beyond theborder?” This is the major question that is often dealt with in studies that focuses on
people living a nomadic lifestyle. This paper looks at this phenomenon from a criticalperspective, using the case of boat dwellers, who have a nomadic lifestyle while
utilizing their homes as a place for daily life as well as work life, and questions “whydo people have a particular ‘affection’ towards their place of birth, or why it has beenthought to be so?” (IYOTANI 2007:8).
Past studies on immigrants and nomadic people have discussed that the arrival ofthe modern nation-state, which assumes homogeneous people within clearly divided
borders, has given rise to progressive freedoms that has detoured nomadism. In thissociety, the state provides individual identification with nationality, family registration
and resident certification to people living in the places that can be identified byaddress. This is an essential condition to civilized society which allows people toreceive education, health care, and social security. In broad terms, this (philosophical)
system to achieve the homogenization of people has promoted nomadic freedom
within boarders (assuming elasticity under colonialism). In contrast, it has restricted
nomadism outside of the border. However, more importantly, this system releases
individuals from the nomadism restriction as long as they fulfill the state requirements
for resident registrations. It enabled people to move anywhere regardless of borders (i.e.
freedom of nomadism). On the other hand, people living a nomadic life without a homeaddress are forced to settle permanently within a specific place, even if it was within
the borders (i.e. restriction of nomadism). Thus, it is important to understand that thissystem creates two different directions regarding nomadism.
Colonialism, increased industrialization, and the evolution of transportation
technology have expanded the scope of nomadism. It prolonged the period of
nomadism and increased opportunities to meet new people. As a result, it created“consciousness of a homeland” (IYOTANI 2007: 6) in people, in the sense of a place
to belong to, or a place to come back to. Homeland or home is something to think
about when being apart from a place. In other words, it is a mirror-image createdby nomadism which is a “transitional state being separated from a place that one
originally belongs to”. However, many nomadic people were forced to experience asituation completely opposite from the aforementioned situation, when considering theconcept of home that contains an implicit meaning to set roots in a specific place and/or community. For people living in a mountain area such as hunter groups, farmers
with shifting cultivation, flatland nomads, boat dwellers on water, and urban Romani,
nomadism, which is repeated as people move from place to places, is a normal
condition. These people are not confined to any particular land (which is not same as
not being confined to a particular community). However, the nation-state who controls

FUJIKAWA : Differentiated Concepts of Home for Boat Dwellers

39

the administration, societal development, and protection of people and land requires
citizens to have a particular place and permanently live in a particular community―
although their lifestyle has no relation to the land (it is often formed by awkward
dissociation and reformation of previously existing communities). This means that they
have unexpectedly acquired “land”, “community”, and “a permanently settled lifestyle”
together, which are systems that generate (or thought to generate under current social
standards) the concept of “homeland” and homesickness.
How have these nomadic people dealt with the land and communities that weresuddenly given irrespective of their wills? Since 1950, nomadic people in the world
have been pressured to settle down in a particular place and most cases had the twoelements: “exclusion from a vast land” and “replacement of a small settlement”.
Attractive places where nomadic people used to live were taken away by the state orother ethnic groups since the nomadic people were not recognized as the land owners1.
Recent studies identified that sedentism of nomadic population have resulted in
the emergence of campaigns for “return to homeland and recovery of nomadism” inmost areas, no matter if the land was taken by others or not. The reason is that most
nomadic people refused to settle-down, opting to continue their nomadic life; dueto new restrictions of the land usage, they could not return to their homeland (cf.
FUJIKAWA 2017, MARUYAMA 2018, SACHI 2017, SUZUKI 2016).
Thus, most nomadic people have experienced sedentism which has caused“loss of lifestyle and freedom for nomadism”. Past research on nomadic people havediscussed the relocation of nomadic people to a settlement and its effect on their ability
to assimilate themselves into mainstream society. In other words, nomadic people
are often described as victims of government management and policy; however, theirsense and ability to settle-down in a settlement after their homeland is either occupiedor seized are mentioned only as secondary or less important issues. This paper aims
at identifying these aspects of nomadic people while focusing on the “lianjiachuan
yumin” who used to live on boats engaging in fishing or water transportation. Different
from people’s general imagination, the lianjiachuan yumin have discussed the process
in land cession, migration to settlements, housing distribution as well as groupresidency as a “history of acquisition”. This does not mean that their lifestyles are
restricted in their new settlement: in actuality, they have widened their sea area forfishing, while living on boats even under a variety of government management system,
which regulates their settlement.
This paper focuses on movement of the lianjiachuan yumin and their loss
and creation of “home”, observed over a wide range of sea area, and land near the１　This situation is common in hunter-gatherers, nomads, and the farmers of slash-and-burn agriculture.
On the other hand, the boat dwellers in Asia and the Romani in Europe tended not to be the targetof occupation and seizure because their original living spaces such as rivers and seashores or vacantareas in cities were not so attractive to the others. In this case, although their homelands were spreadout as they were, they were under strict control and the access and free movement to those spaces
continued to be limited. Nonetheless, these spaces themselves have begun to change in recent years
due to urban development, etc.

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South Pacific Studies Vol.40, No.2, 2020sea, which historically the lianjiachuan yumin have called home. Specifically, thispaper examines at 1) two stories called “Contributions and Sacrifices to the Birth ofCommunist Regime” and “Victims of a Huge Typhoon,” 2) the beliefs which take on an
folk approach that trusts in the power of God―allowing a person to become the ownerof land which was borrowed from someone else, and 3) the practice of confirming theexistence of home within the context of space. While the ancestors of the lianjiachuan
yumin rooted in one place, they have spread by communicating and traveling outsideof the fishing villages and the state, creating multiple-spaces outside their previously
defined boundaries. Moreover, this paper discusses the perception that the lianjiachuan
yumin have shown when acquiring their sense of home. In this paper, the terms suchas homeland or hometown will not be used further because these words only refer tothe land where one was born. Instead, this paper uses diverse words, such as “home asa life place”, “residence”, “home”, “birthplace”, “home base” and “place of origin” inorder to explain the lianjiachuan yumin’s perceptions regarding their “attitudes toward
home acquisition” and consider the linkages between these different states of home.

