The Hokkien in Hội An, 1500s–1800s: Methods of Integration in the Chinese Diaspora

The Hokkien are one the most prominent regional subgroups in China. This paper focuses on those Hokkien who in the 1500s–1800s took up residence in Hội An, a port located on the eastern coast of Quảng Nam in present-day central Vietnam. It analyzes how the Hokkien inserted themselves into this new environment and how they reshaped local cultural ecology in the host society from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Through a number of different methods, the Hokkien adapted broadly to their host societies, politically, economically, socially, and militarily. They contributed much to the rise of Hội An as a port, and I argue that the two prominent and effective methods by which they gained a foothold in the local society there were the operations of native-place associations and land purchases. Through these two methods, the migrants finally turned the host society into a permanent home.