HAINAN ASSOCIATION IN REALITY 海南会馆特写

 

hainan association hcmc

Ho Chi Minh City Hainan Association, Vietnam  越南胡志明市琼府(海南)会馆

The Association is located 276 Tran Hung Daob Street, Ward 11, District 5. It has a history of about 200 years.  Every year the Hainanese celebrate the First Day of the First Moon (农历正月初一),15th day of the First Moon (农历正月十五元宵节), offer Ancestral Prayer (清明节), organise Scholarship Presentation and conduct religious ceremony on the following days: 懿美娘娘(农历二月初十),天后圣母(农历三月廿三),水尾娘娘(农历十月十五),华光祖师 (农历九月廿七). In 2001 the Association was listed as a Vietnam national historical and cultural site - a recognition of the effort by the local Hainanese community in the preservation of heritage building and the promotion and upholding of Hainanese culture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hue Hainan Association, Vietnam  越南顺化琼府(海南)会馆

We visited this association on 24 August 2004. We met a few adults at the site and spoke to them in  Hainanese dialect. None of them understood what we said.  At the notice board we saw some messages written in Chinese: the association has just celebrated a function welcoming the overseas Hainanese, who returned to their motherland in Hue.  These Hainanese, like many other fellow countrymen, women and young children had been forced by circumstances to leave their homeland and took shelter in the strange foreign countries during the 1970s.

With the opening up of Vietnam economy to the outside world, local ethnic Chinese are considered an asset by the government, which hope their overseas relatives and connections will help to bring in foreign investment.  The revival of ethnic Chinese organizations, the official recognition of their roles in the society and the wider use of Chinese language in business are testimony. 

Along the same road where the Hainan Association is situated there were also associations of Fujian, Guangdong, Chaozhou and Zhaoying Temple, which also conducted Chinese teaching class.        

hainan association huehainan association hue
Jee, the writer of this article, taken in front of the Hainan Association at the gate of the temple  顺化琼府会馆外Jee and Ang inside the temple
顺化琼府会馆内