From Venturing To Manchuria To My Hometown Lies On The Songhua River In Northeast China

Since the mid-Qing Dynasty, a great population of North China migrated to Northeast China for a variety of reasons, in which they had become the main power of exploiting and made a great contribution to the development of the society. They changed their life, so did the northeast part of China. It was such a remarkable problem that had attracted great attentions of the population history and the social history. Nevertheless, the study about the emigrant groups' identities was seldom. The study in domestic concerned about the emigrants overseas, what attracted them was the change of the emigrants' identities when they were facing different races. However, the emigrant groups of Northeast China were the peripheral groups that were different from the centre groups when they migrated to Northeast China at the beginning. They also faced the problem of getting the local society's authorization. This thesis is intended to explore how the region identities changed.There are many different ways to define social groups, such as families, estate, parties, and ethnic groups. There are different meanings for such different defining ways. Everyone has a group identity to share social wealth with other members in the same group together. The region identity exited in China long ago. The nostalgia is the main theme of literatures. The people of the same ethnic group may call the other brothers and sisters. It's a kind of simulation to the consanguinity obviously. The people came from the same place may do offers to the others. On the other hand, such ties are not so steady. In the emigration society, the descendants of the emigrants may change their identities.This thesis focus on the history of Niu Zihou, Han Xianzong and their families, by which to review the reasons and the routes of the emigration, their means of make a living and living condition in the local society. So can we find how the emigrants handled their identities as the exotic groups in the course of resource's competition with the local people, and how they understood their region identities when they get touch with the people from other regions. This thesis attempts to explain the reason of the changes of the region identities.By narrating two emigrants' story, this thesis is to survey the history of Northeast China in modern times. Jack-a-Lents' story blended into the country's vicissitude, what had made a splendid historical picture. In the mirror of Jack-a-Lents' story, it was not difficult to show the unique history picture of Northeast China in that era.