TaiwanDNA.com

Origins and Diversity of the Taiwanese People

TaiwanDNA.com Homepage

Beijing

 

The tourist attractions of Beijing are plenty and rich in history. The best-known ones include the Badaling stretch of the Great Wall of China, the Temple of Heaven, the Tian'anmen and the Forbidden City, a number of temples, hutongs and parks, relics of ages gone by.

* Tourist attractions of Beijing

 

Forbidden City

 

Tiananmen

 

Beijing City Fortification

 

A traditional Beijing opera stage at the Summer Palace in Beijing

 

A typical street in a Bejing hutong

Hutongs (衚衕) are narrow streets or alleys, most commonly associated with Beijing.

 

Mandarin Cuisine

 

Since Beijing has been the Chinese capital city for centuries, its cuisine has been influenced by culinary traditions from all over China. Foods that originated in Beijing are often snacks rather than full courses, and they are typically sold by little shops or street vendors.

* Peking Duck (北京烤鸭)
* Hot and Sour Soup (酸辣湯)
* Moo Shu Pork (木須肉)
* Zhajiang Mian (炸醬麵)
* Baked Sesame Seed Cake (燒餅)
* Yi Si Juan (銀絲卷)
* Peking Dumpling (北京餃子)
* Peking Wonton (北京餛飩)
* Fuling Jiabing (茯苓夾餅)

BEIJING

Excerpts from Wikipedia.org

Beijing (北京), a metropolis in northern China, is the capital of the People's Republic of China (PRC). It is also known in English as Peking. Beijing is also one of the four municipalities of the PRC, which are equivalent to provinces in China's administrative structure. Beijing Municipality borders Hebei Province to the north, west, south, and for a small section in the east, and Tianjin Municipality to the southeast.

Beijing is China's second largest city after Shanghai, with more than 17 million people in Beijing's area of jurisdiction. Beijing is a major transportation hub, with dozens of railways, roads and motorways passing through the city. It is also the destination of many international flights arriving in China. Beijing is recognised as the political, educational, and cultural center of the People's Republic of China, while Shanghai and Hong Kong predominate in economic fields. Beijing is one of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China. It hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Few cities in the world besides Beijing have served as the political and cultural centre of an area as immense as China for so long. The Encyclopædia Britannica describes it as "one of the world's great cities," and declares that the city has been an integral part of China’s history for centuries; there is scarcely a major building of any age in Beijing that doesn't have at least some national historical significance. Beijing is renowned for its opulent palaces, temples, and huge stone walls and gates. Its art treasures and universities have long made the city a centre of culture and art in China.

 

Geography and Climate

Beijing is situated at the northern tip of the roughly triangular North China Plain, which opens to the south and east of the city. Mountains to the north, northwest and west shield the city and northern China's agricultural heartland from the encroaching desert steppes. The northwestern part of the municipality, especially Yanqing County and Huairou District, are dominated by the Jundu Mountains, while the western part of the municipality is framed by the Xishan Mountains. The Great Wall of China, which stretches across the northern part of Beijing Municipality, made use of this rugged topography to defend against nomadic incursions from the steppes. Mount Dongling in the Xishan ranges and on the border with Hebei is the municipality's highest point, with an altitude of 2303 m. Major rivers flowing through the municipality include the Yongding River and the Chaobai River, part of the Hai River system, and flow in a southerly direction. Beijing is also the northern terminus of the Grand Canal of China which was built across the North China Plain to Hangzhou. Miyun Reservoir, built on the upper reaches of the Chaobai River, is Beijing's largest reservoir, and crucial to its water supply.

The urban area of Beijing is situated in the south-central part of the municipality and occupies a small but expanding part of the municipality's area. It spreads out in bands of concentric ring roads, of which the fifth and outermost, the Sixth Ring Road (the numbering starts at 2), passes through several satellite towns. Tian'anmen (Gate of Heavenly Peace) and Tian'anmen Square are at the centre of Beijing, and are directly to the south of the Forbidden City, former residence of the emperors of China. To the west of Tian'anmen is Zhongnanhai, residence of the paramount leaders of the People's Republic of China. Running through central Beijing from east to west is Chang'an Avenue, one of Beijing's main thoroughfares.

The city's climate is a monsoon-influenced humid continental climate (Koppen climate classification Dwa), characterised by hot, humid summers due to the East Asian monsoon, and generally cold, windy, dry winters that reflect the influence of the vast Siberian anticyclone

 

Dust Storms

Dust from erosion of deserts in northern and northwestern China results in seasonal dust storms that plague the city; the Beijing Weather Modification Office sometimes artificially induces rainfall to fight such storms and mitigate their effects. In the first four months of 2006 alone, there were no fewer than eight such storms. In April 2002, one dust storm alone dumped nearly 50,000 tons of dust onto the city before moving on to Japan and Korea.

 

Architecture

Three styles of architecture predominate in urban Beijing. First, the traditional architecture of imperial China, perhaps best exemplified by the massive Tian'anmen (Gate of Heavenly Peace), which remains the People's Republic of China's trademark edifice, the Forbidden City, the Imperial Ancestral Temple and the Temple of Heaven. Next there is what is sometimes referred to as the "Sino-Sov" style, built between the 1950s and the 1970s, with structures tending to be boxy, bland, and poorly made. Finally, there are much more modern architectural forms — most noticeably in the area of the Beijing CBD and Beijing Financial Street.

Beijing of the early 21st century has witnessed tremendous growth of new building constructions, showing various modern styles from international designers. A mixture of both old and new styles of architecture can be seen at the 798 Art Zone, which mixes 1950s design with a blend of the new.

 

Culture

People native to urban Beijing speak the Beijing dialect, which belongs to the Mandarin subdivision of spoken Chinese. Rural areas of Beijing Municipality have their own dialects akin to those of Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing Municipality.

Beijing Opera, or Peking Opera (京劇), is well-known throughout the national capital. Commonly lauded as one of the highest achievements of Chinese culture, Beijing Opera is performed through a combination of song, spoken dialogue, and codified action sequences, such as gestures, movement, fighting and acrobatics. Much of Beijing Opera is carried out in an archaic stage dialect quite different from modern Standard Mandarin and from the Beijing dialect; this makes the dialogue somewhat hard to understand, and the problem is compounded if one is not familiar with Chinese. As a result, modern theaters often have electronic titles in Chinese and English.

The Siheyuan (四合院) is a traditional architectural style of Beijing. A siheyuan consists of a square housing compound, with rooms enclosing a central courtyard. This courtyard often contains a pomegranate or other type of tree, as well as potted flowers or a fish tank. Siheyuans line Hutongs (胡同), or alleys, which connect the interior of Beijing's old city. They are usually straight and run east-to-west so that doorways can face north and south for Feng Shui reasons. They vary in width — some are very narrow, enough for only a few pedestrians to pass through at a time.

Teahouses are also common in Beijing. Chinese tea comes in many varieties and some rather expensive types of Chinese tea are said to cure an ailing body extraordinarily well.

 

Demographics

Most of Beijing's residents belong to the Han Chinese majority. Other ethnic minorities include the Manchu, Hui, and Mongol. A Tibetan-language high school exists for youth of Tibetan ancestry, nearly all of whom have come to Beijing from Tibet expressly for their studies. A sizable international community exists in Beijing, many attracted by the highly growing foreign business and trade sector, others by the traditional and modern culture of the city. Much of this international community lives in the areas around the Beijing CBD, Sanlitun, and Wudaokou. In recent years there has also been an influx of South Koreans (estimate 200,000 in 2009) who live in Beijing predominantly for business and study purpose. Many of them live in the Wangjing and Wudaokou areas.

 

 

 

North China

Northern China or North China (華北; literally "China's north") is a geographical region of China. The heartland of North China is the North China Plain.

It is defined by the Chinese government to include the municipalities of Beijing and Tianjin, the provinces of Hebei and Shanxi, and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

 

 

Standard Mandarin

Standard Mandarin, or Standard Chinese (現代標準漢語), known by various names to native speakers, is the official modern Chinese spoken language used in mainland China and Taiwan, and is one of the four official languages of Singapore.

The phonology of Standard Mandarin is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin, a large and diverse group of Chinese dialects spoken across northern and southwestern China. The vocabulary is largely drawn from this group of dialects. The grammar is standardized to the body of modern literary works written in Vernacular Chinese, which in practice follows the same tradition of the Mandarin dialects with some notable exceptions. As a result, Standard Mandarin itself is usually just called "Mandarin" in non-academic, everyday usage. However, linguists use "Mandarin" to refer to the entire language. This convention is adopted in this article.

