To-day I will tell you about the various clans in the Chinese community. Each clan has a family name, eg the Tan clan, the Lim clan, the Lee clan, the Teo clan, the Ng ( or Huang clan; also known as Wee clan), etc. China is a very big country and is divided in many provinces or states and citizens of each state is known by their dialect name eg the citizens from the Fuchien ( or Hokkien Province) are known as Hokkien people. So if a person says he is a Chinese you might want to know which province he comes from. Is he Hokkien or Teochew or Cantonese ? Cantonese people come from Kwang Tung or Kwang Chow. A lot of Cantonese stay in Hong Kong so you find the Hong Kong people speak the Cantonese dialect. Similarly a lot of Hokkien people stay in Taiwan so in Taiwan the Hokkien dialect is commonly used. To simplify communication Mandarin language was introduced as the common language so that all the Chinese citizens can understand each other better. The Chinese characters are the same for all the dialect groups . Before the introduction of Mandarin each dialect group pronounces the characters in their own dialect. A Chinese family may now be living in Singapore or Malaysia or anywhere else but they still relate themselves to the clan or dialect group of their ancestors. In my case I was born in Singapore and is a Singapore citizen but I am also a Chinese(Hokkien). To-morrow I will touch on a small community which is significant in the culture of Asian Chinese. Till then ...
tctan -- http://homeincomeportal.com/tiatan787/