Sinicisation The
Song dynasty engaged in extensive sinicisation of the region with
Han people. After many years of
sinicisation and assimilation, the Boat Dwellers now identify as Han Chinese, though they also have non-Han ancestry from the natives of Southern China. The Cantonese would often buy fish from the Boat Dwellers. In some inland regions, the Boat Dwellers accounted for half of the total population. The Boat Dwellers of southern Fujian were registered as barbarian households.
Ming dynasty The Boat Dweller boat population were not registered into the national census as they were of outcast status, with an official imperial edict declaring them
untouchable.
Macau and Portuguese rule When the Portuguese arrived at
Macau, enslaved women from
Goa (part of
Portuguese India),
Siam,
Indochina, and
Malaya became their wives. However, Boat Dwellers also mixed and married with the Portuguese, though many other Chinese women did not. This is likely because the lower-class Boat Dwellers were less tightly bound by expectations prohibiting
exogamy than higher-class people were. Some of the Boat Dwellers' descendants became
Macanese people. Boat Dwellers would also supply fish for the Portuguese, as they did for the Cantonese, an activity which is mentioned in a poem by Chinese poet
Wu Li. Some Boat Dweller children were kidnapped and enslaved by Portuguese raiders. Literature in Macau was written about love affairs and marriage between the Boat Dweller women and Portuguese men, like "A-Chan, A Tancareira", by
Henrique de Senna Fernandes.
Qing dynasty Boat Dwellers mostly worked as
fishermen and tended to gather at some
bays. Some built markets or villages on the shore, while others continued to live on their
junks or boats. They claimed to be
Han Chinese. The Qing edict said "Cantonese people regard the Dan households as being of the mean class (beijian zhi) and do not allow them to settle on shore. The Dan households, for their part, dare not struggle with the common people", this edict was issued in 1729. As Hong Kong developed, some of the fishing grounds in Hong Kong became badly polluted or were
reclaimed, and so became land. Those Boat Dwellers who only own small boats and cannot fish far out to sea are forced to stay inshore in bays, gathering together like floating villages.
Canton (Guangzhou) The ancestors of the Boat Dwellers were the natives of Southern China before the Cantonese expelled them to the water, forbidding the Boat Dwellers to marry land-dwelling Chinese or live on land. They did not practice
foot binding, and their dialect was unique. They also formed a class of
prostitutes in Canton, operating the boats in Canton's
Pearl River which functioned as brothels.
Modern China Boat Dwellers were among the many people that remained in Nanjing in December 1939 before
the Japanese massacred the population. During the intensive
land reclamation efforts around the
islands of Shanghai in the late 1960s, many Boat Dwellers were settled on
Hengsha Island and organised as fishing brigades.
Post 1949: Removal of Tanka people as "Mean” (贱), which existed under the caste-like system in imperial China The term “Tanka” itself is now considered derogatory. Tanka (疍家人) were historically considered “Mean” (贱) under the caste-like system in imperial China, especially in southern coastal regions like Guangdong, Guangxi, and Fujian. They were discriminated against, and were excluded from civil service exams and many social privileges. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officially abolished the legal and social classification of “mean” (贱) groups —including the Tanka boat people — after coming to power in 1949. These groups had long been stigmatized under imperial and Republican-era systems for hundreds of years, often barred from land ownership, education, and intermarriage with “good” (良) households. Under Communist reforms after 1949, the CCP abolished hereditary status distinctions. This included the “mean” vs “good” household divide. The government promoted class-based identity (e.g., worker, peasant) over ethnic or caste-like categories. Tanka people were legally equalized, allowed to settle on land, and encouraged to integrate into main-stream society.
British Hong Kong In 1937, Walter Schofield, then a Cadet Officer in the Hong Kong Civil Service, wrote that at that time the Boat Dwellers were "boat-people [who sometimes lived] in boats hauled ashore, or in more or less boat-shaped huts, as at
Shau Kei Wan and
Tai O". They mainly lived at the harbours at
Cheung Chau,
Aberdeen, Tai O,
Po Toi,
Kau Sai Chau and
Yau Ma Tei. Many Boat Dweller women worked as prostitutes to British sailors, and Boat Dwellers assisted the British in their military actions around Hong Kong. The Boat Dwellers also assisted the Europeans with supplies. Due to their marginal position in Chinese society, and the fact that they lacked access to many of the privileges that societal integration could afford them, Boat Dwellers were not as tightly bound by social pressure and Confucian ethics as other ethnic groups when interacting with foreigners. In many cases, closeness with foreigners could serve as a "ladder to financial security, if not respectability," especially for women, many of whom became sex workers. Boat Dwellers were already ostracized from the Cantonese community, and the perception of women as prostitutes compounded this. Boat Dweller women were criticized as "low-class" and rude, and were nicknamed "saltwater girls" (
ham sui mui in Cantonese). Stereotypes about Boat Dweller women were so common among Chinese people in Canton that, during the
Republican era, the Chinese government inflated their count of prostitutes by assuming large numbers of Boat Dweller women were prostitutes without evidence. Despite the negative perspective of them, the brothels run by Boat Dweller prostitutes were reportedly very well kept and tidy. Some Boat Dweller women who worked as prostitutes for foreigners also kept a "nursery" of Boat Dweller girls in order to export them for prostitution work in overseas Chinese communities, such as in Australia or America, or to serve as concubines. In 1882, a report ("Correspondence respecting the alleged existence of Chinese slavery in Hong Kong: presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty") was presented to the English Parliament concerning the existence of slavery in Hong Kong, of which many were Boat Dweller girls serving as prostitutes or mistresses to Westerners.
Ernest John Eitel claimed in 1895 that all "half-caste" people in Hong Kong were descended exclusively from Europeans' relationships with Boat Dweller women, rather than Chinese women. Though this claim is somewhat historically supported, it has also been criticized as a "myth" spread by other Chinese peoples to express xenophobia towards Hong Kong's Eurasian community. During British rule some special schools were created for the Boat Dwellers. In 1962 a typhoon struck boats belonging to the Boat Dwellers, likely including Hoklo-speaking Boat Dwellers mistaken for being Hoklo, destroying hundreds.
Shanghai Boat Dweller women also worked as prostitutes in Shanghai, where they were grouped separately from the Cantonese prostitutes. They continued to live on boats. ==Surnames==