Comparing Asian Nationalities | Asian American Poll

COMPARING ASIAN NATIONALITIES
(Updated Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 05:20:53 PM to reflect the 100 most recent valid responses.)

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WHAT YOU SAY

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I just have a very general question?

Any of you play traditional Asian instruments?

What is the connection between the Chinese "xiao" and the Japanese "shakuhachi?"

flute lover Saturday, May 25, 2002 at 21:48:01 (PDT)

One Korean Man,

I just read a Korean history book and it says that one of the forms of tribute that the Koguryo kingdom paid to Tang China was in the form of virgin girls. There goes one story in which a Chinese emperor demanded women, horses and ginseng. When it arrived at Chang'an, the emperor freed 2 of the girls and allowed them to go back to Korea. But, once they returned to Koguryo, they escaped and went back to China.

Wasn't a Korean king of one southern kingdom married to an Indian princess? Did they begot many beautiful children?

Also I heard that Arabs also got shipwrecked in Shilla, Korea. Did they bring their women too?
Ulchi Mundok Saturday, May 25, 2002 at 18:25:47 (PDT)

Korean Man,

Don't believe what the white academia tells us! How do we really know if Attila the Hun was really the brutal savage barbarian as depicted in Western texts? Maybe he had to fight the Germans, Slavs and Romans because his tribes were attacked first? Few of you know that the Romans had employed Huns in North Africa and England to fight off the Germanic tribes! Maybe they refused to pay back the Hun mercenaries that some got infuriated and just attacked the Romans for cheating and lying!

Even the Chinese sources list the achievements of the Tuoba Wei, who were Turkic descended like the Huns. They later became more Sinicized than the Chinese themselves and sponsored the spreading of Buddhism into China. Even the Yuan Mongols and Ching Manchus did some cultural and technological improvements in China as listed by the current Chinese academia.

But, the West has yet to adequately rehab itself with the Huns and Mongol-Tatars because of the race issue itself.
Hey, if the Vikings can be seen in such a good light, why not the Huns and Mongols? At least, some Eastern goods and ideas entered Europe under those nomadic Orientals!

Let's accept the truth as it is!
Yellow Peril Saturday, May 25, 2002 at 16:57:25 (PDT)

One Korean Man,

I would not dare to glorify the Romans and Greeks in comparison to the Mongols. Take a look at the morals Alexander the horned cuckold (also called the "Great" by Western people) brought with him: he himself was a homosexual drug-abuser in the name of Dionysos.-Not even Dionysos could help him: he died as a mad megalomaniac,next to Chin Shi Huang Ti, another shame of mankind.The Romans,take the famous caesar Hadrian (also a gay)for example, were not better than the Greeks. They fought, won and brought decadence.
Genghis Khan has to be seen in a sharp contrast to most other rulers: he was open-minded, simple and had self-esteem. Therefore the Mongolians still worship his spirit today.
rare stuff Saturday, May 25, 2002 at 15:51:56 (PDT)

One Korean Man,

a closer comparison between the Mongols of Genghis Khan and the Macedonians of Alexander the horned cuckold (also called the "Great") would be positive for the image of the Mongols.You just need to point at the a brute custom of the ancient Macedonians/Greeks called paederastia. In comparison to that every human sacrifice to Begste (Mongolian war god) was a nice act of humanity. Furthermore Alexander the cuckold was a drug abuser in the name of Dionysos and his drug abuse made him narrow-minded. Genghis Khan had no such problems : he was open-minded enough to invite magicians and philosophers from every religion to ask them for advices to solve problems pragmatically.

rare stuff Saturday, May 25, 2002 at 15:33:22 (PDT)

"omma", "apa"

I noticed that Asian Indians and Hebrews pronouce them (mom and dad) EXACTLY the same way as in Korean.

I wonder how mom an dad are pronounced in Chinese and Japanese?

Someone should collect all the pronounciations for mom and dad in all the languages to compare them.
NYhomeboy Saturday, May 25, 2002 at 08:05:29 (PDT)

chivalova:
"One thing I could say is that the Turkish NEVER, EVER ruled China."
Aside from the Tang dynasty, mixed with some Turkic blood. I read somewhere Li Bai was also of Turkic descent. but I never was able to confirm it.

"China has two languages: mandarin and cantonese. Since both uses the same Chinese language (characters), they are the official languages."
No. The only place Cantonese is accepted as an official language is in Hong Kong, and the only time you will see Cantonese written down in an official document is if it is a police transcript of a phone conversation or something of that nature. Otherwise, everyone throughout the nation writes Chinese in a way which does not correspond with the grammar of how they speak. Mandarin is the official spoken language throughout the mainland, though in some localities a national minority's language will also receive a certain status - most notably in Tibet, where a resolution was just passed that Tibetan language receives the same official status as Mandarin.

kc:
According to developmental linguistics, the words which are learned earliest are likely to be quite similar across all languages, cuz babies still haven't got the hang of using their mouths just like they haven't got real good muscular control in the reset of their body. So they can only make a limited number of sounds.

