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Related [1] [2]: the Han race was really only constructed in the last 100 years, along with the national mythos of several millennia of uninterrupted dynastic c

Related [1] [2]: the Han race was really only constructed in the last 100 years, along with the national mythos of several millennia of uninterrupted dynastic civilization. [1] https://www.hrichina.org/en/content/4573 https://www.hrichina.org/en/content/4573 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhFPZL2L8uM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhFPZL2L8uM

seanmcdirmid 5y ago
The concept of Chinese medicine was also created and promoted by Mao since they couldn’t afford much real medicine after the revolution. It simply didn’t exist as a unified thing before then.
- justicezyx 5y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compendium_of_Materia_Medica https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compendium_of_Materia_Medica https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghan_Lun https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghan_Lun https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B8%A9%E7%96%AB%E8%AE%BA https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B8%A9%E7%96%AB%E8%AE%BA What's the reasoning behind this theory that Mao invented Chinese medicine, which has been in existence for more than a thousand years? Are you a fan of Mao, or are you mocking his inability to create modern medicine out of thin air? Or his manipulation of Chinese culture?
  - SeanLuke 5y ago
    I don't think he's saying that Mao invented Chinese herbology. I mean, who would seriously say that? I think he's saying that Mao pushed for the treatment of Traditional Chinese medicine as a unified discipline distinct from western medicine.
  - catlikesshrimp 5y ago
    Why are you angry? Scamming was not invented in China, it comes built in in human nature. There are Shamans in South America, and Witch doctors in Africa.
    - justicezyx 5y ago
      Oh sorry! I don't meant to be rude. Hopefully you can understand my English is not native and can have many sharp edges in communication. Chinese medicine is a good thing. Don't need to link it with scamming. And as you said, scamming is universal, but Chinese medicine is not. Making it further an inappropriate analogy.
    - jazzyjackson 5y ago
      western pharma sends chemists to talk to shamans and witch doctors in order to discover and isolate new medicines by the way, a large percentage of modern medicine started as or still is a plant extract, no need to diss old herbal medicine.
      - catlikesshrimp 5y ago
        Any treatment should be considered a scam until proven effective. Chinese medicine gets people to drink urine. A Shaman spits alcohol on people. A witch doctor conjures spells. None can be considered effective until proven effective. "Proven effective" means. 1) Follows the reliable method, results are published 2) The experiment can be verified and replicated by anyone anywhere anytime. That is the difference between the scientific method (So called "western medicine") and scams. Summarizing: A fungus can be medicine, when proven effective. The older you state Chinese medicine is, the worse for its cause. So much time to show proof of effectiveness, so little they can prove.
        justicezyx 5y ago
        > Chinese medicine gets people to drink urine In extreme cases, this happens. And we also know that a lot of high impact cancer research results cannot be reproduced. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03691-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03691-0 And Chinese medicine for the most part is a discipline for nurturing human body through natural produces and elements for self healing. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/chinese-medicine https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-preventi... It does not have scientific methods. The modern Chinese medicine is adopting scientific methods. https://academic.oup.com/bib/article/15/6/984/180255 https://academic.oup.com/bib/article/15/6/984/180255 Condescending argument are not wrong, they are just logically imprecise. And can easily provoke negative emotions to your readers.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    He invented the term, not the methods. Before, they were just a disparate set of folk medicine cultures spread throughout China. By unifying and standardizing them all under the umbrella of Chinese medicine and claiming that they were just as good as western medicine, they were able to stave off demand for western medicine, doctors, and hospitals that they didn’t have or couldn’t afford. See https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/traditional-chinese-medicine-origins-mao-invented-it-but-didnt-believe-in-it.html https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/traditional-chinese-med...
    - powerapple 5y ago
      Before that, the Chinese medicine was called Han Medicine, there are also other medicine. Also the Chinese medicine are collection of books.
      - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        Chinese medicine includes more than just Han medicine, and also, according to the article at least, had no institution or universities dedicated to them. What the TCM concept did was create a new field on par with other fields of study, including TCM universities and such.
- carom 5y ago
  The Yellow Emperor would like to have a word with you. [1] TCM goes back more than 2000 years. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huangdi_Neijing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huangdi_Neijing
justicezyx 5y ago
> an ethnically integrated China is, in fact, a modern invention linked to the rise of nationalism at the end of the nineteenth century. This idea is a very sensible one in the context of China being forced to open up to the world. It's like a man, living in wild, has assume he was alone, and have no idea he was actually a male. Until one day he run into a similar creature that is a female. The undernote of this is that Chinese society is extremely complex. Easily orders of magnitude more complex. Comparing to the US continental, the geographical diversity and the cultural heritage shows such a vast range of changes that one should feel US is probably culturally only equivalent to a typical province in China! They eat differently, speak different in accent and words of expression, have different customs in almost every aspects of the life (child birth, birthdag, marriage, funerals etc etc)... China is indeed a humongous collective of diverse human communities that defies any singular or universal interpretation.
- SeanLuke 5y ago
  The US is not an appropriate comparison in terms of geographical diversity. The US + Canada is unusually homogenous because of its unique and very modern history. Instead, compare China to Europe, which is far more rich and complex. Heck, there may be more dialects and recognized languages in Italy alone than in the large majority of China.
  - justicezyx 5y ago
    Is there English writings on Italian dialects? Sounds like a really interesting topic. Given Italy's linkage to anticent Roma (and Greek maybe not sure), language dialects probably have a lot to do with the history and culture. Must be full of quriks and surprises!
    - frenchy 5y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Italy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Italy
- hker 5y ago
another_story 5y ago
I've never understood the fascination with these narratives. Many of my relatives are adamant about China's dynastic streak. Also, the idea that different languages are dialects of Mandarin, when in truth many of them, like Cantonese, developed earlier or in parallel.
- yourapostasy 5y ago
  It serves the interests of a political elite to promulgate a feeling of great utility to them that “we’ve always been here, we are ever-present now, and there is no reason to suspect we will always exist into the future”. It serves to bolster legitimacy assertions upon geographic locales, based upon “ancient claims” or at least “claims older than yours”. This continuous-unbroken-culture-thousands-of-years-old notion I find peculiarly culturally specific. It is an amalgamation made up of Confucian respect-to-elders and venerate-the-dead I don’t agree with when the venerate-the-dead aspect comes at the expense of those living in the geographic locale, and those at the top peculiarly benefit in their pocketbooks to enforce this “ancient tradition”. The US and indeed most major nation states also use this kind of myth making as well, this kind of behavior isn’t specific to China. It’s just not taught in schools.
- pphysch 5y ago
  Colonial Europeans tend to be obsessed with race -- historically it's how they rationalize imperialism and expansionism -- and may project that obsession on other groups that don't even think about race.
  - LAC-Tech 5y ago
    Do you think that's unique to Europeans, or do you think other imperialist and expansionist peoples rationalized things in a different way? Would love to see some comparisons here.
  - another_story 5y ago
    Let me clarify, my relatives are Mainland Chinese.
- 5y ago
ir193 5y ago
it's not true. Han Chinese are clearly genetically distinguishable from Yamato Japanese and Koreans, and internally the different Han Chinese subgroups are genetically closer to each other than any of them are to Koreans and Japanese. Gene doesn't lie
- KhoomeiK 5y ago
  This discussion isn't about the genetic validity of population groupings in East Asia, but rather the construction of Han identity which is a social phenomenon.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago

