TaiwanDNA.com

Origins and Diversity of the Taiwanese People

TaiwanDNA.com Homepage

Fujian

 

Tourism

• Fujian Tulou, listed by the UNESCO as one of the World Heritage Site (2008)
• Guanghua Temple (Putian), mainland Putian
• Gulangyu Island, Xiamen
• Kaiyuan Temple, Quanzhou
• Mount Tailao, Fuding
• Mount Wuyi, listed by the UNESCO as one of the World Heritage Site (1999)
• Nanshan Temple, Zhangzhou
• The Matsu pilgrimage centers around Meizhou Island, because she was born there (and died on Matsu Islands).
• Yongquan Temple, Fuzhou

 

Fujian cuisine, with an emphasis on seafood, is one of the eight great traditions of Chinese cuisine. It is composed of traditions from various regions, including Fuzhou cuisine and Min Nan cuisine. The most prestigious dish is Fotiaoqiang (literally "Buddha Jumps Over Wall"), a complex dish making use of many ingredients, including shark fin, sea cucumber, abalone, and Shaoxing wine (a form of "Chinese alcoholic beverage").

 

Several regions of Fujian have their own form of Chinese opera. Minju (Fujian Opera) is popular around Fuzhou; Gaojiaxi around Jinjiang and Quanzhou; Xiangju around Zhangzhou; Fujian Nanqu throughout the south, and Puxianxi around Putian and Xianyou County.

 

Southern "Han"

 

FUJIAN

Excerpts from Wikipedia.org

Fujian (福建) is one of the provinces on the southeast coast of China. Fujian borders Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait. The name Fujian comes from the combination of Fuzhou and Jian'ou, two cities in Fujian. The name was coined during Tang Dynasty.

 

Geography

The province is mostly mountainous, and is traditionally described to be "Eight parts mountain, one part water, and one part farmland" (八山一水一分田). The northwest is higher in altitude, with the Wuyi Mountains forming the border between Fujian and Jiangxi. The highest point of Fujian is Huanggang Peak in the Wuyi Mountains, with an altitude of 2157 m.

 

Economy

Fujian is hilly and farmland is sparse. Rice is the main crop, supplemented by sweet potatoes and wheat and barley. Cash crops include sugar cane and rapeseed. Fujian leads the provinces of China in longan production, and is also a major producer of lychees and tea. Seafood is another important product, with shellfish production especially prominent.

Because of the geographic location with Taiwan, Fujian has been considered the frontline of battlefield of potential war between Mainland China and Taiwan. Hence, it received much less investment from Chinese central government and developed much slower than the rest of China before 1978. Since 1978,when China opened to the world, Fujian has received significant investment from overseas Fujianese around the world, Taiwanese and foreign investment. Today, although Fujian is one of the wealthier provinces of China, its GDP per capita is the lowest among China's coastal administrative divisions.

 

Culture

Because of its mountainous nature and the numerous waves of migration from central China in the course of history, Fujian is one of the most linguistically diverse places in all Han Chinese areas of China. Local dialects can become unintelligible within 10 km. This is reflected in the expression that "if you drive five miles in Fujian the culture changes, and if you drive ten miles, the language does". Classification of these various dialects have confounded linguists. In general, most dialects of Fujian are put into a broad Min category, then subdivided into Min Bei, Min Dong, Min Zhong, Min Nan, Pu Xian, and Shao Jiang. (The seventh subdivision of Min, Qiong Wen, is not spoken in Fujian.) The Fuzhou dialect is part of Min Dong, but some linguists classified it as Min Bei; the Xiamen dialect is part of Min Nan. Hakka, another subdivision of spoken Chinese, is spoken around Longyan by the Hakka people who live there.

As is true of other provinces, the official language in Fujian is Standard Mandarin, which is used for communication between people of different localities. During the Qing dynasty, traders in Fujian also used pidgin English as a common language, although this is now extinct.