History: Chinese languages have always had dialects; hence prestige dialects have always existed, and linguae francae have always been needed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán (雅言), or "elegant speech", rather than colloquial regional dialects; text during the Han Dynasty also referred to tōngyǔ (通语), or "common language". Rime books, which were written since the Southern and Northern Dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times. However, all of these standard dialects were probably unknown outside the educated elite; even among the elite, pronunciations may have been very different, as the unifying factor of all Chinese dialects, Classical Chinese, was a written standard, not a spoken one.

The Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) and the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) began to use the term guānhuà (官話), or "official speech", to refer to the speech used at the courts. The term "Mandarin" comes directly from the Portuguese. The word mandarim was first used to name the Chinese bureaucratic officials (i.e., the mandarins), because the Portuguese, under the misapprehension that the Sanskrit word (mantri or mentri) that was used throughout Asia to denote "an official" had some connection with the Portuguese word mandar (to order somebody to do something), and having observed that these officials all "issued orders", chose to call them mandarins. The use of the word mandarin by the Portuguese for the Chinese officials, as well as its putative connection with the Portuguese verb mandar is attested already in De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas suscepta ab Societate Jesu (1617) by Matteo Ricci and Nicolas Trigault.

From this, the Portuguese immediately started calling the special language that these officials spoke amongst themselves (i.e., "Guanhua") "the language of the mandarins", "the mandarin language" or, simply, "Mandarin". The fact that Guanhua was, to a certain extent, an artificial language, based upon a set of conventions (that is, the various Mandarin dialects for grammar and meaning, and the specific dialect of the Imperial Court's locale for its pronunciation), is precisely what makes it such an appropriate term for Modern Standard Chinese (also the various Mandarin dialects for grammar and meaning, and their dialect of Beijing for its pronunciation).

It seems that during the early part of this period, the standard was based on the Nanjing dialect of Mandarin, but later the Beijing dialect became increasingly influential, despite the mix of officials and commoners speaking various dialects in the capital, Beijing. In the 17th century, the Empire had set up Orthoepy Academies (正音書院) in an attempt to make pronunciation conform to the Beijing standard. But these attempts had little success since as late as the 19th century the emperor had difficulty understanding some of his own ministers in court, who did not always try to follow any standard pronunciation. Although by some account, as late as the early 20th century, the position of Nanjing Mandarin was considered to be higher than that of Beijing by some and the Chinese Postal Map Romanization standards set in 1906 included spellings with elements of Nanjing pronunciation. Nevertheless, by 1909, the dying Qing Dynasty had established the Beijing dialect as guóyǔ (国语), or the "national language".

 

Zhou Dynasty -- Qin (秦國) -- Yan (燕國) -- He Bei Yu (Hebei Province)
Zhou Dynasty -- Qin -- Ba (巴國) / Shu (蜀國) -- Cantonese Language (Cantonese People)
Zhou Dynasty -- Qin -- Qin / Jin (晉國) -- Guan Zhong Yu -- Northern (Mandarin)
Zhou Dynasty -- Qin -- Guan Dong Yu -- Zhong Yuan Yu -- Gan Language
Zhou Dynasty -- Qin -- Guan Dong Yu -- Zhong Yuan Yu -- Hakka Language (Hakka People)
Zhou Dynasty -- Qin -- Guan Dong Yu -- Zhong Yuan Yu -- Min Language
Zhou Dynasty -- Qi (齊國) -- Min Language (Hokkien People, Fuzhou People, Teochew People)
Zhou Dynasty -- Wu (吳國) -- Shanghainese Language (Shanghainese People)
Zhou Dynasty -- Wu -- Hui Language (Anhui Province)
Zhou Dynasty -- Chu (楚國)-- Xiang Language (Hunan Province)

 

Chinese Language Tree from glossika.com

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Manchu

The Manchu people (滿族) are a Tungusic people who originated in Manchuria (today's Northeastern China). During their rise in the seventeenth century, along with the help of Ming rebels (such as general Wu Sangui), they conquered the Ming Dynasty and founded the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China until its abolition in 1912 after the Xinhai Revolution, which established a republican government in its place.

The Manchu ethnicity has largely been assimilated with the Han Chinese. The Manchu language is almost extinct, now spoken only among a small number of elderly people in remote rural areas of northeastern China and a few scholars; there are around ten thousand speakers of Sibe (Xibo), a Manchu dialect spoken in the Ili region of Xinjiang. In recent years, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in Manchu culture among both ethnic Manchus and Han. The number of Chinese today with some Manchu ancestry is quite large, and the adoption of favorable policies towards ethnic minorities (such as preferential university admission, government employment opportunities and exemption from the one child policy) has encouraged some people with mixed Han and Manchu ancestry to re-identify themselves as Manchu.

Northeast China (東北) is a geographical region of China, consisting of the three provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang. Some people in parts of Inner Mongolia (like Chifeng) still call themselves Northeasterners. It is generally coterminous with some definitions of the historical region of Manchuria and is commonly referred to in English as such. It is also sometimes referred to as Inner Manchuria in contrast with Outer Manchuria, provinces lost to the Russian Empire, during the Qing Dynasty.

 

 

Hui

The Hui people (回族 ) are a Chinese ethnic group, typically distinguished by their practice of Islam.

The term "Hui people" refers to one of the officially recognized 56 ethnic groups into which Chinese citizens are classified. Under this definition, the Hui people are defined to include all historically Muslim communities in People's Republic of China that are not included in China's other ethnic groups. Since China's Muslims speaking various Turkic, Mongolian, or Iranian languages are all included into those other groups (e.g., Uyghurs, Tajiks, or Dongxiang), the "officially recognized" Hui ethnic group consists predominantly of Chinese speakers. In fact, the "Hui nationality" is unique among China's officially recognized ethnic minorities in that it does not have any particular non-Chinese language associated with it.

Nonetheless, included among the Hui in Chinese census statistics (and not officially recognized as separate ethnic groups) are members of a few small non-Chinese speaking communities. Among them are several thousand Utsuls in southern Hainan province, who speak an Austronesian language (Tsat) related to that of the Cham Muslim minority of Vietnam, and who are said to be descended from Chams who migrated to Hainan. A small Muslim minority among Yunnan's Bai people are classified as Hui as well (even if they are Bai speakers), as are some groups of Tibetan Muslims.

The Hui people are concentrated in Northwestern China (Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai, Xinjiang), but communities exist across the country, e.g. Beijing, Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Yunnan, etc.

Most Hui are similar in culture to Han Chinese with the exception that they practice Islam, and have some distinctive cultural characteristics as a result. For example, as Muslims, they follow Islamic dietary laws and reject the consumption of pork, the most common meat consumed in Chinese culture, and have also given rise to their variation of Chinese cuisine, Chinese Islamic cuisine and Muslim Chinese martial arts. Their mode of dress also differs primarily in that men wear white caps and women wear headscarves or (occasionally) veils, as is the case in most Islamic cultures.

The Hui people are mixed blood. Their ancestors include Central Asian, Persian, Han Chinese, and Mongols. In ancient China, e.g. Tang and Yuan Dynasty, lots of people from Central Asian and Persia came to trade or pursue political careers. In the following nearly one thousand years, they gradually mixed with Mongols and Han Chinese, and the Hui people were formed. Because the Hui people have lived in China for so many years, they haven't retained Arabic and Central Asian languages, instead becoming Chinese speakers.

Apart from some minor characteristics, the majority of Hui people look much like Han Chinese, especially in eastern China.

 

 

Mongol

Sükhbaataryn Yanjmaa, a Mongolian politician.

The name Mongol specifies one or several ethnic groups, now mainly located in Mongolia, China, and Russia.

A narrow definition includes the Mongols proper, which can be roughly divided into eastern and western Mongols. In a wider sense, the Mongol people includes all people who speak a Mongolic language, such as the Kalmyks of eastern Europe.

The name "Mongol", appeared first in 8th century records of the Chinese Tang dynasty as a tribe of Shiwei, but then only resurfaced in the 11th century during the rule of the Khitan. After the fall of Liao Dynasty in 1125, the Mongols became a leading steppe tribe. However, their wars with the Jin Dynasty and Tatars weakened them severely. In the 13th century, it grew into an umbrella term for a large group of Mongolic and Turkic tribes united under the rule of Genghis Khan under a same identity (mostly cultural).

Based on Chinese historical texts the ancestry of the Mongol peoples can be traced back to the Donghu, a nomadic confederation occupying eastern Mongolia and Manchuria, who were defeated by Modu Shanyu of the Xiongnu after he became Emperor in 209 B.C. The identity of the Xiongnu is still debated today. Although some scholars maintain that they were proto-Mongols, the fact that Chinese histories trace certain Turkic tribes from the Xiongnu complicates the issue. The Donghu, however, can be much more easily labeled proto-Mongol since the Chinese histories exclusively trace all the subsequent Mongolic tribes and kingdoms (mainly Xianbei peoples) from them, although some historical texts claim a mixed Xiongnu-Donghu ancestry for some tribes (e.g. in the case of the proto-Mongolic Khitan).