History of land development for settlement and distributionof collective housing
Mobile life without land and houses on land
The lianjiachuan yumin used to live on various sized wooden boats along the
Jiulongjiang River ( 九龍江=Fig.1) without land or housing. Their lifestyle wasbased on nomadism within family units and they were engaged in fishing and water

Fig. 1. Fujian Province and Jiulongjiang RiverFUJIKAWA : Differentiated Concepts of Home for Boat Dwellers

41transportation. As a reference to how the lianjiachuan yumin’s ancestors started living
on boats, the “Story of Damage” was passed down to generations. (While the when andwhy they started living on boats varied depending on families,) Lianjiachuan yuminsays, “twenty and few generations ago, our ancestors were engaged in agriculture in avillage near the Jiulongjiang River. Those who suffered from drought and hunger left (orwere expelled from) the agricultural land, and went down to the Jiulongjiang River tostart fishing or water transportation to make livelihood. This situation gradually became
their lifestyle living on boats and moving around estuary of the Jiulongjiang River”.
However, the relationship between lianjiachuan yumin who recognize themselves
as farmers’ descendants and farmers living in households on the riverside became
conflicting. For example, farmers were ridiculing lianjiachuan yumin’s lifestyle andphysical characteristics, calling them “people who sleep on boats (chuandiren: 船底人)”, “duck (shuiyazi: 水鴨仔)”, or “people with bent legs (qutizi: 曲蹄仔)”2. Thissituation made lianjiachuan yumin feel that they would not be able to have any female
farmers as their brides, since they had neither land nor homes, so they had to arrange
marriages within the community. Nevertheless, lianjiachuan yumin’s lifestyle did notwork without the agricultural villages which provided shelters, kindling, water, foodand fishing tools. In fact, they, who used to live dispersedly by each family and boat,
had harbors in multiple villages located along the coast. When a typhoon came, acommunity member died, or celebrating an event such as New Year’s, they anchoredtheir boats at the harbor and stayed there with ten to fifteen families belonging to thepatrilineal lineage. The harbor was used as a shelter to protect them from storms, highwaves and high tides; as a place to hold funeral; as a place for ancestral rituals and areligious festival; and, as a spot to repair boats and paint preservatives on fishing nets.
In the case of people who are engaged in fishing, such life on a boat as
lianjiachuan yumin consisted of 1) harboring in agricultural villages and 2) nomadism
by multiple boats gathered in a fishing ground―migrating back and forth between
harbors (while the location changes depending on the season, type of fish, and nomadic
period every three to four months), and 3) nomadism which is conducted two or threetimes in a day, between fishing grounds that often change from time to time. Also,in the case of people who are engage in shipping, the nomadism is conducted two or
three times in a day. This includes buying fish at 2), and sell them at 1), and 4) visiting
agricultural villages near the Jiulongjiang River, or markets along the river (Fig.2).
Thus, their nomadism had a regular routine between the brackish water and the surfaceof the Jiulongjiang River, while it sometimes unexpectedly changed depending on thetype of fish caught, the tide cycle, or other incidences.
Collectivization policy and migration to settlements
The lianjiachuan yumin who were living a nomadic life on water started being
２　The word qutizi is used to mock people for curved legs often seen in lianjiachuan yumin who spend along time with their legs bent in small boats, even during work or sleep.

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South Pacific Studies Vol.40, No.2, 2020

Fig. 2. Nomadism of lianjiachuan yumin

assimilated into the wave of collectivization schemes established by the People's
Republic of China, after 1950’s. Dozens of families sharing the same communal
harbors were incorporated into organization such as the fishermen’s association, mutual
benefit society, primary-class fishing cooperation, high-class fishing cooperation,
and People's commune fishery production team. As collectivization was promoted,
such organizations became owners of boats and fishing tools. Cash or coupons were
distributed as income depending on the type of labor. However, the majority of
the lianjiachuan yumin continued to live nomadically on boats with their families,
dispersing around the Jiulongjiang River estuary engaging in fishing and watertransportation (FUJIKAWA 2017).
Acquisition of land for settlement and the construction of collective housing
were observed several times from 1956 to 1999, drastically changed the lives of thelianjiachuan yumin. In 1956, the Hs, a high-level fishing cooperation, which managed
the lianjiachuan yumin, who were dispersed in various locations, acquired land along
the Jiulongjiang River tributary to set up an office. People's government of the Longxi
county used public funds to build wooden one-story buildings around the office tohouse 85 lianjiachuan yumin from17 households (ZHANG 2009:97). At the time, thisconstruction was limited in scale but expanded as they obtained larger land after 1960.
In this year, the government implemented the Lh commune and Gk production team,which were responsible for farming, they offered part of their farmland, to the Smcommune and Sm fishery production team, which oversaw the lianjiachuan yumin.
Following this, two wooden collective housings were built, and the rooms were
distributed preferentially to the elderly and disabled people first (Fig. 3). Thereafter, aFUJIKAWA : Differentiated Concepts of Home for Boat Dwellers

43

net weaving ground, shipyard, ice
plant, fish processing plant, fishingharbor, nursery, elementary school,
clinic, and various shop were built inthe small area located on both sidesof the Jiulongjiang River tributary.
Furthermore, lianjiachuan yumin
people who were not allocatedhousing were able to stay there,anchoring their boats there instead of
their communal base harbors in the Fig. 3. Apartment blocks in the settlement site (1960s),
provided by Sm fishing shequagricultural villages.
Over 4,000 lianjiachuan
yumin people who migrated to settlements from water areas, were divided into twogroups: one were those who were engaged in small and large scale fishing within theinland waters, the estuary of Jiulongjiang River, and the sea area; and the others were
those who worked for factories located near the settlements (The labor’s location
between land and water had been flexible depending on the situation). The settlementsfunctioned as a site for providing necessary materials such as boats, fishing nets, andmotors, as well as a production base for fish processing and shipments. It was therefore
constructed as a base site which over 4,000 lianjiachuan yumin people were inevitably
dependent upon.
Current land settlements
After the dissolution of the People's commune in 1977, the Sm fishing production
team was taken over as the government organization and re-named as Sm fishingvillage. After 2003, the name was changed to the Longhai city Sm subdistrict Sm
fishing shequ (社区=community). According to statistics reported in 2006, there were1,258 houses with 4,544 people
living in the Sm fishing shequ,and the majority of people were
lianjiachuan yumin, excluding asmall number of those who camefrom outside of the community
for marriage. In the shequ, 30
collective housing with up toseven stories tall were built by
1999 (ZHANG 2009:97-98), and a
lot of lianjiachuan yumin families
had purchased rooms (Fig. 4).
   The important point to be
Fig. 4. Collective housing of the Sm fishing shequ (2010)
emphasized is that the story of44South Pacific Studies Vol.40, No.2, 2020

