To­day the Fui Toong On As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T will be hold­ing its cen­ten­ni­al an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tion at the Em­per­or Gar­den Restau­rant, Long Cir­cu­lar Mall, St James. A li­on and fan dance will be per­formed at the aus­pi­cious event and the pi­pa will be played by a mem­ber of the Chi­nese Em­bassy. Ush­ers will be dressed in tra­di­tion­al Hak­ka clothes and hats.

On pre­vi­ous oc­ca­sions, the as­so­ci­a­tion host­ed four for­mer prime min­is­ters—Dr Er­ic Williams, George Cham­bers, Patrick Man­ning, and Bas­deo Pan­day.

In fact, the 50th-an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tion was at­tend­ed by both the then gov­er­nor-gen­er­al Sir Solomon Ho­choy and then prime min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams.

Mem­bers of the as­so­ci­a­tion are Hak­ka Chi­nese, the Chi­na-born hail from Guang­dong province, their di­alect is al­so called Hak­ka, which is dif­fer­ent from Can­tonese and Man­darin and have their own unique cui­sine and tra­di­tion­al dress.

Some of the ac­tiv­i­ties and fes­ti­vals that mem­bers of the as­so­ci­a­tion cel­e­brate are the New Year ban­quet, Mid Au­tumn Fes­ti­val and the dis­tri­b­u­tion of moon­cakes. In the past mem­bers or­gan­ised ex­cur­sions, par­ties, and sport­ing com­pe­ti­tions.

In the old days, wed­dings were reg­u­lar­ly held at the as­so­ci­a­tion on Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain, and chil­dren were taught how to read and write Chi­nese. There is al­so now a strong Fui Toong On pres­ence in Cana­da.

It was tra­di­tion­al for Hak­ka shop­keep­ers to close their busi­ness­es half-day on Thurs­days and trav­el to Port-of-Spain to or­der their goods from mer­chants like Ca­ma­cho's and stop in the as­so­ci­a­tion to rest and so­cialise with their fel­low Hak­ka coun­try­men.

There are rooms up­stairs for mem­bers who need­ed tem­po­rary room and board. This as­so­ci­a­tion act­ed as an un­of­fi­cial em­bassy for the Chi­nese im­mi­grants who now made T&T their home and need­ed help with busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ties.

The as­so­ci­a­tion was al­so in­stru­men­tal in pro­vid­ing schol­ar­ships and do­nat­ing to char­i­ties where nec­es­sary.

Some of the as­so­ci­a­tion's mem­bers are life­time hon­orary mem­ber Gov­er­nor-Gen­er­al Sir Solomon Ho­choy, Eu­gene Chen, for­mer for­eign min­is­ter of Chi­na in the 1920s. This gen­er­a­tion con­tributed to the de­vel­op­ment and land­scape of T&T by ed­u­cat­ing their chil­dren in dif­fer­ent spheres in med­i­cine, cul­ture, pol­i­tics, law, and the arts.

Oth­er promi­nent Fui Toong On mem­bers in­clude Car­lyle Chang, sculp­tor, painter and de­sign­er who de­signed the flag and coat of arms of T&T; mul­ti-me­dia artist Willi Chen; his physi­cian broth­ers, Dr Wil­fred Chen and Dr Arthur Chen; Fr Sid­ney Chang; Dr Daniel Chang; Dr Fred­dy Chang; Dr Gor­don Chang; den­tist Dr Ed­di­son Chang; Dr Win­ston Chang; Dr Lyn­don Chang; Fredrick Chang; Dr Harold Chang, anes­thetist; Janelle Chang-Clark, bio­med­ical re­search en­gi­neer, USA; Ja­son Chang, au­to­mo­tive tech­nol­o­gist, Cana­da; Dr War­ren Lue Chin; Dr Car­ol Chang-Gard­ner; An­gela Chang, med­ical tech­nol­o­gist; Pa­tri­cia Chang, ac­coun­tant; Amoy Chang Fong, for­mer deputy gov­er­nor of the Cen­tral Bank; Judy Chong-Den­ni­son, tele­vi­sion pro­duc­er and di­rec­tor of JCD & As­so­ciates; celebri­ty hair­dress­er Clem Lue Yat; and pho­tog­ra­phers Ian Yee and Butch Lim Choy.

Many peo­ple do not know that sev­er­al fa­mous po­lit­i­cal lead­ers were al­so Hak­ka, such as Deng Xi­aop­ing, leader of the Peo­ple's Re­pub­lic of Chi­na; for­mer prime min­is­ter of Sin­ga­pore, Lee Kuan Yew and his son and cur­rent prime min­is­ter Lee Hsien Loong; for­mer prime min­is­ter of Thai­land, Thaksin Shi­nawa­tra, and his younger sis­ter and for­mer prime min­is­ter, Yingluck Shi­nawa­tra; and for­mer pres­i­dent of the Philip­pines, Cora­zon Aquino.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Wednes­day, Pres­i­dent of the Fui Toong On As­so­ci­a­tion Joe Chan said "Our as­so­ci­a­tion is the old­est among the Chi­nese as­so­ci­a­tions in Trinidad. It was found­ed in 1919 by Hak­ka im­mi­grants from South­ern Chi­na with their her­itage and cul­ture deeply root­ed in the three coun­ties for­mer­ly known as Hui Ye­ung, Toong Guan and Bao On.

"Now they have grown in­to large, mod­ern and in­dus­tri­al cities called Fuizhou, Dong Guan and Shen­zhen re­spec­tive­ly in the province of Guang­dong, Chi­na.

"So our name comes from Hui Toong On to re­flect our ties and roots with our cul­tur­al her­itage. Hak­ka peo­ple are hard-work­ing peo­ple."

He said Hak­ka was al­so a dif­fer­ent di­alect from Can­tonese which the oth­er Chi­nese groups spoke in T&T be­sides Man­darin.

Chan said even the Can­tonese di­alect had re­gion­al vari­a­tions be­cause Guang­dong was so large and dif­fer­ent groups such as Chung Shan, Toy Shan, Sun Wei, and Yan­ping spoke slight­ly dif­fer­ent Can­tonese di­alects.

Sev­er­al promi­nent mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty are ex­pect­ed to be in at­ten­dance along with Cab­i­net min­is­ters and the May­or of Port-of-Spain Joel Mar­tinez along with Chi­na's Am­bas­sador to T&T Song Yu­min and the heads of the var­i­ous Chi­nese As­so­ci­a­tions.