Three prominent proto-Mongol groups split from the Xianbei, as recorded by the Chinese histories: the Rouran (claimed by some to be the Avars), the Khitan and the Shiwei (a sub-tribe called the "Shiwei Menggu" is held to be the origin of the Genghisid Mongols). Their culture was basically nomadic, their religion Shamanism or Buddhism and their military strength formidable.

Geographically the Tuoba Xianbei ruled Inner Mongolia and northern China, the Rouran (Yujiulu Shelun was the first to use the title Khagan in 402) ruled Outer Mongolia, the Khitan were concentrated in Southern Manchuria north of Korea and the Shiwei were located to the north of the Khitan.

 

 

Russians in China

Qing troops storming Albazin in 1685

Ethnic Russians in China (俄罗斯族) form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. They are the descendants of Russians who settled in China, and hold Chinese rather than Russian citizenship.

The first Russians recorded to have settled in China were the Albazin Cossacks who joined the Manchu imperial guard in 1685. Significant immigration began in 1897 with the construction of the China Far East Railway and increased after Russia's October Revolution. In the years after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, many Russians either emigrated to Australia or were repatriated to the Soviet Union; only a minority remained behind in China.

There is a district of Beijing known as Russiatown (Yabaolu Market, 雅宝路). It is settled primarily by Russian tradesmen from Siberia. The focal point of the district is a large market. Business signs are mostly in Russian and written in the Cyrillic alphabet, a surprise to many tourists.

The Albazinians (Russian: албазинцы, Chinese: 阿尔巴津人) are approximately 250 modern descendants of about fifty Russian Cossacks from Albazin on the Amur River (黑龍江) that were resettled by the Kangxi Emperor in the northeastern periphery of Beijing in 1685. Albazin was a Russian fort on the Amur River, founded by Yerofey Khabarov in 1651. It was stormed by Qing troops in 1685. The majority of its inhabitants agreed to evacuate their families and property to Nerchinsk, whereas several young Cossacks resolved to join the Manchu army and to relocate to Beijing.

Much uncertainty surrounds their migration to China. It is believed that, upon their arrival to the imperial capital, the Albazinians met the descendants of 33 Cossacks that had been captured by the Chinese in 1667 and several Cossacks that had settled in Beijing as early as 1649 and had become the parishioners of the South Roman Catholic Cathedral in the downtown. The veracity of this oral tradition about the pre-Albazinian Russian diaspora in China is open to question.

The Albazinians formed a separate contingent of the imperial guard, known as the "unit of the yellow-stripe standard". Their first leader was Ananiy Uruslanov, or Ulangeri, a Tatar in the employ of the Manchu. The Russian surnames Yakovlev, Dubinin and Romanov were rendered in Chinese as Yao (姚), Du (杜), and Lo (罗). The Cossacks were permitted to marry the widows of the beheaded Chinese criminals.

Although the descendants of the Cossacks intermarried with the Chinese and gradually lost their command of the Russian language, the Russian Orthodox Church regularly sent missions to Beijing, starting in 1713. As a result, the Abazinians came to form the core of the Chinese Orthodox Church. In 1831, Ioakinf Bichurin reported that there were 94 Albazinians in the capital of China. Other Russian travellers noted that, apart from their faith, the Albazinians were thoroughly Sinicized and bore little physical resemblance to the Russians. By the end of the 19th century, their number was estimated at 1,000.

The Boxer Rebellion entailed the persecution of all Christians and Europeans in China. The Russian Orthodox Church claims that 222 Orthodox Chinese were martyred on 11 June 1900, including Father Mitrofan, who was later declared a holy martyr. An Orthodox chapel used to mark the burial place of the Chinese Orthodox martyrs in Beijing. It was destroyed in 1956 at the urging of the Soviet ambassador in China. Although several Albazinian families found it reasonable to move to the Soviet Union during the Cultural Revolution, the bulk of them still reside in Beijing and Tianjin.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Genetic Studies

 

* OCA2 481Thr, a Hypofunctional Allele in Pigmentation, Is Characteristic of Northeastern Asian Populations by Yuasa I, et al.

Abstract: Asians as well as Europeans have light skin, for which no genes to date are known to be responsible. A mutation, Ala481Thr (c.G1559A), in the oculocutaneous albinism type II (OCA2) gene has approximately 70% function of the wild type allele in melanogenesis. In this study, the distribution of the mutation was investigated in a total of 2,615 individuals in 20 populations from various areas. OCA2 481Thr prevailed almost exclusively in a northeastern part of Asia. The allele frequency was highest in Buryat (0.24) in Mongolia and showed a north-south downward geographical gradient. These findings suggest that OCA2 481Thr arose in a region of low ultraviolet radiation and thereafter spread to neighboring populations.

Distribution of A481T Genotypes and OCA2*481Thr Frequencies

 

 

* High Frequencies of Y-chromosome Haplogroup O2b-SRY465 Lineages in Korea: A genetic perspective on the peopling of Korea by Soon-Hee Kim, et al.

Abstract

Background

Koreans are generally considered a Northeast Asian group, thought to be related to Altaic-language-speaking populations. However, recent findings have indicated that the peopling of Korea might have been more complex, involving dual origins from both southern and northern parts of East Asia. To understand the male lineage history of Korea, more data from informative genetic markers from Korea and its surrounding regions are necessary. In this study, 25 Y-chromosome single nucleotide polymorphism markers and 17 Y-chromosome short tandem repeat (Y-STR) loci were genotyped in 1,108 males from several populations in East Asia.

Results

In general, we found East Asian populations to be characterized by male haplogroup homogeneity, showing major Y-chromosomal expansions of haplogroup O-M175 lineages. Interestingly, a high frequency (31.4%) of haplogroup O2b-SRY465 (and its sublineage) is characteristic of male Koreans, whereas the haplogroup distribution elsewhere in East Asian populations is patchy. The ages of the haplogroup O2b-SRY465 lineages (~9,900 years) and the pattern of variation within the lineages suggested an ancient origin in a nearby part of northeastern Asia, followed by an expansion in the vicinity of the Korean Peninsula. In addition, the coalescence time (~4,400 years) for the age of haplogroup O2b1-47z, and its Y-STR diversity, suggest that this lineage probably originated in Korea. Further studies with sufficiently large sample sizes to cover the vast East Asian region and using genomewide genotyping should provide further insights.

Conclusions

These findings are consistent with linguistic, archaeological and historical evidence, which suggest that the direct ancestors of Koreans were proto-Koreans who inhabited the northeastern region of China and the Korean Peninsula during the Neolithic (8,000-1,000 BC) and Bronze (1,500-400 BC) Ages.

 

Distribution of Y Chromosome Haplogroup Frequencies in the East Asian Populations Studied

 

Distribution of Y haplogroup O lineages in East Asia

 

Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) Plot Based on FST Distances of 12 Populations in East Asia

 

 

* A Genetic Analysis of the Sakishima Islanders Reveals No Relationship With Taiwan Aborigines but Shared Ancestry With Ainu and Main-Island Japanese by Hirotaka Matsukusa, et al.

The Neighbor Joining (NJ) Tree for 15 East and Southeast Asian Populations Constructed Based on Seven Y-STR Loci

 

The Neighbor Joining (NJ) Tree for 10 East and Southeast Asian Populations Constructed Based on Nine A-STR Loci

 

* Genomic Dissection of Population Substructure of Han Chinese and Its Implication in Association Studies by Shuhua Xu, et al.

Abstract: To date, most genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and studies of fine-scale population structure have been conducted primarily on Europeans. Han Chinese, the largest ethnic group in the world, composing 20% of the entire global human population, is largely underrepresented in such studies. A well-recognized challenge is the fact that population structure can cause spurious associations inGWAS. In this study, we examined population substructures in a diverse set of over 1700 Han Chinese samples collected from 26 regions across China, each genotyped at ~160K single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Our results showed that the Han Chinese population is intricately substructured, with the main observed clusters corresponding roughly to northern Han, central Han, and southern Han. However, simulated case-control studies showed that genetic differentiation among these clusters, although very small (FST ¼ 0.0002 ~0.0009), is sufficient to lead to an inflated rate of false-positive results even when the sample size is moderate. The top two SNPs with the greatest frequency differences between the northern Han and southern Han clusters (FST > 0.06) were found in the FADS2 gene, which associates with the fatty acid composition in phospholipids, and in the HLA complex P5 gene (HCP5), which associates with HIV infection, psoriasis, and psoriatic arthritis. Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) showed that most differentiated genes among clusters are involved in cardiac arteriopathy (p < 10101). These signals indicating significant differences among Han Chinese subpopulations should be carefully explained in case they are also detected in association studies, especially when sample sources are diverse.