The concept of Chinese medicine was also created and promoted by Mao since they couldn’t afford much real medicine after the revolution. It simply didn’t exist as a unified thing before then.

justicezyx 5y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compendium_of_Materia_Medica https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compendium_of_Materia_Medica https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghan_Lun https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghan_Lun https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B8%A9%E7%96%AB%E8%AE%BA https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B8%A9%E7%96%AB%E8%AE%BA What's the reasoning behind this theory that Mao invented Chinese medicine, which has been in existence for more than a thousand years? Are you a fan of Mao, or are you mocking his inability to create modern medicine out of thin air? Or his manipulation of Chinese culture?
- SeanLuke 5y ago
  I don't think he's saying that Mao invented Chinese herbology. I mean, who would seriously say that? I think he's saying that Mao pushed for the treatment of Traditional Chinese medicine as a unified discipline distinct from western medicine.
- catlikesshrimp 5y ago
  Why are you angry? Scamming was not invented in China, it comes built in in human nature. There are Shamans in South America, and Witch doctors in Africa.
  - justicezyx 5y ago
    Oh sorry! I don't meant to be rude. Hopefully you can understand my English is not native and can have many sharp edges in communication. Chinese medicine is a good thing. Don't need to link it with scamming. And as you said, scamming is universal, but Chinese medicine is not. Making it further an inappropriate analogy.
  - jazzyjackson 5y ago
    western pharma sends chemists to talk to shamans and witch doctors in order to discover and isolate new medicines by the way, a large percentage of modern medicine started as or still is a plant extract, no need to diss old herbal medicine.
    - catlikesshrimp 5y ago
      Any treatment should be considered a scam until proven effective. Chinese medicine gets people to drink urine. A Shaman spits alcohol on people. A witch doctor conjures spells. None can be considered effective until proven effective. "Proven effective" means. 1) Follows the reliable method, results are published 2) The experiment can be verified and replicated by anyone anywhere anytime. That is the difference between the scientific method (So called "western medicine") and scams. Summarizing: A fungus can be medicine, when proven effective. The older you state Chinese medicine is, the worse for its cause. So much time to show proof of effectiveness, so little they can prove.
      - justicezyx 5y ago
        > Chinese medicine gets people to drink urine In extreme cases, this happens. And we also know that a lot of high impact cancer research results cannot be reproduced. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03691-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03691-0 And Chinese medicine for the most part is a discipline for nurturing human body through natural produces and elements for self healing. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/chinese-medicine https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-preventi... It does not have scientific methods. The modern Chinese medicine is adopting scientific methods. https://academic.oup.com/bib/article/15/6/984/180255 https://academic.oup.com/bib/article/15/6/984/180255 Condescending argument are not wrong, they are just logically imprecise. And can easily provoke negative emotions to your readers.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  He invented the term, not the methods. Before, they were just a disparate set of folk medicine cultures spread throughout China. By unifying and standardizing them all under the umbrella of Chinese medicine and claiming that they were just as good as western medicine, they were able to stave off demand for western medicine, doctors, and hospitals that they didn’t have or couldn’t afford. See https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/traditional-chinese-medicine-origins-mao-invented-it-but-didnt-believe-in-it.html https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/traditional-chinese-med...
  - powerapple 5y ago
    Before that, the Chinese medicine was called Han Medicine, there are also other medicine. Also the Chinese medicine are collection of books.
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      Chinese medicine includes more than just Han medicine, and also, according to the article at least, had no institution or universities dedicated to them. What the TCM concept did was create a new field on par with other fields of study, including TCM universities and such.
carom 5y ago
The Yellow Emperor would like to have a word with you. [1] TCM goes back more than 2000 years. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huangdi_Neijing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huangdi_Neijing