the ancestors has been passed down as “they were banished from agricultural villages
due to poverty and hunger” and the allocation of lands and settlements were referred
to as a bright memory of “acquisition”. They say, “it was our dream to have houses.
Thank you National State, thank you Chairman Mao!” Thus, access to settlements
and collective housing were an opportunity to get out of the lianjiachuan yumin’s
distressful life on boats under the risk of accidents, natural disasters, high waves andhigh tides. In fact, the lianjiachuan yumin people still have a strong passion towards
acquiring housing even today. As a result, it is estimated that 99% of the families areowning a land-life space as of 2018; for those who were not given the opportunity tolive in a condominium, in the small land of the Sm fishing shequ, they have been able
to buy or rent farmhouses or city apartments in a different village (approximately 1%
will be living on boats).
However, the process of acquiring collective housing did not cause theunidirectional result of settlement on land by moving from water or binding the
lianjiachuan yumin to a settlement or housing. Actually, 77.3% of the total labor
force of the Sm shequ still work on the water (ex. fishing, the transport of fish, sandexcavation, manning high-speed boats and cargo ships) according to 2006 statistics,
and other a lot of lianjiachuan yumin who are not engaged in water work also haveboats and boat licenses or newly obtain them individually or as a household. Almost
all of these water workers sleep on boats moored at sea for around a week to half ayear, and they repeat the cycle of returning to their housing for about a week for rituals
for gods and ancestors and sailing out to the sea again, which shows that they still
continue their life based on movement by boat3. Furthermore, as the power and size ofboats increased, the range of their movement has expanded compared to that before theacquisition of housing (FUJIKAWA 2016, 2018).

Two stories related to the justification for occupying lands
that originally belonged to others
Victims of the 8.23 typhoon and ceding of land for settlement/distribution of collective
housing
Development of settlements and construction of collective housing had gradually
made progress for over 40 years since the end of the 1950s. Acquisition of housing
was even more gradual for lianjiachuan yumin families and individuals, and it isstill slowly continuing today. During the collectivization period, collective housing
was only distributed to a limited number of people. Those who started land life towork for factories or agricultural sectors were still taking care of children, including
brothers, sisters, cousins, and grandchildren who were still living on boats―helping
３　However, the fishermen are obliged to suspend fishing for 3 to 4.5 months in Summer according tofishing laws of the People’s Republic of China, so it is impossible to go out on boats during that time.

FUJIKAWA : Differentiated Concepts of Home for Boat Dwellers

45

those children go to school,
eat, and sleep. After the 2000s,
cheap housing for low-income
families was being constructed in
the city (Fig. 5). It allowed poor
lianjiachuan yumin people to rentor buy housing. However, those
who still could not gain accessto any housing had to stay withrelatives who owned housing(FUJIKAWA 2016, 2017, 2018).
Even though it is obvious
housing for low-income families in the citythat they would have gradually Fig.5 cheap(2015)
acquired housing in this manner,
lianjiachuan yumin who belonged to units connected with the Sm fishing production
team and the Sm fishing shequ have a unified public story related to the groupacquisition of land and housing. Their story is as follows:
On August 23rd, 1959, a huge typhoon (named 8.23) and high tide which
occurs only once in 50 years laid havoc to the Jiulongjiang River area. In
this disaster, 132 of the lianjiachuan yumin people drowned and 327 fishingboats (75.6% of the Sm fishing production team) were destroyed. After
this disaster, the Party and the People’s Government started working on asettlement plan to address the problem of the lianjiachuan yumin, and in
1960, they enacted a 140 thousand Yuan project to build two condominiums
with two stories (2,960 m2 in total) in the current premises of the Sm fishingshequ. This project allowed 348 people in 116 families to settle-down on
land.
Mr. ZHANG who is lianjiachuan yumin and an executive of the Sm fishing village
used some expressions from this “8.23” story in his book, “Lianjiachuan（連家船）”,
published in 2009.
This is a story that explains two important points of the lianjiachuan yumin:development and ceding of land for settlement/construction and distribution ofcollective housing, which first originated from a large natural disaster that resulted in
identifiable victims and a specific amount of economical loss; and second, emphasizedthat this was a remedial action based on the concerns of the Communist Party and the(local) People’s Government regarding lianjiachuan yumin’s housing-related problems.
In other words, this story tells that the lianjiachuan yumin did not take the land owned
by others, but were given the land as legitimate compensation under government
expenses due to an uncontrollable disaster (disregarding what they had desired for over
the years, and how land ownership was managed under the socialist system).

46South Pacific Studies Vol.40, No.2, 2020

In effect, the land settlement policy for boat dwellers was implemented under
the collectivization policy between the late 1950s and early 1960s, in the Guangdong
Province and areas around Lake Tai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Shanghai (cf. HU 2017,
INAZAWA 2016, NAGANUMA 2010a). While the government administration became easy
after the land ceding and the distribution of collective housing to marginalized peopleor people in poverty like boat dwellers, it was a perfect chance, for the Communist
Party, who had been a sympathizer of people in poverty or with no authority since
before the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, to show their responsibility
for “saving those who do not own”. Thus, even if the huge typhoon did not occur
during this period, some other incident would have been the cause of land settlement
policy of lianjiachuan yumin people. From a different perspective to this politicalbackground, the story of the “8.23 typhoon” localized to the estuary of the JiulongjiangRiver and passed down among lianjiachuan yumin people is functioning as an excuse
to show the legitimacy of their land occupation which has lasted for a long period oftime while the land originally was allocated to a different group, the farmers.
Victimization of the Liberation patriot hero and status acquisition as a citizen
There is another public story given by the lianjiachuan yumin that can beunderstood as an excuse. It is a story which glorifies “patriot hero who died from the
Xiamen (厦門) island/Gulangyu (鼓浪嶼) liberation mission”. The story is as follows:
In August 1949, the People's Liberation Army who won the war against
the Nationalist Party Army in Fuzhou headed south towards Xiamen andZhangzhou. As a result, all regions of the Longxi and Haicheng counties(in the era) located at the Jiulongjiang River estuary was liberated by 25th
September. In October, a “Xiamen island-Gulangyu liberation mission” torelease people living in the Xiamen island/Gulangyu located at the estuary
was implemented, and some of the lianjiachuan yumin began to take partin this mission. Many of the lianjiachuan yumin followed an order to carry
multiple groups of the People's Liberation Army soldiers to Xiamen and
Gulangyu islands on their boats. Among the lianjiachuan yumin, people who
were on fixed netting boats, boats that were able to travel a long distance into
the sea were the main target of the call, and 157 boats and 128 people aged
13 to 60 were selected as front-line sailors. In the evening of October 5th,these sailors left the Jiulongjiang River estuary under the People's Liberation
Army’s order, and 24 of them died. Among the contributors, one was given
the Special Grade Honor, and 25, 35, and 69 people were given 1st Grade,
2nd Grade, and 3rd Grade honor respectively after the war (ZHANG 2009: 112,
ZHANG et al. 2009: 142-152).
An especially stirring part of the story is the fact that a married couple, Huang Nc
and Zhang Sj (she was the only female sailor) and their three sons who were suffering

