This paper takes Hakka Ancestral Estate Associations（嘗會cang hui）as the subject of the study. As the term “cang hui” is used only by the Hakka ethnic group in both mainland China and Taiwan, this study is to explore the characteristics and Hakka people and its culture features. Therefore, in terms of historical context, the region for the research is limited only to Xihu River basin area where early Hakka immigrants settled. Through this kind of study and by comparing various research points of view about cang hui, this paper hopes to present the general and core cultural characteristics of Hakka Ancestral Estate Associations in Xihu River Basin.
In addition to exploring the core cultural characteristics of Hakka Ancestral Estate Associations, the study also deals with and applies discussions and findings of previous theories on traditional Chinese society lineage, hoping that through the application of lineage related theory and the statistical analysis of the Hakka Ancestral Estate Associations in Xihu River Basin to attain the research purposes. The purposes are the situation of the early lineage distribution, lineages which are more representative of the development of Xihu River Basin, the relationship between the development of Hakka Ancestral Estate Associations and the development of the lineage, and the relevance of the development of settlement, etc. The Hakka Ancestral Estate Associations in Xihu River Basin is the core observation. In addition, this study discusses further the impact of government policy and social change on the Hakka Ancestral Estate Associations. In terms of research method, we use document analysis, participation in observation and in-depth interviews. About data processing, we use the official registration information of the property of Ancestral Estate Associations owned by the government's land office in 2009 and then adopt suitable statistical methods to sort, summarize, analyze and compare the result of related historical documents to enhance the reliability and validity of the research data analysis results.
The study finds that Hakka Ancestral Estate Associations can explore the relationship between the historical context of lineage development and the development of settlements in the early history. We can also use it to find that family names of the top five lineages in the river basin are Lai, Li, Peng, Liu and Chiu. Besides, we can analyze the meaning and characteristics of Hakka Ancestral Estate Associations in Hakka society. While formal and realistic meaning of “Chang”(嘗) represents Hakka people’s unique cultural characteristics, this uniqueness is not only facing the impact of social transformation and the change of the times, but also facing unprecedented challenges by government policy since Japanese Reign.