6 ms·

China was also very open to immigration and inclusive in what counted as "Chinese."

by qiqing 11y ago

mc32 11y ago
So that's how they're down to only 95 percent Han having driven the Hmong, Turkiks and many others out? As I understand it they barely tolerate the Manchurians.
- qiqing 11y ago
  FWIW, I'm 1/8 Manchurian even though my birth certificate says "Han" and the Qing Dynasty, which ended in 1911, was ruled by Manchurians. China was the only nation that welcomed refugees fleeing from pogroms in one era and fleeing concentration camps in another era, when nations like the U.S. would not let those ships dock. It's just unfortunate that the U.S. tends to be rather selective in what gets taught in schools. Side note: you can tell something about the inclusivity of a culture by how children of mixed race are treated and labelled by the broader society. Historically, if you're part-Han (a term which originated from the Han Dynasty to be an inclusive term that described all the diverse people from the diverse nations that comprised it), then you're Han (part of the mainstream, dominant culture). Historically, in the U.S., children of mixed race get categorized with the less-mainstream less-dominant minority culture, with all the lack of privilege that accompany that. This sort of edge case may seem minor to those who don't live it, but as an edge case myself, I feel that it's indicative of how the dominant culture views me.
  - mc32 11y ago
    It is problematic that in the US people are too absolute in some things. In this case black and white. Even if someone is mostly white, say 3/4, they're considered black by both whites and blacks, for the most part. But interestingly in Brazil and other places where there are more shades of either, still people suffer the same or more injustice due to race compared to the U.S.
  - barry-cotter 11y ago
    > China was the only nation that welcomed refugees fleeing from pogroms in one era and fleeing concentration camps in another era, when nations like the U.S. would not let those ships dock. China didn't have the state capacity to control immigration during the Republic of China and it didn't have the desire during the Qing dynasty. > Side note: you can tell something about the inclusivity of a culture by how children of mixed race are treated and labelled by the broader society. Waiguoren! Laowai! Name keaide hunxue! I'm sorry, the idea that China is less racist than the west is hilarious. It's pretty easy for white people but black people get discriminated against endlessly.
    - qiqing 11y ago
      Note that I did not claim China doesn't have racism. But by personally comparing my experience growing up Asian in the U.S. (having lived in non-diverse small Midwest towns for several years) with the experience of Caucasian friends who spent some childhood years in China, I'd really have to say: they got a much, much better experience as far as race is concerned. And every time that I have confronted a Chinese person about prejudice against black people, I also asked them where their preconceptions came from. Without exception, they tell me that they have no first-hand experience, but they get all their information from American movies, whose makers they assume to know more about American culture than they do. But if you actually want to compare relative levels of racism quantitatively (which is hard because there are so many confounding factors), I challenge you to compare the incarceration rate of African Americans in the U.S vs. African Chinese in China.
  - saiya-jin 11y ago
    > China was the only nation that welcomed refugees fleeing from pogroms in one era and fleeing concentration camps in another era, when nations like the U.S. would not let those ships dock. Sources please, otherwise this sounds like an usual BS propaganda. One real example to contradict - in WWII, Switzerland was accepting (not only jewish) refugees when completely surrounded by Nazis/their allies. We are talking about tiny landlocked country just to be clear. When it would became clear that country can no longer feed its citizens and more incoming refugees, they decided to close the borders("das boot ist voll"), and still one canton - Geneva - said fk you, and keep them coming. Even when it was clear its not sustainable.
    - qiqing 11y ago
      My mom's childhood friend who was a Holocaust refugee has no reason to lie to me (about not being able to go to any other country they tried to escape to), I think. But here, I pulled up some sources to placate you guys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Jewish_Refugees_Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Jewish_Refugees_Museu... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_China http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007091 http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007091
linuxkerneldev 11y ago
> China was also very open to immigration and inclusive in what counted as "Chinese." I'm pretty sure this claim is invalid. Say you took a measure of genetic diversity in various populations, I'm pretty sure you would find that Han Chinese are less heterozygotic than other neighbouring Asian populations. Take for example, their Southern neighbour, India, I predict you see far more genetic variation. I think this maps out to just looking at phenotype variation. I have travelled a bit through South East Asia and India, and just looking at visible attributes like skin color, eye color, hair color, and so on, one sees huge variation, also their languages are distinct (not even from a single linguistic family like Sino-Tibetian). In contrast, in China, where I have lived in, I found that the amount of variation was much smaller (just small differences between Northern Chinese and Southern Chinese) which I predict corresponds with much lower genetic diversity and thus the "openness to immigration" is quite suspect.
- qiqing 11y ago
  Here's an interesting pickle about linguistic diversity: Jane Austen is roughly temporally equidistant between modern day and Shakespeare, yet our level of mutual intelligibility is so much higher. What changed? Standardization (such as printing a standard dictionary) drastically reduced the rate at which languages evolved. And one major historical difference between China and India is a history of unification, starting with the Qin Dynasty, which introduced dictionaries, standardized weights and measures, a single currency, and standard widths of roads. They were brutal in their implementation and it ultimately led to popular revolt, but the standards stuck. However, that would not be the last attempt at unification. In China's history, there have been repeated efforts at unifying an empire, splitting into multiple nations, re-unification, rinse, repeat. Have you noticed that all the terms that translate into "ethnic Chinese" in English are named after dynasties? At one point in time, identifying oneself as "Han" was like saying "I'm an American." Sure, my ancestors are a mix of Wu and Manchurian, but now we're part of the Han Nation. Or a different mix of other ethnicities for the Tang Dynasty. To put it another way, let's say the EU became one nation that lasted at least a century. People who previously identified as "German" or "Italian" (or Anglos? Saxons? Celts?) all self-identify as European. Fast forward another century. The empire is expanding, and Central Asia is part of the equation now, so European is defined "as opposed to" another group, but another unification event happens, and now everyone on that continent refers to themselves as Eurasian. And sometimes, on the East Coast, there's an influx of Australian immigrants which adds up over the next century. How arbitrary is it to say that Eurasia is 95% Eurasian? As for visual phenotype difference between Northern and Southern Chinese being "minor" -- these differences look very pronounced to me. Yet I have trouble telling the difference between, say, British and German people, for instance. Maybe we're just trained on different data sets?

