The 4th Cross-strait Wuxian God Cultural Exchange Event took place on November 11, 2015. It was hosted in Puxin Township’s Wufeng Community, Changhua County. There were almost a hundred of visitors from Guangdong Raoping and Fujian Zhaoan, mainland China coming to the event, and Mrs. Qiu was invited to be the goodwill ambassador, guiding the visitors and telling stories for them. Visiting locations including mushroom industrial fields in Taiwan, the old house of Taiwanese early singer Sanyuan Huang, and Lu Grape Winery; and the host had traditional drummers and musicians to welcome the guests. What’s more, there was a calligraphy event for the Taiwanese host and visitors from mainland China. Also, Cross-strait Raoping Zhaoan Cultural Association Talk and evening party were included as well, so were the ceremonies for Wuxian God in Xiansheng Temple and trips to associated temples.

The junior corps joined this event and interviewed the host Mr. Huang. Mr. Huang said that since Mrs. Qiu joined the cultural exchange event, he could talk in Raoping Hakka, which leveled up the cross-strait Hakka cultural belief. Zhan, the journalist from Global Hakka Post, interviewed Mrs. Qiu and said that he is also a Raoping Hakka, but found that in the past decade, there was little news about Changhua Raoping Hakka. He praised Mrs. Qiu for her efforts on the revival of Raoping Hakka. In the end, he hoped there would be more chances to invite Mrs. Qiu to contribute to the Post and share more stories in the future. Then, with the guidance of Mrs. Qiu, the corps took out the teaching materials of Changhua Zhuolan Raoping Hakka phonetic symbols that Mrs. Qiu made, and interviewed Mr. Huicong Huang and Mr. Zhenping Huang, the vice chairperson of the Huang Ancestral Association in Sanrao Township, Raoping County, Guangdong. The corps asked them about the kinsfolk appellations in Raoping Hakka, including 36 words like grandpa, grandma, wife, husband, and mother-in-law.... The guests could not speak Raoping Hakka though, they pronounced the words in Chaoshan. The corps understood their accent, since it sounded like Taiwanese. The corps was taking notes while listening to the recordings, while Mrs. Qiu was videotaping the process. Mr. Huang said that in early times in Sanrao, there were people speaking Raoping Hakka, but none in these years. The schools all teach standard Chinese and don’t promote local languages, and the kids and teachers speak Chaoshan after school. However, in Taiwan, there are local language classes in school, and it is really great to pay attention to our mother tongues. The corps turned the page to Transportation Unit and interviewed the 28-year-old couple from Xiage Township, Zhaoan, Fujian. The corps first introduced themselves in Raoping Hakka, and then showed the couple how to pronounce these 18 words in that language, such as airplane, taxi, train, car front, etc. Though Raoping Zhaoan Hakka was a little bit different, it was easy to understand. Mingyu Chen, one of the corps member, shared with the couple about how he learned Raoping Hakka and Mrs. Qiu’s revival progress of Raoping Hakka. Mrs. Wang from Zhaoan was impressed by the story, and encouraged the corps to seize every opportunity to learn as much as they can, since they didn’t have that luck to learn their local language back in Zhaoan, Fujian. Mrs. Qiu took out the teaching material she wrote, which was titled Welcome Hakka Friends from Zhaoan, and interviewed the Wang couple once again. This time, she introduced them 24 words and sentences, including Changhua County, Puxin Township, Wufeng Community, and What’s your surname, and her husband, Mr. Mingqin Yang, was videotaping. In just a few minutes, Mrs. Qiu could quickly tell the tone differences between Changhua Zhuolan Raoping Hakka, Hsinchu Raoping Hakka, Yunlin Zhaoan Hakka, and Fujian Zhaoan Xiage (from mainland China), etc. Also, Mrs. Qiu noticed that though there were some differences, the phonic systems were similar, so it was easy to understand those 24 words/sentences in Raoping and Zhaoan Hakka. Mrs. Qiu and the corps went to Wulong Temple in the afternoon, where they interviewed the principal of Xidong Elementary School in Xiage Township, Zhaoan County, China. Mrs. Qiu and one member of the corps, Mingyu Chen, spoke to Principal Huang in Changhua Raoping Hakka, while Mr. Huang spoke in Zhaoan Hakka with them. He said, Wuxian God is the main religious figure in Xiage Township, Zhaoan, and it was nice to know that Taiwan pays attention to Hakka and promotes it. The junior corps shared Mrs. Qiu’s teaching materials with Principal Huang and practiced Raoping Hakka pronunciation together. They found that Zhaoan accent is understandable, and some tones are even similar to Changhua Zhauolan’s Raoping accent. The corps was surprised and thrilled. Principal Huang said elementary school students in Fujian don’t have local language classes, so parents become the main source of teaching local languages. His 3-year-old grandson now can speak Zhaoan local language, standard Mandarin, and Chaoshan language. From that, we can see Principal Huang has put lots of efforts on guiding his grandson speaking first languages. It is a good reference when it comes to the revival of Changhua Raoping Hakka.