 

Analysis of the First Two Principal Components of Han Chinese individuals (excluding all non-Han Chinese samples)

 

Principal Components Analysis of Han Chinese Individuals

 

Geographical Locations of Three C-Han Populations

 

 

* Genetic Structure of the Han Chinese Population Revealed by Genome-wide SNP Variation by Jieming Chen, et al.

Population Stratification of the Han Chinese

(The cluster and stratification of the samples from the ten provinces of China, showing an evident north-south genetic differentiation.)

 

Population Stratification of the Han Chinese

The samples from Beijing (purple) (CHB samples from the International HapMap project), Shanghai (orange), and Singapore (yellow) were compared against the provincial samples. The majority of the Singapore samples fall in the southern (lower) sector, whereas the Beijing and Shanghai samples were largely located within the northern (upper) sector.

 

 

* Genetic Distances Between Chinese Populations Ccalculated on Gene Frequencies of 38 Loci by DU Ruofu, et al.

Phylogenic Tree of Han Subpopulations in 30 Provinces, Cities and Autonomous Regions

(Beijing, Xinjiang)

 

 

* Genetic Relationship of Populations in China by J. Y. Chu, et al.

Chinese Populations Sampled in the Current Study

 

Phylogenies Constructed by Using the Neighbor-joining Method Based on 15 Microsatellites

(Japanese, Han-Northern, Manchu, Korean, Han-Yunnan)

 

 

* Genetic Diversity of Two Haploid Markers in the Udegey Population from Southeastern Siberia by HJ Jin, et al.

Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) Plot Based on (A) FST Distances of mtDNA Haplogroups

Closed diamonds: northeast Asians, Open squares: southeast Asians, Closed squares: south Siberians, Triangles: northeast Siberians, Closed circle: Udegey1, Open circles: southeast Siberians, Asterisk: Europeans.

Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) Plot Based on FST Distances of mtDNA HVS-I Sequences

 

Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) Plot Based on FST Distances of Y-chromosome Haplogroups in 12 East Asian Populations

 

Median-joining Network for Eurasian Populations Based on 12 Binary Y Chromosome Markers

 

 

* Distributions of HLA Class I Alleles and Haplotypes in Northern Han Chinese by W. Hong, et al.

Abstract: Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I allelic genotypes were determined in 105 unrelated Han ethnic individuals inhabiting the northern China area. A total of 19 HLA-A alleles, 49 HLA-B alleles and 24 HLA-Cw alleles were detected. Through the analyses of two and three loci haplotypes of HLA-A, HLA-B, and HLA-C loci, 11 HLA-A-B-Cw haplotypes, 19 HLA-A-B haplotypes, 18 HLA-A-Cw haplotypes, and 24 HLA-B-Cw haplotypes with the frequencies of higher than 0.01 were revealed. The Nei's genetic distance (GD) was estimated, and the NJ dendrogram showed that Northern Han had a higher GD to Southern Han (0.233) than those to the Korean (0.138) or other Northern ethnic groups, suggesting that Northern Han had more mixed blood with the ethnic groups originally in Northeast Asia. Our results provide useful information on the further study of evolution and relationships of Chinese ethnic groups and disease association in terms of HLA class I genes.

 

 

* Genetic Relationships among Japanese, Northern Han, Hui, Uygur, Kazakh, Greek, Saudi Arabian, and Italian Populations Based on Allelic Frequencies at Four VNTR (D1S80, D4S43, COL2A1, D17S5) and One STR (ACTBP2) Loci by Yoshihiko Katsuyamaa, et al.

Dendrogram Constructed by the Neighbor-joining Method

 

 

* Genetic Analyses on Mitochondrial DNA from Tuoba Xianbei by 周慧

Excerpt: Concerning the distribution of sharing sequences, Tuoba Xianbei sequences matched with the sequences distributed in Siberian (Northern Asia) and Northeast Asian populations, especially the populations of Oroqen, Ewenki and northern Mongolian, next in East Asian populations, including Northern Han, Korean and Japanese populations, which supported the conclusions obtained in skull study of Tuoba Xianbei. Population comparison indicated that Tuoba Xianbei presented a closer genetic affinity to Xiongnu among ancient populations, however the conclusion that Tuoba Xianbeis were the descendants of “Xianbei father and Hu mother”was not obtained. Tuoba Xianbei presented some similarities to Xiongnu in genetic diversity and genetic distance, but there were obvious differences in nucleotide diversity and haplogroup distribution frequencies between Tuoba Xianbei and Xiongnu....

The data information from Tuoba Xianbei mtDNA held the key to study the origin, evolution, and trace their gene contributions to modern relevant populations, and further understand the formation of pluralism and integration of the Chinese Nation.

 

 

* HLA Class I Polymorphism in Mongolian and Hui Ethnic Groups from Northern China by W. Hong, et al.

Abstract: HLA-A, -B, and -C alleles were genotyped by sequencing-based typing (SBT) in 102 unrelated ethnic Mongolian individuals living in Inner Mongolia and 110 Hui individuals inhabiting the Qihai plateau in Northern China. In all, 28 HLA-A, 49 HLA-B, and 27 HLA-C alleles in Mongolians and 29 HLA-A, 41 HLA-B, and 27 HLA-C alleles in Hui were detected in this study. A*24G1, A*110101/1121N and A*02G1 are the three most frequent HLA-A alleles both in Mongolians and Hui. At the HLA-B locus, only B*51G1 was found with a frequency of more than 10% in Hui. Cw*070201G1 is the most common HLA-C allele both in Mongolian and Hui. The most frequent HLA-A:C:B, HLA-A:C, and HLA-C:B haplotypes are A*330301-Cw*030201/030202-B*5801, A*330301-Cw*030201/030202, and Cw*030201/030202-B*5801 in Mongolian and A*0207/0215N-Cw*010201/010202-B*4601, A*02G1-Cw*070201G1, and Cw*010201/010202-B*4601 in Hui, respectively. The genetic distance (GD) estimated according to HLA-A, -B, and -C allele frequency indicates that Mongolian and Hui have the closest relationship, and both are closer to Northern Han rather than Southern Han, suggesting that the two ethnicities might have been subjected to intensive gene exchange with Northern Han in history. The dendrogram based on the GD measurements further demonstrates that Mongolian and Hui cluster as a branch with Northern Han Chinese and Northeast Asians. Our results may lead to better understanding of the origins and relationships of Chinese ethnic groups and provide the genetic background for disease association studies.

 

 

* Global Analysis of DNA Maps Human Migration: Studies detail how people left Africa and populated the world by Karen Kaplan

Excerpt: In the Far East, population geneticists had previously surmised that northern and southern Han Chinese were distinct populations and that the Japanese islands were populated by northern Han. "Now we have direct evidence that that's true," Li said.

 

* A Spatial Analysis of Genetic Structure of Human Populations in China Reveals Distinct Difference Between Maternal and Paternal Lineages by Fuzhong Xue, et al.

Abstract: Analyses of archeological, anatomical, linguistic, and genetic data suggested consistently the presence of a significant boundary between the populations of north and south in China. However, the exact location and the strength of this boundary have remained controversial. In this study, we systematically explored the spatial genetic structure and the boundary of north–south division of human populations using mtDNA data in 91 populations and Y-chromosome data in 143 populations. Our results highlight a distinct difference between spatial genetic structures of maternal and paternal lineages. A substantial genetic differentiation between northern and southern populations is the characteristic of maternal structure, with a significant uninterrupted genetic boundary extending approximately along the Huai River and Qin Mountains north to Yangtze River. On the paternal side, however, no obvious genetic differentiation between northern and southern populations is revealed.

 

 

* Genomic Dissection of Population Substructure of Han Chinese and Its Implication in Association Studies by Shuhua Xu, et al.

Abstract: To date, most genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and studies of fine-scale population structure have been conducted primarily on Europeans. Han Chinese, the largest ethnic group in the world, composing 20% of the entire global human population, is largely underrepresented in such studies. A well-recognized challenge is the fact that population structure can cause spurious associations in GWAS. In this study, we examined population substructures in a diverse set of over 1700 Han Chinese samples collected from 26 regions across China, each genotyped at 160K single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Our results showed that the Han Chinese population is intricately substructured, with the main observed clusters corresponding roughly to northern Han, central Han, and southern Han. However, simulated case-control studies showed that genetic differentiation among these clusters, although very small (FST = 0.0002 0.0009), is sufficient to lead to an inflated rate of false-positive results even when the sample size is moderate. The top two SNPs with the greatest frequency differences between the northern Han and southern Han clusters (FST > 0.06) were found in the FADS2 gene, which associates with the fatty acid composition in phospholipids, and in the HLA complex P5 gene (HCP5), which associates with HIV infection, psoriasis, and psoriatic arthritis. Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) showed that most differentiated genes among clusters are involved in cardiac arteriopathy (p < 10−101). These signals indicating significant differences among Han Chinese subpopulations should be carefully explained in case they are also detected in association studies, especially when sample sources are diverse.