Many famous teas originate from Fujian, including oolong, Wuyi Yancha, and Fuzhou jasmine tea. Fujian tea ceremony is an elaborate way of preparing and serving tea. In fact, the English word "tea" is borrowed from Min nan language. (Standard Mandarin and Standard Cantonese pronounce the word as chá.)

Fuzhou bodiless lacquer ware, a famous type of lacquer ware, is noted for using a body of clay and/or plaster to form its shape; the body later removed. Fuzhou is also famous for Shoushan stone carvings.

 

Demographics

Han Chinese make up most of the population. Hakka, a Han Chinese people with its own distinct identity, live in the southwestern parts of the province. Hui'an, also a Han branch with their own colorful culture and fashion, populate Fujian's southeast coastline near Chongwu in Hui'an County. The She (畲), scattered over mountainous regions in the north, is the largest minority ethnic group of the province (they are also present in the Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Guangdong and Anhui provinces). Genetic studies have suggested that a significant proportion of Han Chinese ancestry in Fujian descend (predominantly matrilineally) from pre-Sinicization aborigines.

Many ethnic Chinese around the world, especially Southeast Asia, trace their ancestry to Fujian. Descendants of Fujian emigrants make up the majority of the majority ethnic Chinese population of Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Singapore and Indonesia. Fujian, especially Fuzhou, is also the major source of undocumented Chinese immigrants in the United States.

 

 

Macro Geographical Areas in Chinese History

Chinese history is often explain in terms of several strategic areas, definite by particular topographic limits. Starting from the Chinese central plain, the former heart of the Han populations, the Han people expanded militarily and then demographically toward the Loess plateau, the Sichuan plain, and the Southern hills, not without resistance from local populations. Pushed by its comparatively higher demographic growth, the Han continued their expansion by military and demographic waves. The far-south of nowadays China, the northern parts of today's Vietnam, the Tarim basin were first reached and durably subdued by Han dynasty's armies. The northern steppes (Mongolia, Siberia), and the Tibetan plateau were softly vassalized in Tang times, and strongly integrated under the Yuan dynasty. The Manchurian plain and Korean peninsula were usually not under Chinese contol, with the exception of some limited periods of occupation. The Manchurian plain became strongly integrated into the Chinese empire during the late Qing dynasty, while the West side of the Changbai mountains, formerly the home of Korean tribes, thus also entered China.

 

 

Min Chinese

Mǐn or Miin (閩語) is the name of a broad group of Chinese languages spoken by 60 million people in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian as well as by migrants from this province in Guangdong (around Chaozhou-Swatou, or Chaoshan area, and the Leizhou peninsula), Hainan, three counties in southern Zhejiang, and Zhoushan archipelago off Ningbo, and some towns in Liyang and Jiangyin city in Jiangsu province, and Taiwan. There are many Min speakers also among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia as well as in New York City in the United States. The most widely spoken variety of Min is Hokkien, which includes Taiwanese and Amoy, amongst other dialects. The Min dialects preserve many of the archaic pronunciations of Old Chinese and Middle Chinese.

Min has greater dialectal diversity than any other division of Chinese. It is typically divided, on the basis of mutual intelligibility, into five to nine languages, such as Min Dong (Eastern Min) and Min Nan (Southern Min). Min Dong is centered around the city of Fuzhou (Fuzhou dialect is the standard dialect of Min Dong), capital of Fujian province, while Min Nan is dominant in the south of Fujian and into Guangdong. Qiongwen, spoken in Hainan, is sometimes classed as a separate language, but it is in fact a dialect of Min Nan.

Min Nan is also called by the name of its regional variants in the places it is spoken, especially Taiwanese. The Amoy dialect of Xiamen is the prestige dialect of Min Nan in mainland China and Taiwan, with Teochew also being an important variety.