China was also very open to immigration and inclusive in what counted as "Chinese."

by qiqing 11y ago

China was also very open to immigration and inclusive in what counted as "Chinese."

mc32 11y ago

So that's how they're down to only 95 percent Han having driven the Hmong, Turkiks and many others out? As I understand it they barely tolerate the Manchurians.

qiqing 11y ago
FWIW, I'm 1/8 Manchurian even though my birth certificate says "Han" and the Qing Dynasty, which ended in 1911, was ruled by Manchurians. China was the only nation that welcomed refugees fleeing from pogroms in one era and fleeing concentration camps in another era, when nations like the U.S. would not let those ships dock. It's just unfortunate that the U.S. tends to be rather selective in what gets taught in schools. Side note: you can tell something about the inclusivity of a culture by how children of mixed race are treated and labelled by the broader society. Historically, if you're part-Han (a term which originated from the Han Dynasty to be an inclusive term that described all the diverse people from the diverse nations that comprised it), then you're Han (part of the mainstream, dominant culture). Historically, in the U.S., children of mixed race get categorized with the less-mainstream less-dominant minority culture, with all the lack of privilege that accompany that. This sort of edge case may seem minor to those who don't live it, but as an edge case myself, I feel that it's indicative of how the dominant culture views me.
- mc32 11y ago
  It is problematic that in the US people are too absolute in some things. In this case black and white. Even if someone is mostly white, say 3/4, they're considered black by both whites and blacks, for the most part. But interestingly in Brazil and other places where there are more shades of either, still people suffer the same or more injustice due to race compared to the U.S.
- barry-cotter 11y ago
  > China was the only nation that welcomed refugees fleeing from pogroms in one era and fleeing concentration camps in another era, when nations like the U.S. would not let those ships dock. China didn't have the state capacity to control immigration during the Republic of China and it didn't have the desire during the Qing dynasty. > Side note: you can tell something about the inclusivity of a culture by how children of mixed race are treated and labelled by the broader society. Waiguoren! Laowai! Name keaide hunxue! I'm sorry, the idea that China is less racist than the west is hilarious. It's pretty easy for white people but black people get discriminated against endlessly.
  - qiqing 11y ago
    Note that I did not claim China doesn't have racism. But by personally comparing my experience growing up Asian in the U.S. (having lived in non-diverse small Midwest towns for several years) with the experience of Caucasian friends who spent some childhood years in China, I'd really have to say: they got a much, much better experience as far as race is concerned. And every time that I have confronted a Chinese person about prejudice against black people, I also asked them where their preconceptions came from. Without exception, they tell me that they have no first-hand experience, but they get all their information from American movies, whose makers they assume to know more about American culture than they do. But if you actually want to compare relative levels of racism quantitatively (which is hard because there are so many confounding factors), I challenge you to compare the incarceration rate of African Americans in the U.S vs. African Chinese in China.
- saiya-jin 11y ago
  > China was the only nation that welcomed refugees fleeing from pogroms in one era and fleeing concentration camps in another era, when nations like the U.S. would not let those ships dock. Sources please, otherwise this sounds like an usual BS propaganda. One real example to contradict - in WWII, Switzerland was accepting (not only jewish) refugees when completely surrounded by Nazis/their allies. We are talking about tiny landlocked country just to be clear. When it would became clear that country can no longer feed its citizens and more incoming refugees, they decided to close the borders("das boot ist voll"), and still one canton - Geneva - said fk you, and keep them coming. Even when it was clear its not sustainable.
  - qiqing 11y ago
    My mom's childhood friend who was a Holocaust refugee has no reason to lie to me (about not being able to go to any other country they tried to escape to), I think. But here, I pulled up some sources to placate you guys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Jewish_Refugees_Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Jewish_Refugees_Museu... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_China http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007091 http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007091

