Quick: what do pint-sized Party Leader Deng Xiaoping, badminton champ Lin Dan, and screen idol Chow Yun-Fat have in common? Yes, yes, they are all Chinese, but what kind? Take a bow if you know they're Hakka. Neither racially nor religiously distinct from the Han Chinese, the Hakka nonetheless maintain a unique cultural heritage based largely on language and a history of being excluded.

Many Asians refer to the Hakka as "the Jews of China" for their nomadic past and tendency to prosper abroad. But their origin is much hazier than the Biblical adventures of the sons of Abraham, and their diaspora woes far less publicized. To know their story is to know that nothing about China is homogenous, despite the newbie Expat's remarkable skills at making it seem so.

Their story also proves that a people's character, like the individual's, is tempered and refined by grinding adversity, with all the paradox the process entails. Clannish as only persecuted outsiders can be, they have nonetheless pioneered, intermarried and assimilated from Mauritius to Scotland. Whereas their name was long a byword for rural poverty in Guangdong, they have a knack for rags-to-riching it in adopted countries that startles even other diligent Chinese emigres. And although the Hakka tongue is virtually all that brands them as a unique ethnicity, it has a different dialect for every area of ancestral concentration, from Guangdong to Taiwan.

The archetypal Hakka dialect, Meixian, reveals ancient Chinese authenticity, and origins in Central China, around the Yellow River Basin. The ancients wouldn't have dug Alan Ginsburg or Dylan Thomas, simply because their verses didn't rhyme, an imperative for classic Chinese poetry. Therefore, the fact that a great deal of poetry from the Warring States Period (770 B.C. - 221 B.C.) to the advent of the Tang (700 A.D.) only rhymes when recited in Hakka makes it highly likely that Hakka was China's lingua franca for more than a thousand years. In any event, it lays the Hakka firmly in the cradle of Chinese civilization.

They were pushed to its edges by standing firm, ironically enough. Starting at the end of the Jin Dynasty (420 A.D.), and every few centuries thereafter, the peaceable Chinese farmer was menaced by some new incarnation of Northern Barbarian Devil- Xiongnu, Liao, Jurchen, Manchu. Most took a new invasion philosophically and adapted; better to deal with trouble on home ground than risk tribulation in a strange land. Only the ancestors of today's Hakka resented the invaders enough to sacrifice land for the preservation of culture.

They ended up primarily in Guangdong and south-western Fujian, spreading as far west as Sichuan and south as far as Taiwan, before the 19^th and 20^th century globe-trotting commenced. It must be remembered that these migrations came in waves, so that much of what really bound the Hakka together was the fact that those in their new environment saw them as outsiders. Indeed the name Hakka means "guest family" [in Mandarin kejia ], a Qin Dynasty classification for those who couldn't provide proof of ancestry in resettled Guangdong. The name was used with scorn by the local Cantonese, whom the Hakkas dubbed Punti [Boon-day]. Thus began centuries of strife that would culminate in the Punti-Hakka Clan Wars from 1855 - 1867, a struggle that took over twice the lives lost during the contemporaneous Civil War in the United States.

Nonetheless, and granted the glibness of saying so in retrospect, the disenfranchisement that marked Hakka life also bred fierce resilience and resourcefulness. Architecturally, these qualities manifested themselves in the tulou buildings, Globe Theater -like, three to five story structures with windowless first floors, and vats of water above the only door to prevent invaders from burning their way in. Inside was a warren of dorms and storage rooms encircling an open courtyard. Today, these tulou are one of the few inhabited UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Defensive lifestyles led to defensive buildings, and a penchant for careers in the military and public service. But they also led out of necessity to progressive attitudes. With the men off fighting so often, the women had to shoulder more than their share of fieldwork. And while they didn't have much of a voice in community policy, they enjoyed command over family affairs. Even better, they never had to bind their feet, even at the height of the custom's popularity. It doesn't take an ethnographer to guess that such parity helped the Hakka immensely in their overseas endeavors, be it predominance in the Calcutta leather business (really) or their ownership of virtually every chop suey joint in the UK.

Funnily enough, one would be hard pressed to find any authentic Hakka cuisine at these restaurants. Perhaps the proprietors quickly realized the average Westerner's tolerance for Oriental cuisine didn't go much further than orange chicken and broccoli beef. But for the jaded palate of the China expat, Hakka cooking is a welcome frontier. The Hakka have the eminent but overlooked sense to take texture as much into account as flavor in their food. Their approach to spice and other flavorings is minimalist, with an emphasis on stewing and braising to evince maximum natural flavor. A sampling of salt-baked chicken, duck stuffed with rice, or stuffed tofu makes it hard to return to orange-oiled standards. Hakka magic with duck feet and tripe grant a tasty trip to the world of Chinese soul food.

So when not engaged in back-breaking toil or territorial strife, the Hakka had their food to console them. They also had their hill songs. Born of the need to communicate across hilltops, where most Hakka lived, begrudged by Punti who kept the fertile flatlands for themselves, the songs are high-pitched, to carry across valleys. Some contain puzzles, others subtle declarations of love to be used by those out a'courting. They are still sung today by Hakka elders wherever they find themselves.

Increasingly, they find themselves far from the hillside tulou of their ancestors. Considering the relatively modest slice of China's population they constitute, the Hakka were certainly over-represented in the flood of coolie labor exported from southern China during the Age of Industry. Many died digging trenches or mining tin, but those who lived flourished at the slightest opportunity, especially from Malaysia to Borneo. Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, former Prime Minister of Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra, ex-Burma head Ne Win, and WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi are but a small sampling of the Hakka who blended in faithfully enough to adopted homelands to ascend to the heights of power. The diversity of their names reveals how many layers of cultural clothing the average Hakka wears. But all assumed identities are stripped off when one Hakka meets another tziga ngin 自家人 (our own people).