 

Classification of Min Language

 

 

Chinese Language Tree from glossika.com

 

 

Zhou Dynasty -- Qin (秦國) -- Guan Dong Yu -- Zhong Yuan Yu -- Min Language
Zhou Dynasty -- Qi (齊國) -- Min Language

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Hakka People

The Hakka (客家人) are a subgroup of the Han Chinese people who live predominantly in the provinces of Guangdong, Jiangxi, and Fujian in China. Their ancestors were often said to have arrived from Northern China or Central China centuries ago. It is still a contested issue where the Hakka originated. It is said that in a series of migrations, the Hakkas moved, settled in their present locations in southern China, and then migrated overseas to various nations throughout the world. The Hakka have had a significant influence on the course of Chinese and overseas Chinese history: in particular, they have been a source of revolutionary, political and military leaders.

Migrations and Group Identification: The use of the term Hakka to describe this people is thought to be comparatively recent, dating to the Qing Dynasty (c. 17th century).

One theory of the Hakka people's origins suggests they could be related to the Xiongnu nomadic people, who had a considerable, sometimes dominating presence in northern China from the Han Dynasty (202 BC-AD 220) period to the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420-589), merging and assimilating within the general Han populace. However, the more commonly held view is the Hakka are a subgroup of the Han Chinese. Their ancestors migrated southwards several times because of social unrest, upheaval, and continued invasion by foreign forces since the Jin Dynasty (265-420). Subsequent migrations occurred at the end of the Tang Dynasty in the 10th century and during the end of the Northern Song Dynasty in 1125 which saw a massive flood of refugees southward, when the Jurchens captured the northern Song capital of Bianliang. A further southward migration may have continued as then Mongols defeated the Jurchen Jin Dynasty and proceeded to take down the Southern Song, establishing the Yuan Dynasty in 1271. It's unclear the precise movements of the Hakka people when the Ming Dynasty overthrew the Yuan in the 14th century, and subsequently fell to the Manchus who formed the Qing Dynasty in 16th century.

During the reign of Qing Emperor Kangxi, the coastal regions were evacuated by imperial edict for almost a decade, due to the dangers posed by the remnants of the Ming court who had fled to what is now Taiwan. When the threat was eliminated, the Kangxi Emperor issued an edict to re-populate the coastal regions. To aid the move, each family was given monetary incentives to begin their new lives; newcomers were registered as "Guest Families" (客戶, kèhù).

The existing Cantonese speaking inhabitants (Punti or 本地, "original land") of these areas were protective of their own more fertile lands, and the newcomers were pushed to the outer fringes of fertile plains, despite having migrated legitimately, or they settled in more mountainous regions to eke out a living. People were also able to purchase and sell land. Conflict between the two groups grew, and it is thought that "Hakka" was a term of derision used by the Punti aimed at the newcomers. Eventually, the tension between the two groups (the Hakkas had by then been settled for several hundred years, and could not be regarded as migrants in any sense) would lead to a series of 19th century skirmishes known as the Punti-Hakka Clan Wars (土客械鬥) in the Pearl River Delta. The problem was not that the two groups spoke a different tongue. In fact the 'locals' were composed of different people speaking several mutually unintelligible tongues, as typical of the Chinese country-side all over China, but they would regard each other as 'locals' or Puntis but not the Hakkas.

The term 'Punti' is not however synonymous with 'Cantonese', as a Cantonese in any other part of China, say for example Beijing, would not be able to call himself a 'Punti', as the puntis of that area would be of Beijing or Hebei people.

The term 'Punti' is a Hakka word given to the Cantonese by the Hakka people. In Cantonese, the Hakka word 'Punti' is pronounced 'boon-day'.

Over time, the term "Hakka" was adopted by the newcomers to refer to themselves, not least due to the migratory tendencies inherent in their own culture. However, because the term also covers Hakka language-speakers, (in the same way that Punti covered several people speaking different tongues) and because the Han Chinese registered as Guest Families who migrated at the time may not have been Hakka language-speakers, and because of intermarriages among Hakka and Punti members (which showed that relation between the two were very good at times), identification as Hakka was largely a matter of self-selection. Through studies of both Cantonese and Hakka genealogies, some Hakka and Punti people with the same surnames claim the same ancestors, although their descendants strongly identify with one group to the exclusion of the other.

