Baisha, Taishan

Baisha
白沙镇
Baisha is located in Guangdong
Baisha
Baisha
Location in Guangdong
Coordinates: 22°14′45″N 112°35′41″E / 22.24583°N 112.59472°E / 22.24583; 112.59472
CountryPeople's Republic of China
ProvinceGuangdong
Prefecture-level cityJiangmen
County-level cityTaishan
Area
 • Total238 km2 (92 sq mi)
Population
 • Total140,000
 • Density590/km2 (1,500/sq mi)
Time zoneUTC+8 (China Standard)

Baisha (Chinese: 白沙; pinyin: Báishā; Jyutping: baak6saa1; lit. 'white sand'; Taishanese: Bak-sa)[needs IPA] is a town of Taishan, Guangdong province.[1] As of 2018, it has two residential communities and 18 villages under its administration.[2] It has a population of 140,000[when?] residing in an area of 238 km2 (92 sq mi).

History

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Baisha town was the ancestral home of many of the first Chinese Canadians.[citation needed] Their descendants live all over Canada, and used to predominate before the 1980s in the Chinatowns of Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Banff and Edmonton, and US West Coast cities such as San Francisco and Seattle. [citation needed]

Citation: https://asian.library.ubc.ca/files/2011/08/Head-Tax-brochure2-1.pdf

Economy

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Baisha Town is one of the few regions in northern Guangdong province where illegal rare earth mines were operating.[3] Baisha Town is rich in rare earth minerals such as dysprosium.[3]

Dialect

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The Baisha variant of Taishanese is fading amongst the descendants of Canadian-Chinese, as Cantonese and Mandarin become more dominant. Based on observations of Chinese-Canadian elders living in Edmonton between 1980 and 2005, it would seem that the Taishan language spoken in Baisha in the mid-20th century differed somewhat from that spoken in Taicheng (Hoiseng in the Hoisan language, 台城), the county seat of Taishan (Hoisan, 台山县). Indeed, the pronunciation was more or less the same as that of people living across the river in the next county, Kaiping (Hoiping in the Toisanese language, 开平). One notable difference can be seen in the shift of certain vowel sounds, as follows:

English Taishanese Cantonese Mandarin
Baisha Taishan Cantonese IPA Jyutping Traditional
Chinese characters
Mandarin IPA Pinyin Simplified
Chinese characters
blood het hut hyːt˧ hyut3 ɕjɛ˨˩˦ xuě
moon nget ngut jyːt˨ jyut6 ɥɛ˥˩ yùe
snow hlet hlut syːt˧ syut3 ɕɥɛ˨˩˦ xǔe

Besides the differences in some vowel sounds, the consonant [b] of Mandarin is usually realized as [v], and [p] as [h].

English Taishanese Cantonese Mandarin
Baisha Taishan Cantonese IPA Jyutping Traditional
Chinese characters
Mandarin IPA Pinyin Simplified
Chinese characters
(stomach) full vow bow paːu̯˧˥ baau2 pɑʊ˨˩˦ bǎo
eight vatt batt paːt˧ baat3 pa˥
quilt hi pi pʰei̯˩˧ pei5 peɪ˥˩tsɨ bèizi 被子
wife law hu law pu lou̯˩˧ pʰɔː˨˩ or lou̯˩˧ pʰɔː˩ lou5 po4 老婆 lɑʊ˨˩pʰo˧˥ lǎopó 老婆

References

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  1. ^ 2018年统计用区划代码和城乡划分代码:台山市 (in Chinese). National Bureau of Statistics of the People's Republic of China. Retrieved 5 March 2019.
  2. ^ 2018年统计用区划代码和城乡划分代码:白沙镇 (in Chinese). National Bureau of Statistics of the People's Republic of China. Retrieved 5 March 2019.
  3. ^ a b Bradsher, Keith; Hilda Wang (29 December 2010). "In China, Illegal Rare Earth Mines Face Crackdown". The New York Times. Retrieved 30 December 2010.