Chuang Guandong

Chuang Guandong (Chinese: 闖關東; pinyin: Chuǎng Guāndōng, literally "Crashing into Guandong" with Guandong being an older name for Manchuria), means the rush to Manchuria of the Han Chinese, especially from the Shandong Peninsula and Zhili, during the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Previously this region was outside China proper, but sometimes under the control, or at least within the sphere of influence, of the dynasty ruling China. During the first two centuries of the reign of the Manchu Qing Dynasty in China, it was closed to settlement by Han Chinese. The region is now known as Northeast China, and has an overwhelmingly Han population.

Historical background

Inner Manchuria, also called Guandong (literally, "east of the pass" referring to Shanhai Pass at the eastern end of the Great Wall of China) or Guānwài (關外; "outside of the pass"), used to be a land of sparse population, inhabited mainly by the Tungusic peoples. In 1668 during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor, the Qing government further decreed a prohibition of other people getting into this area of their origin.

In the second half of 19th century, as Czarist Russia advanced through Siberia and reached the Sea of Okhotsk, the Qing officials like General Tepuqin (特普欽) made a proposal to open Guandong for farming in order to oppose the conquest of Russia, and so the Qing government changed their policy, encouraging the poor farmers in nearby Zhili (the present-day Hebei) and Shandong to move to and live in Manchuria.

Until 1931 when the Manchurian Incident occurred, a few million people are said to have moved to this area from outside.^[vague] This migration is comparable to the westward expansion in United States, the advance to Siberia in Russia or, on a smaller scale, the move to Hokkaido in Japan.

Present-day significance

Those who moved to Manchuria were the poor farmers mainly from Shandong who came over land through Shanhai Pass or over the sea, using the Yantai-Lushun ferry that had opened because of the Beiyang Fleet were stationed in Weihaiwei in Shandong Peninsula and Lushun in Liaodong Peninsula. One of the results of this people movement, for example, is that the majority of the older people in Dalian City are from Shandong and that the Dalian Dialect is part of the Jiaoliao Mandarin, the Chinese dialect group spreading from Qingdao to Dalian and Dandong.

In the present-day China, the Chuang Guandong migration is well researched.^[vague]

In popular arts and literature

A television drama series, Chuang Guandong, made by Dalian TV Station^{[clarification needed]}, using the scenarios^{[clarification needed]} written by Gao Mantang, was broadcast in Dalian, China, in January and February, 2008, and was later broadcast throughout China by China Central Television.

See also

• History of China
• Northeast China
• Shandong, Shandong Peninsula, Liaoning and Liaodong Peninsula
• Dalian, Dandong, Shenyang, Changchun and Harbin
• Willow Palisade

References

• A brief Study of the "Ch'uang Kuantung" Immigration Wave (in Chinese)
• Migration of Ethnic Hans to NE China (the bottom of this page)

External links

• TV Drama Series"Chuang Guandong" by CCTV (in Chinese)