The Hakka ancestors are thus but one group amongst many who migrated southwards, becoming linguistically marked by differences yet unified through cultural assonances. Hakka people now are found in the southern Chinese provinces, chiefly in Guangdong, south-western Fujian, southern Jiangxi, southern Hunan, Guangxi, southern Guizhou, south-eastern Sichuan, and on Hainan and Taiwan islands, where there are television news broadcasts in the Hakka language. The Hakka dialects across these various provinces differ phonologically, but the Meixian (Meizhou) dialect of Hakka is considered the archetypal spoken form of the language. Migratory patterns have been established for some groups e.g. in Taiwan, northern and southern migrations from corresponding provinces in China.

Although different, and also not different, in some social customs and culture from the surrounding population, the Hakkas are not a separate ethnic group: they belong to the Han Chinese majority. Historical sources shown in census statistics relate only to the general population, irrespective of particular districts, provinces, or regions. These census counts were made during imperial times. They did not distinguish what language the population spoke. Therefore they do not directly document Hakka migrations. The study by Luo Xianglin, K'o-chia Yen-chiu Tao-Liu / An Introduction to the Study of the Hakkas (Hsin-Ning & Singapore, 1933) used genealogical sources of family clans from various southern counties. With population movement, it is reasonable to assume that there is mixing among both the Hakka newcomers and the indigenous people, and between the She and Hakka.

However, according to the recent 2009 studies made by American Journal of Human Genetics, it was found that comparing with other Southern Hans, Hakka's gene are slightly tilted towards Northern Hans. Nevertheless, the study has shown a strong common genetic relationship between all Han Chinese with only 0.3％ difference.

The Hakkas have a custom of buying the unwanted baby daughters of the Yue puntis in Guangdong, as Puntis favored sons over daughters. These Punti-moys (本地妹) then made brides for Hakka sons when they grew up. Hakka daughters did not enter Punti households in the same way, and there is no equivalent Hakka-mui term in the Punti vocabulary. The Yue punti genes thus entered Hakka populations.

 

 

She

Photo from Cultural China

The She (畲) people are a Chinese ethnic group. They form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. They are the largest minority in Fujian province. They are also present in the provinces of Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi and Guangdong.

Language: The She language is a Hmong-Mien language. Most of the She today speak Chinese dialects, like Hakka. Those who retain their own language - approximately 1,200 individuals in Guangdong province - call themselves Ho Ne "mountain people" (活聂).

 

Fujian Province

Fuzhou Municipality

Xiaocang She-nation Ethnic Township (小沧畲族乡) in Lianjiang County

Ningde Municipality

Muyun She-nation Ethnic Township (穆云畲族乡) in FuAn City

Kangcuo She-nation Ethnic Township (康厝畲族乡) in FuAn City

Banzhong She-nation Ethnic Township (坂中畲族乡) in FuAn City

Xiamen She-nation Ethnic Township (硖门畲族乡) in Fuding City

Yantian She-nation Ethnic Township (盐田畲族乡) in Xiapu County

Shuimen She-nation Ethnic Township (水门畲族乡) in Xiapu County

Chongru She-nation Ethnic Township (崇儒畲族乡) in Xiapu County

Zhangzhou Municipality

Longjiao She-nation Ethnic Township (隆教畲族乡) in Longhai City

Huxi She-nation Ethnic Township (湖西畲族乡) in Zhangpu County

Chiling She-nation Ethnic Township (赤岭畲族乡) in Zhangpu County

Longyan Municipality

Gongzhuang She-nation Ethnic Township (宫庄畲族乡) in Shanghang County

Lufeng She-nation Ethnic Township (庐丰畲族乡) in Shanghang County

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Haplogroup O3 (Y-DNA)

In human genetics, Haplogroup O3 (M122) is a Y-chromosome haplogroup.