 

 

* HLA-B*15 Subtypes Distribution in Han Population in Beijing, China, as Compared with Those of Other Populations by G. Yang, et al.

Abstract: Summary To identify HLA-B*15 subtypes distribution in Han population in Beijing, People's Republic of China, 826 unrelated healthy individuals were typed using the polymerase chain reaction-sequence-based typing method. Within the 246 HLA-B*15 positive individuals, 29 HLA-B*15 alleles were identified, the most predominant of which is B*1501 (40.07%), followed by B*1502 (12.87%), B*1511 (12.87%), B*1518 (9.19%) and B*1532 (3.31%). The distribution of HLA-B*15 subtype frequencies was compared between the Beijing Han, eight other Chinese ethnic minorities and six Chinese populations covering the mainland of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. A neighbor-joining phylogenetic tree was constructed and revealed that the Beijing Han population clustered into the northern populations group and had a closer relationship with northern Han and Hui than with southern Han or other ethnic minorities. These results thus provide useful information that can be used in anthropology, selection for bone marrow transplantation as well as in disease-association study, such as in carbamazepine (CBZ)-induced Stevens-Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis.

 

 

* The GM Genetic Polymorphism in Taiwan Aborigines: New data revealing remarkable differentiation patterns
by Alicia Sanchez-Mazas, et al.

Multidimensional Scaling Analysis among 15 Populations from Taiwan and
China Based on the Frequencies of GM ± 23 Sub-haplotypes

Solid lines link populations that are undifferentiated at the 5% level according to an exact test of population differentiation. Dotted lines link populations that are undifferentiated at the 5% level according to a permutation test on pairwise Fst’s, but not to the exact test. Final stress = 0.041 (excellent). White circles: Sino-Tibetans; triangles: Austronesians from Taiwan; black circle: Extra-Formosan Austronesians.

 

 

* Characteristics of the β-Globin Gene Cluster Haplotypes of Three Han Chinese Populations at Beijing, Xi’an, and Kunming as Compared with Those of Other Asian Populations by Koji Shimizu, et al.

Abstract: Haplotype frequencies of the β-globin gene cluster of Han Chinese at Beijing, Xi’an, and Kunming were estimated, and their mutual genetic relationships were examined and compared to those of Buryats, Khalkhs, Evenkis, Oroqens, Koreans, and Colombian Amerindians. A major 5′ subhaplotype (5′ to the δ-globin gene), a major 3′ subhaplotype (in and 3′ to the β-globin gene), and a major haplotype (combination of 5′ and 3′ subhaplotypes) are represented as + − − − −, − +, and + − − − − − +, respectively, and found in all three Han Chinese. A rare 5′ subhaplotype, − − − − −, which is one of the possible ancestral types, was found only in Han Chinese at Kunming at low frequency (0.013), and a rare 3′ subhaplotype, − −, was also observed in all three Han Chinese at low frequencies (0.009–0.014). The present haplotype frequency study suggested that the highest genetic affinity was found between Han Chinese at Beijing and those at Xi’an; the next highest was between Han Chinese at Beijing and Koreans, followed by that between Han Chinese at Beijing and Khalkhs, then that between Han Chinese at Xi’an and those at Kunming or Khalkhs, and finally that between Han Chinese at Beijing and those at Kunming. A genetic boundary between northern and southern Han Chinese was not evident in the present study.

 

 

* STR Polymorphisms of the Henan Population and Investigation of the Central Plains Han Origin of Chaoshanese by Li-Na Xu, et al.

Neighbor-joining tree constructed from Nei’s genetic distance based on the allelic frequencies of CODIS STR loci in 25 Chinese Han populations

 

 

* The Peopling of Korea Revealed by Analyses of Mitochondrial DNA and Y-Chromosomal Markers by Han-Jun Jin, et al.

Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) Plot Based on FST Distances of Y Chromosome Haplogroups

 

Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) Plot Based on FST Distances of mtDNA Haplogroups

 

Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) Plot Based on FST Distances of mtDNA HVS-I Sequences

 

Distribution of mtDNA Haplogroup Frequencies in 7 East Asian Populations

 

 

Haplogroup O2b

Haplogroup O2b (SRY465, a.k.a. M176) is a human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup. It is a descendant haplogroup of Haplogroup O2. Haplogroup O2b is found mainly in the northernmost parts of East Asia, from the Uriankhai and Zakhchin peoples of western Mongolia to the Japanese of Japan, though it also has been detected sporadically in the Buryats and Udegeys of southern Siberia, populations of Southeast Asia (including Indonesia the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam), and Micronesians. This haplogroup is found with its highest frequency and diversity values among modern populations of Japan and Korea and is absent from most populations in China, but it has been detected in some samples of Han Chinese from Beijing and Jiangsu, Daurs, Hezhes, Koreans in China, Manchus, and Sibes.

Subgroups: The phylogeography of Haplogroup O2b suggests an ancient origin in Manchuria or a nearby part of northern East Asia, followed by a long period of isolated evolution and population increase in the vicinity of the Korean Peninsula. Only branches of this haplogroup that are labeled as Haplogroup O2b*, i.e. those that do not exhibit the 47z mutation, have been detected among the indigenous populations of Inner Mongolia and northern Manchuria, and even then they are found only at very low frequencies. However, Haplogroup O2b* Y-chromosomes have been detected with high frequency in Korea, where they account for approximately 14% to 33% of the Korean male population.

A subclade of Haplogroup O2b, namely Haplogroup O2b1-47z, is found with high frequency among the Yamato people and Ryukyuan populations of Japan. Haplogroup O2b1 has been detected in approximately 22% of all males who speak a Japonic language, while it has not been found at all among a total of twenty Ainu males whose Y-DNA has been sampled in two separate genetic studies. Based on the STR haplotype diversity within Haplogroup O2b1, it has been estimated that this haplogroup began to experience a population expansion among the proto-Japanese of approximately 4,000 years ago, which makes it a good candidate for a marker of the intrusion of a Neolithic population of the prehistoric Korean Peninsula into the southwestern parts of the Japanese Archipelago. However, the parent haplogroup, O2b*, is also found among Japanese, although at a relatively low frequency of approximately 4% to 8%, and the descendant haplogroup O2b1 is found only with low frequency among samples of modern Koreans, which suggests the possibility that Haplogroup O2b* might have colonized the Japanese Archipelago much earlier, with the subgroup O2b1 subsequently evolving within the proto-Japanese-Ryukyuan population of the western parts of the archipelago.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Celiac Disease

 

* HLA-DQA1, -DQB1 Polymorphism and Genetic Susceptibility to Idiopathic Dilated Cardiomyopathy in Hans of Northern China by Liu W, et al.

Abstract: Autoimmune mechanisms are likely to participate in the pathogenesis of at least a subgroup of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (IDC), and components of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) may serve as markers for the propensity to develop immune-mediated myocardial damage. Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class II genes, especially HLA-DQ genes, which are highly polymorphic, play an important role in the activation of immune responses and thus control the predisposition to, or protection from, IDC. This study was conducted to investigate the association of HLA-DQA1, -DQB1 allele polymorphisms with an autoantibody against the myocardial mitochondria ADP/ATP carrier, and to explore susceptibility to idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (IDC) among the Han ethnic group in northern China and the immunological mechanisms and hereditary susceptibility to IDC....The frequencies of HLA-DQA1*0501 and HLA-DQB1*0303 were 0.3889 and 0.1806 in the IDC group, significantly higher than those of the healthy controls (0.0900 and 0.0364 respectively, both P < 0.05)....

 

Coeliac disease is an autoimmune disorder of the small intestine that occurs in genetically predisposed people of all ages from middle infancy onward. Symptoms include chronic diarrhoea, failure to thrive (in children), and fatigue, but these may be absent, and symptoms in other organ systems have been described. A growing portion of diagnoses are being made in asymptomatic persons as a result of increased screening; the condition is thought to affect between 1 in 1,750 and 1 in 105 people in the United States. Coeliac disease is caused by a reaction to gliadin, a prolamin (gluten protein) found in wheat, and similar proteins found in the crops of the tribe Triticeae (which includes other common grains such as barley and rye). Upon exposure to gliadin, and specifically to three peptides found in prolamins, the enzyme tissue transglutaminase modifies the protein, and the immune system cross-reacts with the small-bowel tissue, causing an inflammatory reaction. That leads to a truncating of the villi lining the small intestine (called villous atrophy). This interferes with the absorption of nutrients, because the intestinal villi are responsible for absorption. The only known effective treatment is a lifelong gluten-free diet. While the disease is caused by a reaction to wheat proteins, it is not the same as wheat allergy.

