Taishanese people, Sze Yup people, or Toisanese (, Taishanese: Hlei Yip Gong Ong Ngin) are a Han Chinese group coming from Sze Yup (四邑), which consisted of the four county-level cities of Taishan, Kaiping, Xinhui and Enping. Heshan has since been added to this historic region and the prefecture-level city of Jiangmen administers all five of these county-level cities, which are sometimes informally called Ng Yap. The ancestors of Taishanese people are said to have arrived from central China under a thousand years ago and migrated into Guangdong during the Tang Dynasty. Taishanese, as a dialect of Yue Chinese, has linguistically preserved many characteristics of Middle Chinese.
The Taishanese are part of the Yue Chinese family and have an identity that distinguishes themselves from the dominant Cantonese people. Among the Han Chinese, Taishanese are a source for many famous international Chinese celebrities and have produced the largest numbers of Chinese actors and singers of any region in mainland China. Despite their small population, Taishanese people have also produced a number of famous academics and historical figures. Sze Yup or Jiangmen is considered the home of Chinese Academicians, a title gifted by the world's largest research institution, the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The total of academicians is 31 people, a city with over 20 is considered extremely rare in China.
Among Asian Americans, Taishanese are influential in politics and were the first Americans of Asian descent to be elected as governors (for example Gary Locke), mayors and congressmen. The Taishanese were the first Chinese people to settle in America and the Taishanese language was the original lingua franca of Chinatowns. Taishanese as the lingua franca was later replaced with Cantonese after being overwhelmed by immigration from Guangzhou and its satellite cities when the Chinese Exclusion Act was fully repealed under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. Taishanese American laundrymen and shopkeepers were a primary source of funding that helped launch Dr. Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary activities while he was in exile and raising money from overseas countrymen.
Language and identity
Taishanese is a Yue Chinese language that is distinguished from Standard Cantonese but non-specialists often use "Cantonese" in a broader sense for the entire Yue subgroup of Chinese rather than specifically the language of Guangzhou. Cantonese speakers often find Taishanese difficult to understand and have an average intelligibility of only 30%. This is also true for other Yue Chinese variants such as the Goulou dialects.
Unlike most varieties of Chinese, Cantonese has de facto official status in Hong Kong and Macau and has an independent tradition of the written vernacular. Taishanese, who make up one-third of the population of Hong Kong, may identify themselves with Cantonese instead of Taishanese. Since Hong Kong culture is heavily Cantonese-influenced and is a Cantonese-speaking society, Taishanese and other Han Chinese who are Hong Kong-born and raised, assimilate into the Cantonese identity of Hong Kong. Many Hong Kong activists are of Taishanese ancestry such as the late Szeto Wah who was a politician of the pan-democracy camp and sang democratic Cantonese songs with other activists to promote democracy in China.
Culture
Culturally, Taishanese people are similar to other Yue Chinese peoples. Today, many Sze Yup people have become successful in many areas such as the entertainment industry, business and politics. Hong Kongers of Sze Yup ancestry include: Andy Lau, Beyond (band), Danny Chan, Kenny Kwan, Joey Yung, Ronnie Chan, John Tsang, Andrew Li and many others. The Father of Hong Kong Cinema, Lai Man-Wai also has ancestry from the Sze Yup region of province. As a result, Sze Yup people have dominated in the entertainment industry and play most major roles in the music and movie sectors. In many films, Taishanese can be heard, especially in many of Karl Maka's films such as Merry Christmas and Aces Go Places.
It is said that over a hundred famous people come from the Sze Yup region of Guangdong Province, making the region famous for producing more stars than any other city/region in mainland China. As a result, the local government in Jiangmen which administers the Sze Yup or Ng Yap cities of Taishan, Kaiping, Enping, Xinhui and Heshan, decided to build a Stars Park called Jiangmen star park ().