Comparing Asian Nationalities | Asian American Poll

COMPARING ASIAN NATIONALITIES
(Updated Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 05:20:31 PM to reflect the 100 most recent valid responses.)

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WHAT YOU SAY

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Mandarin spoken in Taiwan is different from the "putonghua" spoken on the mainland, notwithstanding the various areas on the mainland. The mandarin in Taiwan (no...not the mixed taiwanese/mandaring language employed by low class taiwanese people)is less stressful to pronounce and contain different vocabulary words (some originating from japanese), whereas the ones spoken on the mainland have a very stressful "sh" sound and seem to add an "r" after every vowel. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Chinese observer Monday, March 25, 2002 at 19:53:18 (PST)

anybody knowing anything about the sichuan area? I was born in chengdu but was raised here in the states.
AzNMoFo Monday, March 25, 2002 at 02:03:48 (PST)

Hey chinatown!

My family is from Shandong!!! It's funny you mention the dialect differences because my wife who is Cantonese and understands Mandarin always claims she can't understand my version of Mandarin and calls it ghetto-slang Mandarin. LOL! I'm talking to my grandma and she always asks for a translation as if she couldn't understand a word of Chinese (like if i was married to a white woman or something). But she understands some of my other relatives who are from Taiwan. Apparently, their version of Mandarin is also different and more understandable to her.
Valley Chinese Dude Sunday, March 24, 2002 at 22:26:30 (PST)

To Han R The Best:

"Southerners are not as intelligent as the northern peoples... maybe except for the HongKong people who seem smart. The northerners were always the leaders of government in China. Let them be that way. Ancient dynasties originate there, and they developed many forms of imperial rule."

I beg to differ on your intelligence comment about Southern Chinese people relative to Northern Chinese people. Yes, one can argue that lots of the cultural influence of the Han came from the north. But, the strengths of the Southerners and Northerners are in different areas. The Southerners were and still are known to have an aptitude for commerce and shipbuilding. Before they were assimilated by the Han, they were part of an amalgalation of kingdoms generically called "Yueh." Many sailed the seas- including the famous Zheng Ho (who was a Muslim and part Arab in blood) who sailed the Pacific and Indian Ocean. His ships were said to dwarf Columbus' ships.

The vast majority of the overseas Chinese population in Southeast Asia (and even the rest of the world)is of Southern origin. As you know in Southeast Asia, many of the overseas Chinese control the economy.

So, it's not about the Southerners or Northerns being more intelligent, their concentration were in different areas.

Min Yueh Sunday, March 24, 2002 at 16:36:34 (PST)

Erm........
Shanghainese are considered to be southerners or JIANG NAN people; people of the Yangtze littoral. They speak the WU dialect, and are NOT northerners, although many in the far south like the Cantonese may consider them to be northeners. Having said that, they are NOT the same southerners as those who live in the far south, the LINGNAN area.

Of course, I admit the women of JIANNAN (or south of the YANGTZE BASIN) are known for their beauty and refinement; quite different from those in the CANTO basin.
Chinese living in China jtan@netvigator.com Saturday, March 23, 2002 at 22:25:47 (PST)

GO SHANDONG REN! We should all go out and purchase some tsing tsao beer (I think that's how the brand is spelled...I'm not much of a drinker [probably because I'm not at the legal age, which also means someone else, who is at least four years my senior, will have to buy the beer on my account]), then meet at an agreed upon location to get drunk.
How many of us have noticed that mandarin seems to vary from place to place? Well, I for one, have noted that there seems to be a great contrast in mandarin enunciations from province to province. The members of my family who live in Shandong have a very peculiar way of speaking mandarin, which occassionally leaves my father befuddled (because he isn't from Shandong). In Hebei, the mandarin seems to be spoken in a starkly different pronunciation when compared to my Shandong relations. I find that often at times, the shandong mandarin will digress, so perhaps they're speaking a shandong dialect in such instances. And yes, Ms.Mo, it does seem Shandong ren have the potential to be freakishly tall (especially by Asian standards). On my mother's side of the family, whose members originate from mainly shandong( as well as a few from hebei and the su bei portion of jiangsu) , there are several tall relatives. Of the cousins from that portion of the family, 3 of the 8 are over 6'2, and one who is 6'8. On my father's side of the family (whom originate from lower Jiangsu, Anhui, Suzhou, and northern Zhejiang), I can name only one relative over the 6'0 mark. Such statistics forces one to come to conclusions. However, I should also note that my shortest uncle, who is 5'3, is on the Shandong side of my family. On my father's side, I do not have a single uncle under the 5'7 mark. This simply goes to show that we can't exact generalizations on all members of a certain group of people.

Note: although my posts are overtly of a generalizing mode, I do offer disclaimers that ultimately act to null and condemn generalizations (depending the intentions). Why? Because generalizations can effectively promote hatred, creating walls of contempt and mistrust where there need not be. However, they do come in handy, so in the end, we still must accept things for all their base qualities, in order to contrive the personable qualities.

Shanghai has its own very distinct dialect. However, it is a unique
environment not for its distinctive homogeneous culture, but rather, for its cosmopolitan design. It is a city of peoples and cultures not merely from all of China, but the entire globe. Once part of jiangsu, it was partitioned as a seperate district, serving as the first Chinese port open to Westerners in the 1840's. Since then, it has remained the jewel of the mainland. And as of now, it sports the most sky-scrapers of any city in Asia, making it third in the World in that category.
I prefer to refer to myself, and other Shanghainese, as middle Chinese. A number of the ethnically Chinese constituents of Shanghai can trace their roots from all over China. Truth be told, there are virtually no Shanghainese who can firmly state that their ancestors have been in Shanghai beyond 200 years ago. And over all, the vast majority of Shanghai residents are not more than second or third generation Shanghainese. Shanghainese come from all over China: from Shandong, Beijing, Wuhan, Anhui, Suzhou, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Xi'an, Guangdong, Taiwan, Sichuan, Harbin, etc.
Shanghainese are not wholly northern, nor are they wholly southern. And even its geography speaks of being the paritioning line between north and south, as it is cut in half by the Huangpu River. To do it best justice, I believe the term middle Chinese as most aptly suited.

chinatown Friday, March 22, 2002 at 22:56:17 (PST)

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