Genetics: The vast majority of coeliac patients have one of two types of HLA-DQ. Over 95% of coeliac patients have the isoform of DQ2 or DQ8, which is inherited in families. The reason these genes produce an increase in risk of coeliac disease is that the receptors formed by these genes bind to gliadin peptides more tightly than other forms of the antigen-presenting receptor. Therefore, these forms of the receptor are more likely to activate T lymphocytes and initiate the autoimmune process.

HLA-DQ2 (DQ2) is determined by the antibody recognition of β2 subset of DQ β-chains. The β-chain of DQ is encoded by HLA-DQB1 locus and DQ2 are encoded by the HLA-DQB1*02 allele group. This group currently contains 2 common alleles, DQB1*0201 and DQB1*0202. HLA-DQ2 and HLA-DQB1*02 are almost synonymous in meaning. DQ2 β-chains combine with α-chains, encoded by genetically linked HLA-DQA1 alleles, to form the cis-haplotype isoforms. These isoforms, nicknamed DQ2.2 and DQ2.5, are also encoded by the DQA1*0201 and DQA1*0501 genes, respectively.

DQ2 is most common in Western Europe, North and West Africa. Highest frequencies are observed in parts of Spain and Ireland, this distribution correlates with the frequency of two of the most prevalent autoimmune diseases. There is also a increase in DQB1*0201 in Central Asia, peaking in Kazakhstan and declining slowly east to west into China and finally Southeast Asia. DQA1*0501 : DQB1*0201. DQ2.5 is one of the most predisposing factors for autoimmune disease. DQ2.5 is encoded, often, by a haplotype associated with a large number of diseases. This haplotype, HLA A1-B8-DR3-DQ2 is associated with diseases in which HLA-DQ2 has suspect involvement. Direct involvement of DQ2 is certain in coeliac disease.

DQ2.5 and the linked DR3 are associated with probably the greatest frequency of autoimmune occurrence relative to any other haplotypes. The haplotype is positively associated with coeliac disease, dermatitis herpetiformis, juvenile diabetes, Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome (LEMS), Sjögren's syndrome, and autoimmune hepatitis (although significant proportion of the risk is secondary to coeliac disease). DR3 and/or DQ2.5 are linked to the following diseases: Moreen's ulceration, "bout onset" multiple sclerosis, Grave's disease and systemic lupus erythematosus.

HLA-DQ8 (DQ8) is determined by the antibody recognition of β8 and this generally detects the gene product of DQB1*0302.

DQ8 is commonly linked to autoimmune disease in the human population. DQ8 is the second most predominant isoform linked to coeliac disease and the DQ most linked to juvenile diabetes. DQ8 increases the risk for rheumatoid arthritis and is linked to the primary risk locus for RA, HLA-DR4. DR4 also plays an important role in juvenile diabetes.

Hiatus of DQ8 in the NE Siberian Arctic, Elevated Levels in Amur Region and Eastern Turks: The levels of DQ8 in SW to West Pacific Rim are at variable haplotype frequencies, from 2 to 30%, and level off around 10% for Ryūkyūan, Japanese, Koreans, Amur Regions and in the NW Pacific Rim drop to less than 1% in the Nivkhi. There is a modern hiatus of DQ8 in the Alaska-Eastern Siberian region and it is unclear whether this is due to replacement, selection, or the mode in which first Americans arrived (i.e. strictly maritime route). The DR types associated with DQ8 are DRB1*0403, *0404, *0406, *0407, *0408, and *0401 is split between many DQA1:B1 haplotypes. DQB1*0405 is commonly associated with DQA1*0303:DQB1*04 and so it is not included in DRB1*0401 in high resolution assessments. The Cook Island DQ8 had only one associated DR haplotype suggesting diversity limiting introduction into the region, either via the TW-(Japan/Korea/China) route or through the west, for example the Bunun have high DRB1*0403. The majority of DRB1*04 appear to have redistributed from eastern Asia from an unknown source, possibly in Central Asia or India. The distribution can be compared with Native Groups such as South Americans. Three groups with high levels, the Kogui, Sikuni, and Yucpa, have about 75% DQ8, the dominant DRB1* allele in 2 of 3 is the *0411 (N. China = 0), but *0407 (Ryūkyū, Japanese, Mansi-Eastern Ural, Naxi Chinese) and *0403 (Nganasan, Buryat, Negidal, Tunisians, Ryūkyū, Korea, Ainu) are also found. In North America DRB1*0404 and *0407 are more common than *0403 and, in the Lakota Souix, B1*0411 is rare. The DRB1*0404-DQ8 haplotype is more common in North Western Asia, and Northern Europe.

 

* Coeliac Disease: Emerging in China? by J. Wu, et al.

Excerpts: Here we report on a serological screening for CD (Celiac Disease) in China. CD has been historically considered to be absent in the Far East (China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, etc.). However, since the major known risk factors for CD are common in China, we used serological tests for immunoglobulin G (IgG) antigliadin antibodies (AGAs) and IgA antitissue transglutaminase antibodies (tTGs) to screen for CD in high risk patients, comprising 73 cases of diarrhoea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome (IBS-D) and five cases of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM), 30 women and 48 men, ...

Our serological screening demonstrated that CD might exist in Jiangsu province. This province is one of the main wheat producing areas in China.5 The CD predisposing human leucocyte antigen (HLA)-DQ alleles, accounting for 30% of heritability in Caucasians, are not rare in Han inhabitants of this area. Their frequency of haplotype DQA1*0501-DQB1*02 (DQ2) is 7.2% and of DQA1*03-DQB1*0302 (DQ8) is 4.7%, and the frequencies of haplotypes DQA1*02-DQB1*02 and DQA1*05-DQB1*03 together capable of encoding DQ2 in trans are 9.4% and 7.8%, respectively. Even though there were no serological test results, Jiang et al had reported four cases of CD by duodenal biopsy this year in Zhejiang province which is neighbour of Jiangsu. The results of our research are encouraging. Considering the increasing gluten intake, frequency of common HLA-DQ2/DQ8 alleles and the large population size of Jiangsu province, we speculate that CD might not be rare....

 

* Influences of the Iodine Nutrition Status and the HLA-DQA1*0501 and-DQA1*0201 Alleles on the Pathogenesis of AITDs in Coastal Area of Shandong Province by ZHAO Wen-juan, et al.

Objective To investigate the association of HLA-DQA1*0501 and-DQA1*0201 alleles with autoimmune thyroid disea-(AITDs) patients in Shandong seashore areas,and evaluate the effects of iodine nutrition status on AITDs.Methods AITDs were divided into graves disease(GD) group and hashimoto thyroiditis(HT) group.The HLADQA1*0501 and DQA1*0201 alleles were detected by polymerase chain reaction with sequence-specific primers(PCR-SSP).The urine iodine concentration was determined by China national standard method.Results The frequency of the HLA-DQA1*0501 allele was significantly higher in GD and HT female groups than in control(GD: P 0.05,OR = 0.33;HT: P 0.01,OR = 0.27).The frequency of the HLA-DQA1*0201 allele was significantly lower in GD and HT groups than in control(GD P 0.01,OR = 0.4;HT P 0.05,OR = 0.42).The median values of urinary iodine of GD and HT patients were significantly higher than that of control group in Shandong seashore areas(P 0.05).In the subjects of DQA1*0501 allele(-),the median values of urinary iodine in GD and HT patients with hyperthyroidism were significantly higher than that in control group(P 0.05).In the subjects of DQA1*0201(+),the median values of urinary iodine in GD and HT patients was significantly higher than that in control group(P 0.05).The logarithm of urinary iodine and the DQA1*0501 were positive correlated with GD and HT by multiple logistic regression analysis;DQA1*0201 was negative correlated with GD and HT.Conclusion The HLA-DQA1*0501 allele is positively associated with morbidity of GD and HT in Shandong coastal districts,whereas HLA-DQA1*0201 allele is associated with protection of GD and HT,especially for female patients.Iodine,HLA-DQA1*0501,and HLA-DQA1*0201 alleles have cooperative effect on the pathogenesis of GD and HT.

 

* The Association Between the Genetic Polymorphism of HLA-DQA1, DQB1, and DRB1 and Serum Alanine Aminotransferase Levels in Chronic Hepatitis C in the Chinese Population by Rong-Bin Yu, et al.

Abstract

Background and Aim:  To investigate a possible association between HLA genes with serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels and evaluate whether the HLA-DQA1, DQB1, and DRB1 genes could influence the development of liver damage in chronic hepatitis C.