Origins: Haplogroup O3 is a descendant haplogroup of haplogroup O. Some researchers believe that it first appeared in China approximately 10,000 years ago. The prehistoric peopling of East Asia by modern humans remains controversial with respect to early population migrations. In a systematic sampling and genetic screening of an East Asian–specific Y-chromosome haplogroup (O3-M122) in 2,332 individuals from diverse East Asian populations. Results indicate that the O3-M122 lineage is dominant in East Asian populations, with an average frequency of 44.3%.

Distribution: Although Haplogroup O3 appears to be primarily associated with Chinese populations, it also forms a significant component of the Y-chromosome diversity of most modern populations of the East Asian region. Haplogroup O3 is found in over 50% of all modern Chinese males (with frequency ranging from 30/101 = 29.7% among Pinghua-speaking Hans in Guangxi to 110/148 = 74.3% among Hans in Changting, Fujian), about 40% of Manchurian, Korean, and Vietnamese males, about 33.3% of Filipino males, about 10.5% to 55.6% of Malaysian males, about 10% (4/39 Guide County, Qinghai) to 45% (22/49 Zhongdian County, Yunnan) of Tibetan males, about 20% (10/50 Shuangbai, northern Yunnan) to 44% (8/18 Xishuangbanna, southern Yunnan) of Yi males, about 25% of Zhuang and Indonesian males, and about 16% to 20% of Japanese males. The distribution of Haplogroup O3 stretches far into Central Asia (approx. 40% of Dungans, 30% of Salars, 28% of Bonan, 24% of Dongxiang, 18% to 22.8% of Mongolians, 12% of Uyghurs, 9% of Kazakhs, 6.2% of Altayans, and 4.1% of Uzbeks) and Oceania (approx. 25% to 32.5% of Polynesians, 18% to 27.4% of Micronesians, and 5% of Melanesians), albeit with reduced frequencies of most subclades. It should be noted that Haplogroup O3* Y-chromosomes, which are not defined by any identified downstream markers, are actually more common among certain non-Han Chinese populations than among Han Chinese ones, and the presence of these O3* Y-chromosomes among various populations of Central Asia, East Asia, and Oceania is more likely to reflect a very ancient shared ancestry of these populations rather than the result of any historical events. It remains to be seen whether Haplogroup O3* Y-chromosomes can be parsed into distinct subclades that display significant geographical or ethnic correlations.

Haplogroup O3 is also found very frequently among populations of Northeast India (Garo 42/71 = 59.2%, Khasi 112/353 = 31.7%) and Nepal (Tamang 39/45 = 86.7%, Newar 14/66 = 21.2%, general population of Kathmandu 16/77 = 20.8%).

Among all the populations of East and Southeast Asia, Haplogroup O3 is most closely associated with those that speak a Sinitic, Tibeto-Burman, or Hmong-Mien language. Haplogroup O3 comprises about 50% or more of the total Y-chromosome variation among the populations of each of these language families. The Sinitic and Tibeto-Burman language families are generally believed to be derived from a common Sino-Tibetan protolanguage, and most linguists place the homeland of the Sino-Tibetan language family somewhere in northern China. The Hmong-Mien languages and cultures, for various archaeological and ethnohistorical reasons, are also generally believed to have derived from a source somewhere north of their current distribution, perhaps in northern or central China. The Tibetans, however, despite the fact that they speak a language of the Tibeto-Burman language family, have high percentages of the otherwise rare haplogroups D1 and D3, which are also found at much lower frequencies among the members of some other ethnic groups in East Asia and Central Asia.