justicezyx 5y ago

> an ethnically integrated China is, in fact, a modern invention linked to the rise of nationalism at the end of the nineteenth century. This idea is a very sensible one in the context of China being forced to open up to the world. It's like a man, living in wild, has assume he was alone, and have no idea he was actually a male. Until one day he run into a similar creature that is a female. The undernote of this is that Chinese society is extremely complex. Easily orders of magnitude more complex. Comparing to the US continental, the geographical diversity and the cultural heritage shows such a vast range of changes that one should feel US is probably culturally only equivalent to a typical province in China! They eat differently, speak different in accent and words of expression, have different customs in almost every aspects of the life (child birth, birthdag, marriage, funerals etc etc)... China is indeed a humongous collective of diverse human communities that defies any singular or universal interpretation.

SeanLuke 5y ago
The US is not an appropriate comparison in terms of geographical diversity. The US + Canada is unusually homogenous because of its unique and very modern history. Instead, compare China to Europe, which is far more rich and complex. Heck, there may be more dialects and recognized languages in Italy alone than in the large majority of China.
- justicezyx 5y ago
  Is there English writings on Italian dialects? Sounds like a really interesting topic. Given Italy's linkage to anticent Roma (and Greek maybe not sure), language dialects probably have a lot to do with the history and culture. Must be full of quriks and surprises!
  - frenchy 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Italy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Italy
hker 5y ago

another_story 5y ago

I've never understood the fascination with these narratives. Many of my relatives are adamant about China's dynastic streak. Also, the idea that different languages are dialects of Mandarin, when in truth many of them, like Cantonese, developed earlier or in parallel.

yourapostasy 5y ago
It serves the interests of a political elite to promulgate a feeling of great utility to them that “we’ve always been here, we are ever-present now, and there is no reason to suspect we will always exist into the future”. It serves to bolster legitimacy assertions upon geographic locales, based upon “ancient claims” or at least “claims older than yours”. This continuous-unbroken-culture-thousands-of-years-old notion I find peculiarly culturally specific. It is an amalgamation made up of Confucian respect-to-elders and venerate-the-dead I don’t agree with when the venerate-the-dead aspect comes at the expense of those living in the geographic locale, and those at the top peculiarly benefit in their pocketbooks to enforce this “ancient tradition”. The US and indeed most major nation states also use this kind of myth making as well, this kind of behavior isn’t specific to China. It’s just not taught in schools.
pphysch 5y ago
Colonial Europeans tend to be obsessed with race -- historically it's how they rationalize imperialism and expansionism -- and may project that obsession on other groups that don't even think about race.
- LAC-Tech 5y ago
  Do you think that's unique to Europeans, or do you think other imperialist and expansionist peoples rationalized things in a different way? Would love to see some comparisons here.
- another_story 5y ago
  Let me clarify, my relatives are Mainland Chinese.
5y ago

ir193 5y ago

it's not true. Han Chinese are clearly genetically distinguishable from Yamato Japanese and Koreans, and internally the different Han Chinese subgroups are genetically closer to each other than any of them are to Koreans and Japanese. Gene doesn't lie

KhoomeiK 5y ago
This discussion isn't about the genetic validity of population groupings in East Asia, but rather the construction of Han identity which is a social phenomenon.