一九八○年代以來的華南僑鄉刊物研究

A Study of the Publications from the Emigrant Villages in South China since the 1980s

僑鄉是指任何移居海外華人之故鄉或其祖籍地區，而這些地區又是具有大規模海外移民的歷史，自19世紀以來，大多數的北美洲華人和東南亞華人皆來自廣東省、福建省和其他華南地區的某些特定村落，這些區域便構成了傳統的僑鄉。19世紀末和20世紀初時有不少僑鄉出版定期性的刊物，以便知會他們在海外的移民有關故鄉的事宜，藉此保持彼此的連繫，僑刊成為與海外移民溝通的一項平臺。但因中國大陸在1949年後對海外華人的政策傾向改變之故，中國大陸各級鄉鎮的僑刊都停止刊行，直到1980年代為了凝聚與海外華人的社會關係，僑鄉刊物所具備的通訊聯誼功能再度被發揮，於是又在華南地區興起。自香港中文大學圖書館所收集的80年代至90年代初中期的僑鄉刊物中發現，此時期鄉訊僑刊的出版地主要集中在廣東西部的江門五邑，即19世紀末以來最多北美移民的僑鄉，刊物鮮少出自福建東部的福州地區，即1980年代以來成為最多北美新移民的僑鄉。本文試以時空分析，以及在廣東、福建和紐約市的考察方法，探索同樣在北美洲都擁有大量移民人口的粵西和閩東，何以在新僑刊的發行力度上，呈現出與目前移民人數的多寡不成比例的現象，並於發現的基礎上，建議如何利用這一時期的僑刊，並以地理資訊系統整合時間序列，以便解析僑民遷徙過程，進一步地研究他們的原住地社會關係和族群文化如何在移居地持續發展。

Qiaoxiang refers to any hometown of emigrant Chinese with a long history of large scale outward migration. Most of the Chinese Americans and Southeast Asian Chinese originated from certain villages in the provinces of Guangdong and Fujian. Some emigrant villages published their own local qiaokan (僑刊, emigrant region newsletter) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to keep their emigrants informed of local matters and to provide them with a communication forum in their hometown. These qiaoxiang serials were discontinued on the mainland after 1949 under unfavorable policies on the Mainland towards Chinese overseas. They revived in the 1980s when mainland China initiated an open door policy. To cement the social relations with Chinese overseas, the old function of qiaoxiang serials was used in the emigrant villages of South China. Based on the qiaokan from the 1980s to the mid-1990s collected in the Chinese University of Hong Kong Library, we find these publications dominated in Jiangmen City and Five County of west Guangdong, the qiaoxiang of most old immigrants since the late nineteenth century, and under-represented in Fuzhou region of east Fujian, the qiaoxiang of most new Chinese migrants to North America since the 1980s. Based on spatiotemporal analysis and fieldwork conducted in Guangdong, Fujian and New York City, we try to explore such a disproportionate distribution of new qiaokan publications from these two emigrant sources both with large emigrant populations in North America. Based on our findings, we suggest a spatial and temporal ontology methodology to better use of these qiaokan in the migration processes of various sub-ethnic groups, and see how they sustain the social relations and cultural practices of their qiaoxiang in the residential societies.