Haplogroup O3 has been implicated as a diagnostic genetic marker of the Austronesian expansion when it is found in populations of Oceania. Its distribution in Oceania is mostly limited to the traditionally Austronesian culture zones, including moderately high frequencies in the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Polynesia, with generally lower frequencies found in coastal and island Melanesia, Micronesia, and Taiwanese aboriginal tribes.

The subgroup O3a5-M134 is particularly closely associated with Sino-Tibetan populations, and it is generally not found outside of areas where a Sino-Tibetan language is currently spoken or that are historically supposed to have undergone Chinese colonization or immigration, such as Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia. However, its presence among non-Sino-Tibetan populations is always very limited and never amounts to more than 10% of the total Y-chromosome diversity. There are also reports that Y-chromosomes belonging to Haplogroup O3a5 have been sampled from populations of such far-flung places as Western Samoa. Surprisingly, Haplogroup O3a5-M134 Y-chromosomes have also been found in about 1% to 3% of indigenous Australian men in the northwest of that continent, which might indicate that a certain degree of contact has occurred between the Austronesian expansion from Asia and some indigenous Australian populations. The fact that Haplogroup O3a5 is so strongly associated with Chinese populations, however, and the fact that no Y-chromosome haplogroups characteristic of Austronesian populations have been found among these indigenous Australian populations may be taken to suggest the possibility of some direct Chinese-Australian contact in the precolonial era. Within Japan, the subgroup O3a5-M134 forms the majority of the haplogroup O3 Y-chromosomes detected.

Haplogroup O3's brother clade, Haplogroup O1, displays a similar geographical distribution, being found among nearly all the populations of East and Southeast Asia, but generally at a frequency much lower than that of Haplogroup O3. Another brother clade, Haplogroup O2, has an impressive extent of dispersal, as it is found among the males of populations as widely separated as the Kolarians of India and the Japanese of Japan; however, Haplogroup O2's distribution is much more patchy, and the Haplogroup O2 Y-chromosomes found among the Mundas and the Japanese belong to distinct subclades.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Genetic Studies

 

* Phylogenetic Relationship of the Populations Within and Around Japan Using 105 Short Tandem Repeat Polymorphic Loci by Shi-Lin Li, et al.

A Neighbor-joining (NJ) Tree Showing the Relationships of Ten Human Populations Examined in the Present Study on the Basis of DA Distances Calculated from the Allele Frequencies at 105 Tetranucleotide STR Loci

 

Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) Plot of Ten Human Populations Analyzed in the Present Study, Based on DA Genetic Distances Calculated from 105 Autosomal Tetranucleotide STR Loci

 

 

* Genetic Origin of Kadai-speaking Gelong People on Hainan Island Viewed from Y Chromosomes by Dongna Li, et al.

Principal Component Plots of the Populations Concerned

 

Dendrogram of the Populations Based on the Y-SNP Haplogroup Frequencies

 

Comparison of Gelong to Other Populations Using Y-SNP Haplogroup Frequencies

(Han-FJ: C, K, O2a1, O3*, O3a3c)

 

 

* Genetic Affinities Between the Yami Tribe People of Orchid Island and the Philippine Islanders of the Batanes Archipelago by Jun-Hun Loo, et al.

Phylogenetic Tree of populations of Taiwan, ISEA and MSEA Using mtDNA Haplogroup Frequencies (Fst distances) and Y-STR Haplotypes Frequencies

 

 

* 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

(Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Taiwan)

 

 

* The ADH1B Arg47His Polymorphism in East Asian Populations and Expansion of Rice Domestication in History by Yi Peng, et al.

The Distribution of the ADH1B*47His Allele and the Sites of Early Rice Relics

 

The Distribution of the ADH1B*47His Allele in the 38 East Asian Populations

 

 

* Spoligotypes of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from Different Provinces of China by H. Dong, et al.