One Korean Man:
The only SE Asian language directly related to Chinese is Burmese. The others are mostly Austronesian, though some took a large number of loanwords from Chinese. Also, I met Finnish people who say the exact same thing about Japanese that your Hungarian friend said.
T.H. Lien Saturday, May 25, 2002 at 05:42:48 (PDT)

Here are the words for family members in Turkish:

husband-kojaniz
mother-anneniz
father-babaniz
daughter-kiziniz
son-olun
sister-kiz kardashiniz
brother-erkek kardashiniz

I know that "baba" is also means father in Cantonese and Mandarin.

Is it the same in Korean and Japanese?
language student Saturday, May 25, 2002 at 00:58:13 (PDT)

A lot of the Persian and Arabic girls at my school have very clear and crisp features even with their veils on. I must imagine how they look like without them? Their bodies don't match up to Latin women, but their delicate and beautiful faces makes one feel majestic. They have very angular and fine facial features.

Central Asians (esp. Tajik, Uigur, Turkmen, Uzbek) people are even more beautiful/handsome because they got the Middle East and East Asia mixed onto them. I once met a hot looking Tajik girl (Rushan) in Beijing's Qinghua Uni. Since I speak a little Farsi (with a Chinese and English accent), she still haltingly understood. She thought I came from Iran (even though I look 100% Chinese). She had on a beautiful veil or head scarf with all these beautiful floral designs. Man, even though her hair was covered, if you had looked into those eyes of hers and her beautiful face, you would be lost as I have. I asked her for marriage and to follow me back to the U.S. Then, she seriously asked me in Mandarin: "if I was willing to convert to Islam in order for the marriage to go through with her family and people?" Apparently, she took it seriously. I went back home the next fall. And, no, I did not convert. The last time I saw her, she made me some of her people's cakes and pastry. Absolutely delicious. I might go find her someday again. To follow the trail of goats and playing the daf tambourine drums in far western parts of China. Where a whistle can be echoed for miles in the barren Pamir mountains, near the border with Tajikistan and Afghanistan. In her native Pamir snow capped mountains of Tashkorgan!
she is in my dreams Saturday, May 25, 2002 at 00:45:31 (PDT)

Turks never conquered all of China. But, after the fall of the Han Dynasty, there was no unity in China for more than 400 years. Many of the elites brought their imperial and artistic culture to southern China, while the north was carved up and ruled by nomadic Turkic rulers who within a generation Sinicized. They took Chinese names and intermarried with the native local aristocrats. In fact, for the Tuoba (Tabgatch) Wei, of Turkic origins, they made it mandatory for the Turkic nobles and the Han Chinese aristocrats to intermarry. The founders of the Sui and Tang dynasties each had the same Turkic mothers and grandmothers from the same lineage. The famous Tang poet, Li Bai was also said to have a Turkic mother and be bilingual as was most people in northern China at that time. The Turks did not conquer China, but the Chinese culture conquered them. You can win an empire on horseback, but you cannot rule it from one.

Whatever its classification, Turkish is a very beautiful language to listen to.

tri Saturday, May 25, 2002 at 00:30:40 (PDT)

T.H. Lien,

I don't think it was because of Chinese linguistic influences and borrowings that caused the Japanese to drop the "R" from their native words. If you know that in Mandarin and even in Cantonese, there are quite a few words that end in "R."

Mandarin:
2-ar
where is it?-jai nar?

Cantonese:
pig-jur
to cut a steak-ger pa

It is said that in the Tang Dynasty, the Chinese back then even had words that began and contained the tongue twisting "R". Now, all Chinese dialects lost that feature.

Some even said that the Chinese spoken during the times of Confucius may have been less monosyllabic than it is today. Because if you look at the Tibetan-Bhutanese words closely, although they are tonal, some also sound polysyllabic. Chinese and Tibeto-Burman may have gotten influences by languages of peoples they encountered and assimilated south of them.

There is a language in Siberia called "Ket" spoken by a tribe of people. Linguistically they are closer to Chinese, than they are to the neighboring Turkic and Mongols.

Among Native Amerindian languages, you also find some with tonal and non-tonal features.

Languages were all one in a very, very distant past. But, after splitting off, they develop their own ways.
it's just language Friday, May 24, 2002 at 22:52:48 (PDT)

The physical features of Korean and Japanese are looks like each other. On the other hand, Korean are tall and Japanese are not tall, and Korean looks pure and Japanese looks mixed.
There are two such contradict point of view about Korean and Japanese. This contradiction can be explained by process of their formation.
I think the components of nationalities are almost same for Korean and Japanese. But the propotion of each components are different between Korean and Japanese.
There are three or four major components formulating Korean and Japanese.

1.Ainu like people. Paleotype mongoloid. They existed wider area than today about 10000 years ago. Especially in Japan, They were major component of the population until 2500 years ago. And today, about 10~30% of Japanese DNA are their's. The reason why Japanese looks mixed is because of relatively high proportion of their DNA. In Korea, the propotion of their DNA is very low, but their DNA are certainly retained until nowadays.