Conclusions:  These results suggest that particular HLA alleles may have an influence on the serum ALT level of chronic HCV infection as a host genetic factor in the Chinese population. The DQA1*0501, DQB1*0301, and DRB1*0401 alleles, and the DQA1*0301-DQB1*0301, DQA1*0501-DQB1*0301, and DRB1*1101-DQB1*0301 haplotypes seem to be associated with low hepatitis activity; whereas DQB1*0201 allele is closely correlated with the progression of liver injury in chronic HCV infection.

 

* 中国四个民族HLA-DRB1、DQA1、DQB1基因多态性研究(HLA-DRB1,H)

Abstract: The human leucocyte antigen (HLA) genes exhibit highest degrees ofpolymorphism and remarkable ethnic differences in their allele andhaplotype frequencies. Study on polymorphism of HLA in different populations could supply the basic data for disease-correlation, tissue transplantation matching and anthropology analysis. HLA-DRB1,DQA1 and DQB1 genotypes were investigated in four Chinese minor nationalities including Lahu, Li, Sala and Tu using PCR-SSP genotyping method.... At DQA1 locus, in Lahus,the most prevalent were DQA1*0501 (0.1909)、*0101 (0.1682)、 *0301(0.1546)、*0102(0.1364)、*0104 (0.1273), the rarest were DQA1*0302(0.0182)、 *0401 (0.0091) ; in Lis,the most prevalent were DQA1*0101(0.2070)、*0102(0.1543)、 *0301 (0.1223), the rarest were DQA1*0103(0.0426 in Salas, the most prevalent were DQA1*0301 (0.2313)、*0101(0.1866)、*0501 (0.1269)、the rarest were DQA1*0104 (0.0224)。 in Tus,the most prevalent were DQA1*0301 (0.2536)、*0501 (0.1667)、 *0101(0.1304)、*0102(0.1304), the rarest were DQA1*0103 (0.0362)、 *0104

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

History of Beijing

Early History: The earliest remnants of human habitation in the Beijing municipality are found in the caves of Dragon Bone Hill near the village of Zhoukoudian in Fangshan District, where the Peking Man lived. Homo erectus fossils from the caves date to 230,000 to 250,000 years ago. Paleolithic homo sapiens also lived there about 27,000 years ago. There were cities in the vicinities of Beijing by the 1st millennium BC, and the capital of the State of Yan, one of the powers of the Warring States Period (473-221 BC), Ji (薊), was established in present-day Beijing.

After the fall of the Yan, the subsequent Qin, Han, and Jin dynasties set up local prefectures in the area. During the fall of the Han, it was the seat of the warlord Gongsun Zan. In Tang Dynasty it became the headquarters for Fanyang jiedushi, the virtual military governor of current northern Hebei area. The An Shi Rebellion was also launched from here in AD 755.

Medieval Period: In 936, the Later Jin Dynasty (936-947) of northern China ceded a large part of its northern frontier, including modern Beijing, to the Khitan Liao Dynasty. In 938, the Liao Dynasty set up a secondary capital in what is now Beijing, and called it Nanjing (the "Southern Capital"). In 1125, the Jurchen Jin Dynasty conquered Liao, and in 1153 moved its capital to Liao's Nanjing, calling it Zhongdu (中都), the "central capital." Zhongdu was situated in what is now the area centered around Tianningsi, slightly to the southwest of central Beijing. Some of the oldest existing relics in Beijing, such as the Tianning Temple, date to the Liao.

Mongol forces burned Zhongdu to the ground in 1215 in what is now known as the Battle of Beijing. Later in 1264, in preparation for the conquest of all of China to establish the Yuan Dynasty, Kublai Khan decided to rebuild it slightly north to the center of the Jin capital, and in 1272, he made this city his capital as Dadu (大都, "great capital"), or Daidu to the Mongols, otherwise spelled as Cambaluc or Cambuluc in Marco Polo's accounts. Construction of Dadu finished in 1293. The decision of Kublai Khan greatly enhanced the status of a city that had been situated on the northern fringe of China proper. The center of Dadu was situated slightly north of modern central Beijing. It centered on what is now the northern stretch of the 2nd Ring Road, and stretched northwards to between the 3rd and 4th Ring Roads. There are remnants of the Yuan-era wall still standing, and they are known as the Tucheng (土城 literally, the 'earth wall').

Ming and Qing period: In 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang, soon after declaring himself the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, sent an army toward Dadu, still held by the Yuan. The last Yuan emperor fled north to Shangdu, and Zhu razed the Yuan palaces in Dadu to the ground. The city was renamed Beiping (北平) in the same year, and Shuntian (順天) prefecture was established in the area around the city. In 1403, the new (and third) Ming emperor - the Yongle Emperor - renamed this city 'Beijing', and designated Beijing the co-capital alongside the (then) current capital of Nanjing. Beijing was the subject of a major construction project for a new Imperial residence, the Forbidden City that lasted nearly 15 years (1406 to 1420). When the palace was finished, the Yongle Emperor ceremoniously took up residence. From 1421 onwards, Beijing, also known as Jingshi (京师), was the "official" capital of the Ming Dynasty while Nanjing was demoted to the status of "secondary" capital. This system of dual capitals (with Beijing being vastly more important) continued for the duration of the Ming Dynasty. Thirteen of the sixteen Ming Emperors are buried in elaborate tombs near Beijing.

By the 15th century, Beijing had essentially taken its current shape, and the Ming-era city wall served as the Beijing city wall until modern times, when it was pulled down and the 2nd Ring Road was built in its place. It is believed that Beijing was the largest city in the world from 1425 to 1650 and from 1710 to 1825. Other notable buildings constructed during the Ming period include the Temple of Heaven (built by 1420). Tiananmen, now a state symbol of the People's Republic of China and featured on its emblem, was first built in 1420, and rebuilt several times later. Tiananmen Square was built in 1651 and enlarged in 1958. Jesuits finished building the first Beijing-area Roman Catholic church in 1652 at the Xuanwu Gate, where Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) had lived; the modern Nantang (南堂, Southern Cathedral) has been built over the original cathedral.

The end of the Ming came in 1644 when, for 40 days, Li Zicheng's peasant army captured Beijing and overthrew the Ming government. When the powerful Manchu army arrived at the outskirts of the city, Li and his followers abandoned the city and as a result the Manchu forces, under Prince Dorgon, captured Beijing without a fight.

Prince Dorgon established the Qing Dynasty as a direct successor to the Ming, and Beijing remained China's capital. The Qing Emperors made some modifications to the Imperial residence, but in large part, the Ming buildings and the general layout remained unchanged. Beijing at this time was also known as Jingshi, which corresponded to the Manchu Gemun Hecen with the same meaning. The classic Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber is set in Beijing during the early years of Qing rule (the end of the 1600s).

At the end of Qing period, Beijing was the scene of the siege of the foreign legations during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. Some important Imperial structures in the city were destroyed during the fighting, including the Hanlin Academy and Summer Palace.

Republican Era: The Xinhai Revolution of 1911, aimed at replacing Qing rule with a republic, originally intended to establish its capital at Nanjing. After high-ranking Qing official Yuan Shikai forced the abdication of the Qing emperor in Beijing and ensured the success of the revolution, the revolutionaries in Nanjing accepted that Yuan should be the president of the new Republic of China and the capital remains at Beijing. Yuan gradually consolidated power and became by 1915 the new emperor of China, but died less than a year into his reign. China then fell under the control of regional warlords, and the most powerful factions fought frequent wars (the Zhili-Anhui War, the First Zhili-Fengtian War, and the Second Zhili-Fengtian War) to take control of the capital at Beijing. Following the success of the Kuomintang (KMT)'s Northern Expedition, which pacified the warlords of the north, Nanjing was officially made the capital of the Republic of China in 1928, and Beijing was renamed Beiping (Peip'ing) (北平) on 28 June that year, in English meaning "northern peace" or "north pacified". During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Beiping fell to Japan on 29 July 1937, and was made the seat of the Provisional Government of the Republic of China, a puppet state that ruled the ethnic Chinese portions of Japanese-occupied northern China; the government was later merged into the larger Wang Jingwei Government based in Nanjing.

People's Republic: On 31 January 1949, during the Chinese Civil War, Communist forces entered Beijing without a fight. On 1 October of the same year, the Communist Party of China, under the leadership of Mao Zedong, announced in Tiananmen the creation of the People's Republic of China and renamed the city back to Beijing. Just a few days earlier, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference had decided that Beijing would be the capital of the new government.

At the time of the founding of the People's Republic, Beijing Municipality consisted of just its urban area and immediate suburbs. The urban area was divided into many small districts inside what is now the 2nd Ring Road. The Beijing city wall was torn down to make way for the construction of the 2nd Ring Road, which was finished by 1981 in accord with the 1982 city plan. That road was the first of a series of new ring roads intended for Vehicles rather than for bicycles.