Abstract: A total of 2,346 Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from 13 provinces in China were genotyped by spoligotyping. Two hundred seventy-eight spoligotypes were identified: 2,153 isolates were grouped into 85 clusters, and the remaining 193 isolates were orphans. Comparison with the SpolDB4.0 database revealed that 118 spoligotypes had shared international type numbers in the database and the other 160 were novel. These 160 novel spoligotypes were assigned to families and subfamilies using the SpotClust program. The most prevalent family was the Beijing family (74.08%), followed by the T family (14.11%). CAS family strains were found only in the Xinjiang and Tibet regions, while EAI family strains were found only in Fujian Province. In conclusion, the present study of the M. tuberculosis population in China demonstrated that Beijing family isolates are the most prevalent strains in China and that they exhibit geographical variation. Furthermore, many new spoligotypes were found in this study.

 

 

* Characterization of Predominant Mycobacterium tuberculosis Strains from Different Subpopulations of India by Jyoti Arora, et al.

Abstract: The predominant strains from India belong to Central-Asian (CAS) and the East-African-Indian (EAI) clade of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The two clades have also been shown to be geographically partitioned. The study of such strains may help to understand the characteristics that make M. tuberculosis an effective pathogen and its overrepresentation in certain populations. M. tuberculosis isolates characterized by spoligotyping under a population based tuberculosis study covering different regions from the North and South India were further analyzed by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and by deletion analysis of M. tuberculosis specific deletion region 1 (TbD1). The genetic relationship of the two clades inferred using different genetic markers showed good correlation. In the North where the CAS clade predominates the isolates are characterized by presence of high IS6110 copy number and absence of TbD1 region whereas in the South where the EAI clade predominates the isolates are characterized by low copy number of IS6110 and presence of TbD1 region. The ancestral EAI strains were found to be less often associated with drug resistance or young age as compared to the CAS clade. The study highlights that the EAI lineage is well established in India and that CAS may be emerging or more recently introduced to India. The results depict a distinction in the lineage of strains from the North versus South India indicating a need to study if the pathogen has adapted to specific human populations.

 

 

* A New Haplogroup Pattern Displayed in Fujian Han in China by M. Yu, et al.

Excerpt: In comparison with the southern Han and the northern Han, the Fujian Han displayed a relatively lower frequency of H6/7/8, but much higher frequencies of H5 and H1. The characteristics of the Y-chromosome loci are not compatible with those of either the southern han or the northern Han, although Fujian Province is located in southeast China. In conclusion, the genetic evidence of Y-chromosome haplogroup distributions present an interesting picture regarding the origin of the Fujian Han. The distinctive frequencies of haplogroups H6/7/8, H1, and H5 in the Fujian Han imply that the haplogroup pattern is a relatively ancestral and interim type. If the ancestors of the Sino-Tibetan population in China were originally from southern East Asia (Su et al. 1999), they might have reached the Fujian region first, with a part of them continuing to reside there, and the others making their way northward.

 

 

* HLA Antigens in Three Normal Southern Chinese Dialect Groups -- Cantonese, Hokkiens and Teochew by S.H. Chan, et al.

Synopsis: The HLA profiles of the Cantonese, Hokkien and Teochew dialect groups in the Chinese population were compared. The profiles of the three groups were remarkably similar. HLA-A2 and HLA-Bw46 were strongly and significantly associated in all three dialect groups. Other significantly associated antigen pairs were Aw19, B17 and A29, B7 in the Cantonese and Blank, B40 in the Teochews.

 

 

* Genetic Diversity of Y-chromosome Microsatellites in the Fujian Han and the Sichuan Han Populations of China by Y L Zhang, et al.