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47

from poverty lost their lives as victims of this liberation mission. This incident isalways mentioned in the history of Longhai city revolution, and the story itself has
been widely known to make the readers/listeners emotional.
This story is exhibited extensively on the wall of the elderly activity room which
is a common place among lianjiachuan yumin in the Sm fishing shequ to gather;
however, only those who play mahjong or porker see it. Nevertheless, it appears in thehistory of the Longhai city revolution; moreover, it appeares repeatedly in documents
written by people who are trying to record the history of lianjiachuan yumin (HUANG
2018, ZHANG et al. 2012). As a compensation for this sacrifice, families of the patriot
heroes were given the right to exclusively occupy a part of the collective housing forsettlement, which was built on the land in 1986. They also preferentially have received
guaranteed minimal financial support since 2000, and there is no doubt that theseactions are from special consideration of the state.
The “8.23 typhoon” story and the appraisal of the “patriot hero who died fromthe Xiamen island/Gulangyu liberation mission” has specific information such as theyear of occurrence, names and number of victims, background of the story and typesof order. These are important historical stories for the lianjiachuan yumin because
they show the current administration’s allegiance towards the Communist Party.
Some lianjiachuan yumin people were categorized as a group to be penalized underCommunism since these people were working for the National Party as heads of boajia
or hiring and exploiting laborers on the fishing boats. Nevertheless, these stories havethe power to present the honor of the lianjiachuan yumin while hiding such negative
parts of their history, because it’s a glorious story which emphasizes that lianjiachuan
yumin who made a huge contribution to local and national communization during therevolution acquired “citizenship” that is equal to farmers and urban citizens who used
to look down on them for their life and working style, while experiencing injuries anddeaths, and being victimized. Thus, while it has been 70 years since the foundationof the People’s Republic of China, the glory of the patriot heroes which is repeatedly
mentioned in the “8.23 typhoon” story, are functioning as excuses to support thelegitimacy of land and housing acquisition of the lianjiachuan yumin inside and outsideof their community (including the local society surrounding the Jiulongjiang Riverestuary and the state).

Folkway to reinterpreting the space of land and water
residence originating from others: Xijiang and
Xunshe during the Dragon Boat Festival by the gods
Sense of belonging created in the settlement communities
As explained in their history, the lianjiachuan yumin were suddenly given land
in a place that they had no prior association with during the collectivization scheme.
While it was their wish to have land, they were forced to share a small settlement with

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South Pacific Studies Vol.40, No.2, 2020a large number of people which increased to 4,000 within 10 years. Before, the land
supported just a few families.
Movements of collectivization and land settlement divided the lianjiachuan yumin
who had base harbors surrounding the areas along the Jiulongjiang River estuary andhad marital or organic relations in the community within 5 places (The collectivization
was conducted in Zhangzhou city located at the upper stream; Longhai city; Fg
people's commune and Sm people's commune at the middle stream; Xiamen city; and,Gulangyu at the estuary), and house them in collectivized land.
From lianjiachuan yumin’s perspective, communities appeared to be just like
“uniforms supplied to employees (Oshikise)”, which is a result of political decision
beyond individual needs in which past geographical and biological linkage irregularly
disconnected and connected. However, the current lianjiachuan yumin living in the
Sm fishing shequ call themselves “people of the fishing battalion (Yuyedadui)”, whichis perceptibly from “Sm commune Sm fishing production team” appeared in 1960 as
the final stage of the collectivization scheme. This indicates that they have createdthe sense of belonging to a large newly developed community, experiencing life andproduction in the settlements given by the government for more than 30 years.
In 1990, the gods who protect people in the Sm fishing village: Shuixianwang(水仙王), Mazu (媽祖) and Tudi Gong (God of the Soil and the Ground; 土地公)
appeared in a temple (Zd mausoleum) where those gods sleep (Fig. 6-8). It represents
the sense of belonging to this community that was created by political influence. This
was a breakthrough of the lianjiachuan yumin’s history which used to believe God
only with a few families sharing the same base harbors, before the Cultural Revolution
which prohibited possession of God and rituals: they started sharing gods with 4000
community members beyond families.
In the following sections, this paper discusses the two ceremonies called “Xijiang( 洗江)” and “Xunshe ( 巡社)” which celebrate the “Dragon Boat Festival ( 端午th節)” in the Zd mausoleum the day around May 5 (in lunar calendar) every year.
In China, the festival is known as the day to remember Qu Yuan (屈原) who wasFig. 6. Tudi Gong

Fig. 7. Mazu

Fig. 8. Shuixianwang

FUJIKAWA : Differentiated Concepts of Home for Boat Dwellers

49

a patriotic poet. Nevertheless, lianjiachuan yumin believe that it is to celebrate thebirth of Shuixianwang (水仙王) who was the chief god of the Zd mausoleum. More
importantly, they believe that each ceremony in the festival is to “pray for a bountiful
haul and the safety of all members engaged in fishing in the Sm fishing shequ”. Mazu(媽祖) and other Gods enshrined with Shuixianwang in the Zd mausoleum also appear
in the ceremony. Among the ceremonies, Xijiang is held on May 1st and 5th in themorning, with Zd mausoleum’s gods riding on dragon boats and fishing boats, while
the Xunshe ceremony is held on May 1st in the afternoon, taking the gods from the Zd
mausoleum to the Sm fishing shequ by palanquins.
Xijiang
On the morning of May 1 st ,after high tide, palanquins on whichhave josses of Shuixianwang (水仙王), Mazu ( 媽祖) and Jiangwang(江王) are invited from the open sea(Jiangwang which does not havea joss is believed to reside in thewater of a vase) and rest on dragonboats. The boats make three roundtrips between the Jiulongjiang Rivertributary and the Sm fishing shequ(Fig. 9). Small fishing boats anchor Fig. 9. The dragon boat in tributary of the JiulongjiangRiver (2008)
at the tributary and throw banknotes
and firecrackers to the dragon boats while large crowds of lianjiachuan yumin watches
the celebration. This ceremony is carried out by praying for a bountiful haul and thesafety of all members engaged in fishing in the Sm fishing shequ, while welcoming
gods which have left the Zd maunsoleum and the open sea to visit the space where thepeople live.
On the morning of May 5th, josses of Shuixianwang and Mazu, and portraits

