The compositions of ethnic groups in Macau vary with time. Prior to the opening of the port, the majority of the residents in Macau were Chinese people, including those living on land and at sea. After the port was opened, with the increase of Portugal businessmen and missionaries, the population was divided into Chinese people and foreigners (so-called ‘Yiren’ or 夷人in Chinese). Chinese people living on land were mainly of Hakka, Fujian, and Cantonese descent. Those living at sea were referred to as ‘Tanka People’ (named ‘Danmin’ or 蜑民in Chinese). They lived on floating boats for their entire lives and were similar to the ‘drifters’ in Japan. Since modern times, many refugees from mainland China and Southeast Asia flooded into Macau due to warfare. The development of industrialization required a larger number of laborers, and some ‘coolies’ entered Macau in legal or illegal ways, making it a multi-ethnic city. However, the Tanka people were not considered a minority ethnic group under the national ethnic policy of 56 ethnic groups since they did not have an exclusive language and shared dialects in different regions. As the ports inhabited by Tanka people gradually restored foreign trade, the boats and stilt houses used by Tanka people were dismantled to expand the infrastructure area of the ports. Many Tanka people began to live on land and marry people on land, leading to the disappearance of the Tanka group in Macau. The fishing boats and stilt houses used by Tanka people have also disappeared, with only a few remaining in areas such as Pearl River Delta and Hong Kong. This paper examines the natural and social environment of Tanka people in Macau from the Ming and Qing dynasties to the Republic of China, as well as the adaptive changes they adopted for the aforementioned environment in terms of living space and architectural type, on the basis of summarizing the historical activities of Tanka people. Finally, this study provides a layout plan and interior structure of the most commonly used boat for Tanka people from the Ming and Qing dynasties to the Republic of China, with the use of CAD and other technical software, along with reference to written historical documentation, and provides a case study for further research on the architectural history of Macau's inner harbor cities, from anthropological and folklore perspectives.

Spoken words tends to be verbal communication, because the source of the words is different, or for use in different groups, it produced the sound homophones nearly glyph (written symbols) through the synchronical and diachronical spread, which is a spoken word may become phonetic variations occurred in the communication process, and lead to produce multiple variants including the shape of words and the numerous, complicated and changeful usage of words, sometimes even cover up their original real feature. This article focuses on spoken word about the same word but variant character of the oral literature (including abroad), which reflected Beijing dialect in the late Qing and early republic period

This paper focuses on the spatial analysis of traditional houses in Huizhou during the Ming and Qing period in China. It first reviews the spatial characteristics of the houses in Huizhou. Typical configurations, spatial elements and spatial compositions of the houses are briefly examined. It then discusses how those spatial characteristics are applied to the houses. To do so, the review of existing research and literature on the houses was conducted. For a detailed analysis of the houses, a field survey was performed to collect research materials of the houses and to assess the application of the characteristics in the houses. At times, the plans of the houses were redrawn for a further analysis of the spatial compositions of the houses. Attempts have been made to understand the underlying principles of their spatial organization. For example, Jin (2010) examined the spatial organization of unit plans. Boyd (1989), Berliner (2003) and Dan (2005) similarly categorized the organizational typology of its varying designs. Son(1995) further interpreted the spatial relations of the variety of houses in a comprehensive manner. Nevertheless, their analytic methodology falls short of a complete explanation of the spatial expansion and transformation in the houses. Therefore, this paper examines the basic principles behind the spatial expansion and transformation of a variety of traditional houses in Huizhou. In doing so, it strives to make logical sense of design variations in the houses and reveal the theory behind them.