linuxkerneldev 11y ago

> China was also very open to immigration and inclusive in what counted as "Chinese." I'm pretty sure this claim is invalid. Say you took a measure of genetic diversity in various populations, I'm pretty sure you would find that Han Chinese are less heterozygotic than other neighbouring Asian populations. Take for example, their Southern neighbour, India, I predict you see far more genetic variation. I think this maps out to just looking at phenotype variation. I have travelled a bit through South East Asia and India, and just looking at visible attributes like skin color, eye color, hair color, and so on, one sees huge variation, also their languages are distinct (not even from a single linguistic family like Sino-Tibetian). In contrast, in China, where I have lived in, I found that the amount of variation was much smaller (just small differences between Northern Chinese and Southern Chinese) which I predict corresponds with much lower genetic diversity and thus the "openness to immigration" is quite suspect.

qiqing 11y ago
Here's an interesting pickle about linguistic diversity: Jane Austen is roughly temporally equidistant between modern day and Shakespeare, yet our level of mutual intelligibility is so much higher. What changed? Standardization (such as printing a standard dictionary) drastically reduced the rate at which languages evolved. And one major historical difference between China and India is a history of unification, starting with the Qin Dynasty, which introduced dictionaries, standardized weights and measures, a single currency, and standard widths of roads. They were brutal in their implementation and it ultimately led to popular revolt, but the standards stuck. However, that would not be the last attempt at unification. In China's history, there have been repeated efforts at unifying an empire, splitting into multiple nations, re-unification, rinse, repeat. Have you noticed that all the terms that translate into "ethnic Chinese" in English are named after dynasties? At one point in time, identifying oneself as "Han" was like saying "I'm an American." Sure, my ancestors are a mix of Wu and Manchurian, but now we're part of the Han Nation. Or a different mix of other ethnicities for the Tang Dynasty. To put it another way, let's say the EU became one nation that lasted at least a century. People who previously identified as "German" or "Italian" (or Anglos? Saxons? Celts?) all self-identify as European. Fast forward another century. The empire is expanding, and Central Asia is part of the equation now, so European is defined "as opposed to" another group, but another unification event happens, and now everyone on that continent refers to themselves as Eurasian. And sometimes, on the East Coast, there's an influx of Australian immigrants which adds up over the next century. How arbitrary is it to say that Eurasia is 95% Eurasian? As for visual phenotype difference between Northern and Southern Chinese being "minor" -- these differences look very pronounced to me. Yet I have trouble telling the difference between, say, British and German people, for instance. Maybe we're just trained on different data sets?