Fig. 10. Figures of Gods carried onto three
middle-sized fishing boats (2008)

Fig. 11. The dragon boat on the main stream of
the Jiulongjiang River (2008)

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South Pacific Studies Vol.40, No.2, 2020of Shuixianwang, Mazu and Jiangwang are divided into three groups to board three
middle-size fishing boats. These fishing boats and the dragon boats navigate throughthe spaces between various sizes of lianjiachuan yumin’s fishing boats anchored at
the main stream of the Jiulongjiang River (Fig. 10,11). The lianjiachuan yumin’ boatowners wait for the moment when the fishing boats and the dragon boats pass by, thenthrow banknotes and firecrackers to the gods and the boats while welcoming them,showing appreciation and praying for safety and a large haul. Since it is an earnest
wish of the lianjiachuan yumin people, they ask the dragon boats “please come here assoon as possible” using cell phones, when the gods and the dragon boats do not show
up near their fishing boats. Afterwards, gods will be placed on small fishing boats andmake three round trips to the tributary within the Sm fishing shequ with the dragonboats.
There was a turning point that
lianjiachuan yumin of the Sm fishingshequ started the Xijiang. Between
1960 and 1980, this tributary was
functioning as a fishing harbor where
lianjiachuan yumin, who used to be
in different places, anchored various
sized of fishing boats (Fig.12).
However, during this period, many
unexpected accidents occurred in thisFig.12. A harbor of the Sm Fishing Production Brigade
harbor: children and adults who were(1960s) Provided by Sm fishing shequplaying or doing laundry on boats
drowned by slipping or falling into the water. They thought it was because of “Shuigui(水鬼): an evil living in the water” wriggling in the river. People claimed, “Those
accidents happen because Shuigui would try to get humans into the water. In order tostop it, we need to make the harbor qingqi (clean) but human power is not enough to doit. We need to borrow a god’s power.” After the Zd mausoleum was built, people started
to keep the harbor qingqi by making round trips to the tributary with Shuixianwang,
Mazu and Jiangwang. Simultaneously, the distance of the round trip was extended toa harbor located at the main stream of the Jiulongjiang River. This ceremony started toplay a role in guaranteeing a large haul and the safety of people, especially fisherman
in Sm fishing shequ.
XunsheOn the afternoon of May 1 st , palanquins on which the gods are placed(Shuixianwang, Mazu, Huye, Fazigong and Taiziye) with the exception of Tudi Gongand portraits of Shuixianwang, Mazu and Jiangwang leave the Zd mausoleum and headto a collective housing area in the Sm fishing shequ. When arriving at the road in frontof the housing, the men who are carrying the palanquins shake them all at one, andrepeatedly pretend to enter the doorways of apartments that are left open: symbolizing

FUJIKAWA : Differentiated Concepts of Home for Boat Dwellers

51

a visit from the gods (Fig. 13).
Lianjiachuan yumin people who have apartmentson the first floor prepare and leave incense, rice
dumplings, fruits, confectionery and money
outside of the doors to welcome the gods’ visit.
Also, when the palanquins arrive at the mainroad which goes through the shequ, the men who
are holding the palanquins quickly make threeround trips from one end of the street to the other.
At this time, other Lianjiachuan yumin people
who live in apartments on the upper floors, andthose who bought or rent housing outside of the
Sm fishing shequ, come to the street and throwbanknotes and firecrackers to celebrate the gods’
visit. When gods leave their mausoleums andFig.13. Xunshe (2008)
visit villages to observe people’s lives once in a
year, people call it Xunshe believing that the gods’ visit will bring peace to all places
where people live.

Accepting spaces of land/water as their own homes
Xijiang and Xunshe of the Dragon Boat Festival (端午節) is closely connectedwith the space and the borders that define the area of the Sm fishing shequ. Fig. 14
shows that the area where Xijiang takes place is limited to the space where the Sm
fishing shequ anchor their boats. Moreover, the boats for Xijiang have to sail between
various sizes of fishing boats
within this area. The ceremony isconducted as if to determine thearea that the lianjiachuan yumin
can use within the main stream of
the Jiulongjiang River; the riverflows into the Taiwan Strait fromthe mountains in the Southwest
Fujian (Longyan) and the tributarythat goes through Sm, crossing thedowntown streets.
On the other hand, Fig. 15
shows that the area for Xunshe
is limited to the residential areas
located on either side of the
Jiulongjiang River tributary, wherecollective housing (the Shequ
Fig. 14. A sphere of Xijiang

52South Pacific Studies Vol.40, No.2, 2020

Fig. 15. A sphere of Xunshe

community office, shops, restaurants and clinics) were built, although the parade goes
through the area in a very precise manner.
The area for Xunshe does not illustrate the complete set of properties whereregistered residents live under the management of the Sm Fishing Shequ Committee.
This is because most lianjiachuan yumin people are living their lives outside of Sm
fishing shequ: the Sm fishing shequ was deemed too small to accommodate all thelianjiachuan yumin people, and those who have left the area have bought or rented
housing in different shequ(es) or villages next to Sm. Therefore, the Xunshe’s area
represents the official area of the administrative division which is governed as the Sm
fishing shequ, rather than the area where the lianjiachuan yumin live. In other words,
Xunshe defines the area in which the lianjiachuan yumin belong, while interpretingit as the shequ area. Therefore, it functions as a ceremony that guarantees safety andpeace of all members belonging to the Sm fishing shequ.
The process in which Xunshe started indicates the lianjiachuan yumin’s senseof land settlements. As mentioned previously, it started in 1990 (the year of theZd mausoleum foundation) which was approximately 20 years after many waterrelated accidents occurred; together with ceremonies of the Dragon Boat Festival. In
contrast, the Xunshe started for the first time in 2007, which was 17 years after theZd mausoleum was build. Essentially, the Xunshe has been regularly conducted for along time in Southern Fujian and the lianjiachuan yumin used to see it in agriculturalvillages where their base harbors were located. After the Zd mausoleum was built andthe gods which protect the entire Sm fishing village (the latter Sm fishing shequ) wereenshrined, the lianjiachuan yumin also desired to invite the gods for their collective
housing areas. However, according to the elders of the lianjiachuan yumin they could
not start the Xunshe because “they did not have courage” to do so. This is because they
had a fixed mindset that the land owned by associations linked from the Sm Fishing
Battalion (Yuyedadui) to the Sm fishing shequ “belonged to others”. Thus, even after
the settlement acquisition, the lianjiachuan yumin had believed that the land where