2.Han chinese like people. There characters of their physical features are narrow long face, height about 162~164cm(adult male), slender body, and Neomongoloid like face(single eadged eyelid, thin strait eyebrow high above from eye, very little body hair, etc)
I think their original land were around Yellow river. Han chinese were one of subbranchs. They spread to east, west, and south during Chou dynasty ~ Han dynasty(about BC 1000 to 0 years).
In japan, they are most major type of populatin today, about 60~70% of Japanese DNA. In Korea, they are also major type of population. But not so high comparing to Japanese. I think they are about 40~60% of Korean population(Very rough estimation).

3.Manchurian like people. I include Asian Turkish and Mongolian into this category. But it maybe controversial. Their physical features are big round wide face, tall statue, Neomongoloid like face. They existed in Mongolia and Manchuria. After Han dynasty to Tang dynasty, they migrated to southern area in a large scale. In Korea, the nation of Koguryo was descendant of them, while southern Korea(ex Silla) was descendant of Han chinese like people. They are major types of population in Korea today, about 40~60% I think. On the other hand, their proportion are relatively low in Japan. The reason of why Japanese are slender and not tall is because of their low proportion.
olmy Friday, May 24, 2002 at 19:15:34 (PDT)

Chinalova,

China has much more than just two languages. However there is only one official language: Mandarin. Cantonese is a regional dialect along with the other unofficial languages in China. It's just that most Chinese overseas are Cantonese-speakers, so this language looks to be as common as Mandarin, which it isn't.
Elisa Friday, May 24, 2002 at 15:21:31 (PDT)

from my personal experience, thai, lao and cambodian tend to be more outgoing than viets. but i would rather make friends w/ viets and thais. viets are friendly, intelligent although some are a bit awkward. one thing i notice is northern viets are judgemental towards other people. while their southern brothers are a lot more outgoing and easygoing people. the northern people are more conservative.

and from what i've seen vietnamese hardly hold grudges against anyone. . cambodians tend to be more agressive and scary. and they hate the vietnamese. but that 's just a generalization.
gk Friday, May 24, 2002 at 11:48:37 (PDT)

Hafti,

I see some flaws in your thinking about Vietnamese people especially in this paragraph:

�But the central and north stayed free of malay and khmer influences (too far to mix in anyway) and free of Han mixing (hatred is EXTREME in the north, they were the ones fighting with the chinese the most, very few accepted the chinese in the north, why do you think they migrated even more south to where south vietnam is?) for historical reasons. It is considered by the northern people that marrying a chinese person would bring great misfortune within the family and is a big disgrace to the family name (VERY superstitious people, they even dug up neighboring villages graves because it was considered to have brought bad luck!)�.

Let�s look at modern history of Vietnam, if people in the north hate Chinese the most why they has been China ally in the Vietnam War, but the South was not. The fact is the north is Chinese influenced more than the south. China ruled northern Vietnam not southern Vietnam. In fact, some villages in North Vietnam are all 100% ethnic Chinese. You can verify by travelling to Quang Ninh, Mong Cai and Cao Bang provinces in North Vietnam. I see in my life, there are many intermarriages between Viet and Chinese in the North as well.

Do you think more than one thousand years of China rule in northern Vietnam there were no intermarriages between Chinese and Vietnamese? Vietnamese people in the north are free of Han? Give me a break. I don�t think so. It must be hard for an average person to figure it out. Not to mention to those who study human society. It must be extremly anti social. I am more likely to think the other way around.

Do you know history of South Vietnamese people (your Mom)? Where did they come from?

South Vietnamese are Vietnamese who came from the North and settled in the South after kingdom of Vietnam conquered Champ and Khmer Empire in 14th to 16th century.

Mixing with the Chams, Khmer is very rare in Vietnamese society. Why? Their lands were lost to the Vietnamese just a few centuries ago. The hatred of Vietnamese is still very hostile among Cambodians (Khmers). Have you heard about the genocide of ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia in the 70s and 90s?

The fact is Chinese are much more accepted in Vietnamese society for many reasons: Similar culture, Cunfucius, etc... Many Vietnamese families have Chinese in the line of their cousins. Your Mom and Dad is an example.

Why did the Chinese migrate more south to today South Vietnam? The answer is simple: Economics. Southern part of Vietnam is much richer than northern part in terms of food resources. Another historic reason, Kingdom of Vietnam tended to send more of its people to southhern part, newly occupied land, to overwhelm the natives.

I think your view is more family personal experiences than logic sense of facts and history.

An Nam Guy Friday, May 24, 2002 at 11:15:19 (PDT)

To examine the closeness of one language to another...you have to look at the grammatical structure of the languages. It is not about pronounciation of words as much as it is about the grammatically set up of the language.

Japanese...is said to be closely related to Finnish..although the two languages sound nothing alike, their similiarities in grammer supports the theory that perhaps Japanese and Finnish evolved from one language.
Park Ji Yoon Friday, May 24, 2002 at 10:18:04 (PDT)

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