Following the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping, the urban area of Beijing has expanded greatly. Formerly within the confines of the 2nd Ring Road and the 3rd Ring Road, the urban area of Beijing is now pushing at the limits of the recently constructed 5th Ring Road and 6th Ring Road, with many areas that were formerly farmland now developed residential or commercial districts. According to a 2005 newspaper report, the size of the newly developed Beijing land was one and a half times larger than the land of old Beijing within the 2nd Ring Road. Wangfujing and Xidan have developed into flourishing shopping districts, while Zhongguancun has become a major centre of electronics in China. In recent years, the expansion of Beijing has also brought to the forefront some problems of urbanization, such as heavy traffic, poor air quality, the loss of historic neighbourhoods, and significant influx of migrants from various regions of the country, especially rural areas.

On 13 July 2001, the International Olympic Committee selected Beijing as the host for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Cloisonné

Cloisonné is an ancient technique for decorating metalwork objects, in recent centuries using vitreous enamel, and in older periods also inlays of cut gemstones, glass, and other materials. The resulting objects can also be called cloisonné. The decoration is formed by first adding compartments (cloisons in French) to the metal object by soldering or glueing silver or gold wires or thin strips placed on their edges. These remain visible in the finished piece, separating the different compartments of the enamel or inlays, which are often of several colors. Cloisonné enamel objects are worked on with enamel powder made into a paste, which then needs to be fired in a kiln.

The technique was in ancient times mostly used for jewellery and small fittings for clothes, weapons or similar small objects decorated with geometric or schematic designs, with thick cloison walls. In the Byzantine Empire techniques using thinner wires were developed to allow more pictorial images to be produced, mostly used for religious images and jewellery, and now always using enamel.

From Byzantium or the Islamic world the technique reached China in the 13-14th centuries; the first written reference is in a book of 1388, where it is called "Dashi ('Muslim') ware". No Chinese pieces clearly from the 14th century are known, the earliest datable pieces being from the reign of the Xuande Emperor (1425-35), which however show a full use of Chinese styles suggesting considerable experience in the technique. It was initially regarded with suspicion by Chinese connoisseurs, firstly as being foreign, and secondly as appealing to feminine taste. However by the beginning of the 18th century the Kangxi Emperor had a cloisonné workshop among the many Imperial factories. The most elaborate and highly-valued Chinese pieces are from the early Ming Dynasty, especially the reigns of the Xuande Emperor and Jingtai Emperor (1450-57), although 19th century or modern pieces are far more common. The Chinese industry seems to have benefited from a number of skilled Byzantine refugees fleeing the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. In Chinese cloisonné blue is usually the predominant colour, and the Chinese name for the technique, jingtailan ("Jingtai blue ware"), refers to this, and the Jingtai Emperor. Quality began to decline in the 19th century. Initially heavy bronze or brass bodies were used, and the wires soldered, but later much lighter copper vessels were used, and the wire glued on before firing.

In Byzantine pieces, and even more in Chinese work, the wire by no means always encloses a separate color of enamel. Sometime a wire is used just for decorative effect, stopping in the middle of a field of enamel, and sometimes the boundary between two enamel colors is not marked by a wire. In the Byzantine plaque at right the first feature may be seen in the top wire on the saint's black sleeve, and the second in the white of his eyes and collar. Both are also seen in the Chinese bowl illustrated at top right.

Chinese cloisonné is the best known enamel cloisonné, though the Japanese produced large quantities from the mid-19th century, of very high technical quality. Russian cloisonné from the Tsarist era is also highly prized by collectors, especially from the House of Fabergé or Khlebnikov, and the French and other nations have produced small quantities. Chinese cloisonné is sometimes confused with Canton enamel, a similar type of enamel work that is painted on freehand and does not utilize partitions to hold the colors separate.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Peking Man

Peking Man (北京人; now sometimes called Beijing Man), also called Sinanthropus pekinensis (currently Homo erectus pekinensis), is an example of Homo erectus. The remains were first discovered in 1923-27 during excavations at Zhoukoudian (Choukoutien) near Beijing (Peking). More recently, the finds have been dated from roughly 500,000 years ago.

Discovery and identification: Swedish geologist Johan Gunnar Andersson and American palaeontologist Walter W. Granger came to Zhoukoudian, China in search of prehistoric fossils in 1921. They were directed to the site at Dragon Bone Hill by local quarry men, where Andersson recognised deposits of quartz that were not native to the area. Immediately realising the importance of this find he turned to his colleague and announced, “Here is primitive man, now all we have to do is find him!”

Excavation work was begun immediately by Andersson's assistant Austrian palaeontologist Otto Zdansky, who found what appeared to be a fossilised human molar. He returned to the site in 1923 and materials excavated in the two digs were sent back to Uppsala University in Sweden for analysis. In 1926 Andersson announced the discovery of two human molars found in this material and Zdansky published his findings.

Canadian anatomist Davidson Black of Peking Union Medical College, excited by Andersson and Zdansky’s find, secured funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and recommenced excavations at the site in 1927 with both Western and Chinese scientists. A tooth was unearthed that fall by Swedish palaeontologist Anders Birger Bohlin which Davidson places in a locket around his neck.

Davidson published his analysis in the journal Nature, identifying his find as belonging to a new species and genus which he named Sinanthropus pekinensis, but many fellow scientist were sceptical of such an identification based on a single tooth and the Foundation demanded more specimens before they would give an addition grant.

A lower jaw, several teeth and a skull fragments were discovered were unearthed in 1928. Black presented these finds to the Foundation and was rewarded with an $80,000 grant that he used to establish the Cenozoic Research Laboratory.

Excavations at the site from under the supervision of Chinese archaeologists Yang Zhongjian, Pei Wenzhong and Jia Lanpo uncovered 200 human fossils (including 6 nearly complete skullcaps) from more than 40 individual specimens. These excavation came to an end in 1937 with the Japanese occupation.

Fossils of the Peking Man were placed in the safe at the Cenozoic Research Laboratory of the Peking Union Medical College. Eventually, in November 1941, secretary Hu Chengzi packed up the fossils so they could be sent to USA for safekeeping until the end of the war. They vanished en route to the port city of Qinghuangdao.

Excavations at Zhoukoudian resumed after the war, and parts of another skull were found in 1966. To date a number of other partial fossil remains have been found. The Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian was listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1987.

Paleontological conclusions: The first specimens of Homo erectus had been found in Java in 1891 by Eugene Dubois, but were dismissed by many as the remains of a deformed ape. The discovery of the great quantity of finds at Zhoukoudian put this to rest and Java Man, who had initially being named Pithecanthropus erectus, was transferred to the genus Homo along with Peking Man.

Contiguous findings of animal remains and evidence of fire and tool usage, as well as the manufacturing of tools, were used to support H. erectus being the first "faber" or tool-worker. The analysis of the remains of "Peking Man" led to the claim that the Zhoukoudian and Java fossils were examples of the same broad stage of human evolution. This is also the official view of the Chinese Communist Party.

This interpretation was challenged in 1985 by Lewis Binford, who claimed that the Peking Man was a scavenger, not a hunter. The 1998 team of Steve Weiner of the Weizmann Institute of Science concluded that they had not found evidence that the Peking Man had used fire.

Relation to modern Chinese people: Some Chinese paleoanthropologists have asserted in the past that the modern Chinese are descendants of the Peking Man. However, modern genetic research does not support this hypothesis. A recent study undertaken by Chinese geneticist Jin Li showed that there was no inter-breeding between modern human immigrants to East Asia and Homo erectus, contradicting the Peking Man-hypothesis and affirming that the Chinese descended from Africans in accordance with the Recent single-origin hypothesis. However, some paleontologists see continuity in skeletal remains.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Pekinese

The Pekinese or Pekingese (北京狗; Also commonly referred to as a "Lion Dog") is an ancient breed of toy dog, originating in China. They were the favored pet of the Chinese Imperial court, and the name relates to the city of Beijing where the Forbidden City resides.

The breed originated in China in antiquity, in the city of Peking most likely from Asian wolves. Another theory proposed by Professor Ludvic von Schulmuth is that the "Gobi Desert Kitchen Midden Dog", a scavenger, evolved into the "Small Soft-Coated Drop-Eared Hunting Dog". From this dog evolved the Pekingese, Tibetan Spaniel, and Japanese Chin. The Professor studied canine origins by studying the skeletal remains of dogs found in human settlements as long as ten thousand years ago and believed different branches of this "Kitchen Midden Dog" also gave rise to the Papillon and Long haired Chihuahua, as well as the Shih Tzu and the Pug. Recent DNA analysis confirms that the Pekingese breed is one of the oldest breeds of dog. For centuries, they could be owned only by members of the Chinese Imperial Palace.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Maps of China from People Around China (shanghaiist.com)

____________________________________________________________________________________________