FUJIKAWA : Differentiated Concepts of Home for Boat Dwellers

53

they live is owned by other villages and they were just borrowing the land from them,for more than 50 years.
As the “8.23 typhoon” story shows, the land was officially given to thelianjiachuan yumin through a political procedure after the People’s government decided
to cede land for the Sm Fishing Battalian (Yuyedadui) without any compensation.
However, while the lianjiachuan yumin knew that the system gave them the right to use
the land, they continued to have a feeling of guilt for a very long time, believing that it
did not belong to them. In the end, many people raised their voices desiring Xunshe forthe lianjiachuan yumin. As a result, the Xunshe started in 2007 after being discussed by
the Zd mausoleum committee.
Xijiang indicates the space on water where the lianjiachuan yumin coming fromthe Sm fishing shequ anchor their boats, whereas the Xunshe indicates the land space
owned by the Sm fishing shequ. Both ceremonies are held to accept the space where
the lianjiachuan yumin can use. In either case, it took 20 to 50 years to start, andallowed them to accept the space as “Fishing Battalion’s (Yuyedadui’s)” and “ours”
while sharing the space in daily life.
The practice of Xijiang and Xunshe is a lianjiachuan yumin’s folk method tojustify the space they have chosen from water and land which endlessly spreads within
its defined border. In this sense, the process in which Xijiang and Xunshe started shows
the long history of the spaces that they have developed from both water and land whichwere originally owned by others, and that could be called home for them.

Homes connecting to the areas outside the border:
Reminiscing on the history of ancestors who did not settle in a single place
Geographical and social dissociation from farming villages of ancestral origin toreconciliation
Although it depends on the particular family, the lianjiachuan yumin haveaccepted that their ancestors left the agricultural villages to start living on boats,approximately 400 years ago. Furthermore, the lianjiachuan yumin had not left any
documents writing about specific relationships with their ancestors: such as genealogy
books or mortuary tablets and/or shrines to archive those documents. Interestingly,
lianjiachuan yumin and farmers with the same family name shared a common mindset:“we are the members of the same family name, “△”, and I am the “×th” descendant of
my ancestors”. This group mindset was created while sharing daily activities such as
boat manufacturing and repairs, procurements of food, commodities and fishing tools,
selling fish, and lodging school students in agricultural households. These activities
were conducted in the base harbors before collectivization and land settlement tookroot. The group mindset also had been strengthened by ancestral rituals that took placein the shrines of agricultural villages, where families from the patrilineal lineage, who
principally lived in different villages or on different boats, used to gather.

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South Pacific Studies Vol.40, No.2, 2020

In contrast, the communist revolution, which occurred after the foundation of thePeople’s Republic of China, was promoted - aiming to divide the geographical ties suchas biological linkages which were representative of religious groups and traditional
village associations that existed before the foundation of the People’s Republic ofChina. As described in the previous sections, after the foundation of the People’s
Republic of China, the lianjiachuan yumin have been collectivized into an associationthat solely consists of lianjiachuan yumin while experiencing several transformations.
In the 1960s, they left their agricultural villages where they had called home, andmoved to the settlements where the battalion of the Sm fishing production was located.
It meant that the lianjiachuan yumin were geographically and physically detached fromthe farmers who lived in agricultural villages and had the same family names as them.
In fact, the lianjiachuan yumin used to be engaged in the cultivation of land and thepisciculture of clams, fish and seaweed as a part of collective labor. They cooperated
with other farming production teams in agricultural places and at the Jiulongjiang River
coast, which were located far from the Sm fishing production battalion: but it was
just a labor distribution order of the People’s commune and the production battalion,
not lianjiachuan yumin’s voluntary actions to form close relationships with farmers.
During this period, in the agricultural villages, shrines established for each last namewere destroyed or used for other purposes, and each religious practice was prohibited- influenced by the political movements such as Great Leap Forward and the Cultural
Revolution.
The situation changed around 1990 after China’s economic reform. In agriculturalvillages along the Jiulongjiang River coastal area, shrines were established to enshrine
each ancestor in every “fang (房)” which categorizes early ancestor and the ancestorsof the ancestor. This movement also affected the lianjiachuan yumin as well: although
it had been about 30 years since the lianjiachuan yumin left base harbors in agriculturalvillages, farmers who had the same last names contacted relatives of the lianjiachuan
yumin; and since then, every year, male lianjiachuan yumin have participated inancestors’ worship festivals such as the Lantan Festival (元宵節), the winter solstice (冬至), Dragon Boat Festival, Ghost festival (中元節), and Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋節)(Fig. 16,17).

Fig. 16. A shrine of village ancestors

Fig. 17. Ancestor worship

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55

Lianjiachuan yumin connected to movements by Taiwan immigrants who looked backon history
Given the reformation of the relationship between the lianjiachuan yumin
and farmers who live in agricultural villages where lianjiachuan yumin’s ancestor
cultivated the lands and had the same family names with the lianjiachuan yumin
families, biological linkage among the lianjiachuan yumin was further expanded. After
2000, for example, representatives of Huang (黄) families who lived in the villagesof Zhangzhou City and Longhai City established a research institute named Fujan
Jiangxia Huang Nemeroot Searching Institute (福建省江夏黄氏源流研究会) where
they have published their work. In response to such movements, in the villages along
the Jiulongjiang River coast, intellectuals and local people have collected genealogy
books of the Huang families and re-edited or re-constructed the genealogical linkage ineach familial level. Name-root tracings are not always successful, but such movements
have started not only among Huang families but also other names including ones of thelianjiachuan yumin (most of them are elderly people who have obtained knowledgeof the relationship between ancestors who used to live in agricultural villages andcurrent lianjiachuan yumin. Since childhood, these stories have been passed down
by word of mouth). Thus, after 2000, the fact of “having the same family name” hasstrongly connected the lianjiachuan yumin with people from other areas, disregardlessof whether they share direct ancestorage that can be traced by genealogy books andstories passed down by word of mouth.
This movement, which associates people with the same family names while
spreading the linkages horizontally, has connected lianjiachuan yumin with people
who moved to Taiwan from villages along the Juilongjiang River coast. This effect has
enlarged descendants in various regions of Taiwan. This was initiated by Taiwanesepeople who started “root searching (尋根)”, which is visiting ancestral lands after theban of visiting relatives from Taiwan to China was terminated in 1987.
For example, people named Huang in Jm (a town) and Jz (a village) of Longhai
City have a history of enshrining Mazu with five other gods in the Lh mausoleum.
In 1661, a lot of Huang went to Taiwan and explored ways to survive. At that time,they decided to bring the five gods to Taiwan by boat while leaving Mazu in the Lhmausoleum. After arriving in Taiwan safely, they spread to different regions andestablished shrines in five villages of Tainan (台南) in order to enshrine the five gods.
Each administrative board of those shrines had kept in touch with each other. They had
passed down stories of Mazu which they left in their home town to later generations
while longing for their homeland. In 1988, under the complex relationship between
the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China, which was also right after
Taiwan ended martial law as well as the ban of visiting relatives on the mainland, theadministrative boards of the five shrines went to the mainland. One year after they
started ancestral root searching, they identified that the Jz Village was their homeland,
for them and their gods. Likewise, when they figured out that the Lh mausoleum wasgone, they established the “Lh Mausoleum Restoration Committee (Lh宮復建委員

56South Pacific Studies Vol.40, No.2, 2020会)”. As a result, Taiwanese people
with the family name of Huang
donated 800 million Renminbi tothe committee. After which, a newmausoleum was built in 1994 in
the Jz Village. It was named the We
mausoleum. Annually, on Mazu’s
birthday every year, descendants ofHuang, who are originally from theJz Village while living in Taiwan,
visit the We mausoleum, offering
incense with other Huang family Fig. 18. The Huang family who have their roots in Jz
village visit the We mausoleum (2008)
members who live in the mainlandside of Longhai City enjoying thereunion of “relatives who have the same homeland”. The representatives of Huangfrom lianjiachuan yumin who used to have base harbors near the Jz Village are invitedfor this ceremony, and they interact with Taiwanese participants using their mothertongue, Hokkien-Taiwanese (閩南語＝台湾語) (Fig. 18).
Lianjiachuan yumin return to Taiwan
Tracking of lineage based on paternal ancestors is not limited to the unidirectional
inquiry from Taiwan to the mainland. After Taiwan accepted group and individual
tourism from the mainland in 2008 and 2011 respectively, the freedom of visiting
Taiwan from the mainland was accelerated. In the following sections, this paper looks
at the lianjiachuan yumin who head to ancestral land in Taiwan.
A long time ago, Lianjiachuan yumin who had Zhang (張) as their last name andhad base harbors in Zn (a town) and Xl (a village)in Longhai City were engaged in
fixed-net fishing and fish transportation. They believed that their ancestors were from
Pk village which was an agricultural village of Lw ward in Zhangzhou, located along
the upper stream of a river. The Pk village was developed by a man called Zhang
Yh from 1464 to 1620 during the Ming dynasty. He was from a Zhang family in theHenan prefecture, and arrived at the Junlongjiang River to escape from a crime which
he committed while working as a government officer for the Nanjing government.
Subsequently, he found his second wife and had five sons with her. However, his oldest
son, Zhang Yr, thought that the agricultural land was too small to make sustain enoughlivelihood for his family, so he started fishing on the Jiulongjiang River. Soon after,
Zhang Cz who was a descendant after several generations of Zhang Yr and his wife
who moved to Fujian Jinjiang (晋江) and then traveled a short distance to Qingyu (青嶼)in Quemoy (金門) island, and came back to the mainland. Zhang Cz had three sons:the oldest son lived in Xiamen, the second son lived in Xl village, and the youngest
son lived in Zn town of the Tb village. The lianjiachuan yumin whose last names were
Zhang and who had their base harbors in Xl village are thought to follow the way

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57

that the second son took. This knowledge has been passed down by word of mouth
among the lianjiachuan yumin with the family name, Zhang. Given the genealogy
reconstruction movement which occurred after 1990s, it has become possible to trackdown specific details by combining written records of the Zhang families from all
regions of the Zhangzhou and Longhai city. In fact, part of the knowledge regarding
the father, Zhang Cz, who connected the Zhang family with Xl village was just relieved
recently.
After the history of Zhang Cz’s immigration to Quemoy was clarified, thelianjiachuan yumin with the family name of Zhang and Zhang families living in
Xl village started a “homecoming (返郷)” tour to Quemoy around 2015. Qingyu isactually believed to have been developed by Zhang Yz (born in 1254), who immigrated
from Jinjiang at the end of the Sung era, but there is no accurate information regarding
the genealogical connection between Zhang Cz and the Zhang families in Qingyu.
Despite this fact, some lianjiachuan yumin with the family name join the homecoming
tour giving the reason as “I have heard that my ancestors with unknown names left
the Jiulongjiang River and immigrated to Quemoy island via several different places.
I would therefore like to visit my ancestors”. For example, a total of 26 people of thelianjiachuan yumin named Zhang and 43 members of Zhang families living in Xl
village joined the tour in March 2018, to visit Qingyu village by boats and buses. This
was a three-day two-night trip, which was conducted upon obtaining “The Republic ofChina Taiwan Exit and Entry Permit” via the travel agent (Fig. 19).
Network of the patrilineal lineage expanding to the areas outside the border
Agricultural villages in the coastal areas of the Jiulongjiang River used to function
as homes to support lianjiachuan yumin having a nomadic life on boats. Those
villages are believed to be an area developed by ancestors including the lianjiachuan
yumin families, but the nomadic history of these ancestors also keeps changing while
experiencing loss and the conception of home. This is because the beginning of theirnomadism is often described by stories of victimization and loss such as “they cameto the Jiulongjiang River coast
having escaped from Nanjing aftercommitting crime”, “they came to the
Jiulongjiang River coast but moved
on to the boat because the farmland
was so small”, or “they moved on
to the boat after being kicked outof the farming village because of
starvation”. Regardless of whether
the stories are true, these stories
show that the start of a village or thestart of lives on boats, are always
Fig. 19“Homecoming”tour to Quemoy, provided byassociated with overcoming problems
Mr. Zhang Yaqing (2018)

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South Pacific Studies Vol.40, No.2, 2020and solving them by creating new homes for themselves.
Many of the lianjiachuan yumin followed an order to carry multiple groups of
the People's Liberation Army soldiers to Xiamen and Gulangyu islands on their boats.
The lianjiachuan yumin continue to interact with people who migrated to Taiwan long
ago simply because they share the same family names, or the lianjiachuan yumin aretrying to trace the history of migration said to have been experienced by the village
founders in their port of origin as well as visit ancestral places in Taiwan even though
they have no specific or certain genealogical relationships with the people there. A
social connection called “Zongqin (宗親)” is created by the voluntary participation of
the people who share the same family names according to the ideology that “having
the same family name indicates belonging the same patrilineal lineage” (C HEN
2014:138). The activities of the lianjiachuan yumin depicted above shows that Zongqin
is expanding its network by connecting people and easily crossing the boundaries ofadministrative divisions such as Sm fishing shequ, Longhai City, Fujian Province, andthe entire People's Republic of China.
Moreover, this shows that the complex history of migration that cannot be
captured by simple routes, such as that from the mainland to Taiwan and from Taiwan
to the mainland, became possible because the lives of ancestors connected to thelianjiachuan yumin of Sm fishing shequ were supported by an extremely wide rangeof both water and land spaces. In other words, it shows that for the lianjiachuan
yumin, home is not formed by roots in a single location even during a long historical
span. That is because their homes on land kept expanding as follows: from 1) ruralvillages developed by their ancestors who abandoned other provinces and came toestuary of the Jiulongjiang Riverin Fujian Province, to 2) Quemoy in Taiwan and 3)
the villages on estuary of the Jiulongjiang River , to 4) newly built offices of Sm large
fishing groups and fishing ports, and to 5) the settlements within the Sm large fishinggroups where their collective housing were built. Also, their homes continue to exist in
maritime areas, from estuary of the Jiulongjiang River and to the Taiwan Strait, where
they still spend most of the year living on boats.

Conclusion
Boat dwellers used to have a nomadic lifestyle on boats while engaging infishing or transportation without the need for land or housing. All movements towards
collectivization resulted in the categorization of such people into a specialized groupfor fishing and boat sailors. Moreover, it provided additional rights of citizens, which
was equal to famers, pastors, and labors, and to those who were discriminated andcalled, “people with bent legs” or “people in tanned skin”, due to having a different
lifestyle and physical appearance from majority of people in the society. Government
management and administration played an important role, convincing government
associations to centralize economic activity, education, healthcare and governance,FUJIKAWA : Differentiated Concepts of Home for Boat Dwellers

59

and to make people rely on specific land and government associations. Giving fixedhome addresses, job opportunities, and citizenship to boat dwellers including people
living in rural areas was a suitable policy for the state which was trying to strengthen
its national labor force, and consequently provide the government with an efficient andeffective way to generate income from labor and distribute the money to citizens. The
management or political method which can be called a “settlement-based management
system” has been experienced by nomadic people all over the world. It is common
in modern nation states, disregardless of the differences between political systems.
However, while most nomadic people in the world are exposed to a “state which tries
to restrict nomadic freedom to move around a wide range of homeland and people
who try to secure their nomadic freedom to escape from the state (including violationsof the state borders of territorial land and waters),” (cf. MARUYAMA 2018, SCOTT
2013,TOKORO 1999). Chinese boat dwellers were often described as “people who try tosettle down, utilizing the acquisition of land and housing as an opportunity to integrate
into the world of land dwellers and join the mainstream groups (such as farmers andcity dwellers) who use to discriminate against them (cf. HU 2017, HUANG 2015, INAZAWA
2016, NAGANUMA 2010a, 2010b, 2013). The symmetry of these two types of nomadic
people is created by two aspects: the first is the “autonomy of nomadic people” and“nomadic freedom = right”; while the second involves the “height of nomadism = a
result of land deprivation.”
This paper focused on the lianjiachuan yumin who still maintain their nomadic life
on boats even after the acquisition of land and housing. The process in the settlement,
distribution, and migration to the land along with the housing distribution andcollectivization, are passed down to people through “a history of acquisition”. These
people have experienced the two contradictory perceptions: 1) communities and land of
the settlements which has been developed in a short history started after the late 1950s;
and, 2) communities which the ancestors had developed for more than 400 years, ona wide range of river and ocean where they used to live. Thus, two perceptions whichhave different interpretations are misaligned when determining the meaning of “home”.
The first is to accept communities created by incoherently severing and connecting
traditional blood ties and territorial ties as their own communities, despite somehesitation, for the purpose of sharing a space originated by others (i.e. a settlement onland and a mooring base on water) given by the state regardless of one's own will, andthe economic, social, and political activities within that space. This brings us back to
the reasons why the lianjiachuan yumin have passed down the stories of settlement,rights, and status acquisition as they portray themselves as victims of governmentand society (as previously mentioned in the story of the patriot hero who died fromthe Xiamen island and Gulangyu liberation mission and the story of the 8.23 typhoon
disaster). They hold the ceremonies of Xijiang (洗江) and Xunshe (巡社) for Dragon
Boat Festival (端午節) as if to justify the land and water areas that they can use. It isbecause of this, at least from the lianjiachuan yumin’s perspective, that they have felt
guilty over the occupation of settlements which are the spaces previously settled by60South Pacific Studies Vol.40, No.2, 2020

other people - even though the legitimacy of the space has been politically secured
since their acquisition of the settlement. Thus, for the lianjiachuan yumin, relocation to
new settlements translates into the deprivation and occupation of someone’s space, nomatter if they regard it as loss of homeland or acquisition.
The second lianjiachuan yumin’s perception for determining home was expanding
the space and the community, which they believe to belong to. This expansion
extended to the shequ, city, prefecture, and state borders as if to protrude out from theoriginal space of their settlements, while tracing back to the nomadic history of theirancestors. The nomadic history of their ancestors, which moved from the interior to the
Jiulongjiang River’s coast in Fujian and from the Jiulongjiang River coast to (current)
Taiwan. This history illustrates that the agricultural villages which used to play a role indefining their sense of home has expanded the space in which the word home is defined- as the lianjiachuan yumin have a history of losing and creating new residence.
The first of the lianjiachuan yumin’s perceptions can be understood as “grassroots
nationalism” which arises in their society as base layers. This was accomplished bylaying down roots and developing the space within the communities in which they
settle. These settlements are acquired with losing many lives and ultimately become thelianjiachuan yumin’s homes. To the contrary, the second perception of the lianjiachuan
yumin’ can be understood as an attempt to constantly validate the historical aspects ofhome having not put down roots in one place―freely moving between land and water
dwelling by living a nomadic lifestyle. Furthermore, for the lianjiachuan yumin who
have housing in settlements or around them, the majority still maintain a nomadic life
while continuing to live on boats and engaging in water-related labors, such as fishing,transporting fish, sand digging, and sailing high-speed ferries or freighters, the act ofbuilding “home” in a space or community across water and land is just as ongoing.

Acknowledgment
My heartfelt appreciation goes out to the participants of the 2018 6th Annual East
Asian Island and Ocean Forum in Zhanjiang, China, who provided helpful comments
and suggestions. This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number
16K16968, and Nanzan University Pache Research Subsidy I-A-2 for the 2018-2019
academic years.

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