Abstract: Y-chromosome short tandem repeats (STRs) are potentially useful for forensic, anthropological and evolutionary studies. In this study we chose the loci DYS 19, DYS 388, DYS 389 I, DYS 389 II, DYS 390, DYS 391, DYS 392, DYS 393, DYS 425 and DYS 426. Blood samples were taken from 46 unrelated male individuals from Fujian Han and 43 unrelated males from Sichuan Han in China. DNA was extracted by conventional chelex extraction procedure. PCR was carried out in two multiplex reactions. Fragment analysis was conducted on an ABI PRISM 310 Genetic Analyzer. Allele frequency distributions and discrimination indices were calculated, and the two populations were tested for genetic differences by means of analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA). Here we obtained 75 Y-STR haplotypes and the haplotype diversity for the complete haplotype was 0.9884 in Fujian Han and 0.9967 in Sichuan Han. A larger genetic difference became apparent between the two populations that belong to the Sino-Tibetan speaking populations.

 

 

* Analysis of HLA-DRB1 Allele Polymorphism in the Fujian Han Nationality Population of China by OH Wang, et al.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the HLA-DRB1 allele polymorphism in Fujian Han nationality population. METHODS: Six hundred and twenty individual samples collected from unrelated Fujian Han population were subjected to genotyping using oligonucleotide microarray technique. And the allele frequencies of HLA-DRB1 were calculated and compared with other populations. RESULTS: Fourteen HLA-DRB1 alleles of Fujian Han population were detected. The gene frequencies ordered from high to low were HLA-DRB1*9, 12, 15, 4, 8 respectively. CONCLUSION: The HLA-DRB1 distribution of Fujian Han population shares some genetic characters with southern Chinese Han populations, but these characters differ from northern Chinese populations.

 

 

* More Genetic Sharing among the Population of Taiwan than Expected: A plain tribes (Pinpu) perspective by Marie Lin, et al.

Mitochondrial DNA (Neighbor Joining Phylogram)

 

 

* Genetic Polymorphisms at HLA-A, -B, and -DRB1 Loci in Han Population of Xi’an City in China by Chunmei Shen, et al.

Dendrogram Constructed by the Neighbor-joining Method Showing the Relationship between Han Population with Other 15 Populations Based on the Allele Frequencies of HLA-DRB1 Locus

 

 

* Genetic Link Between Chaoshan and Other Chinese Han Populations: Evidence from HLA-A and HLA-B allele frequency distribution by Sheng-Ping Hu, et al.

Neighbor-Joining Tree

Neighbor-joining tree constructed by Nei’s genetic distance based on the HLA-A and -B allele frequencies of Chaoshan and the other nine Chinese Han populations. Chaoshan clusters closely with the Mainland Minnan and the Mainland Hakka. All southern China-related groups in general cluster together and are separated from the China North group with the China Middle standing in between.

 

 

* 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

 

 

* Tracing the Origins of Hakka and Chaoshanese by Mitochondrial DNA Analysis by Wen-Zhi Wang, et al.

Population Analyzed

 

Two-dimensional PC Plot of mtDNA of Han Populations

 

PC Map of Y Chromosome of Han Chinese

 

 

* Genetic Evidence Supports Demic Diffusion of Han Culture by Bo Wen, et al.

 

 

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

Multidimensional Scaling Analysis among 63 Populations from Southeast Asia
Excluding all Sino-Tibetans but the Southern Chinese (grouped)

The ‘mixed’ sample is composed of individuals from Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Hunan. ST-SC: Sino-Tibetan, Southern Chinese (Min, Xiang, Gan, Hakka, Yue); AA: Austroasiatic; KA: Tai-Kadai; AN-EF: Extra-Formosan Austronesian; AN-TW: Autronesian from Taiwan; HM: Hmong-Mien.

 

 

* A Homeland or Hostland? The power and challenges of genetic studies on Austronesian’s expansion by Mutsu Hsu and Shu-Juo Chen

Neighbor-joining Tree of Taiwan AN Populations, East Asians, Southeast Asians and Other Populations Worldwide (from Chu et al. 2001)

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Southern Mongoloid

Southern Mongoloid populations are a subgroup of Mongoloid populations, distinguished by older criteria like appearance and craniology, or dental patterns. They are a genetically unrelated group, according to Cavalli-Sforza (2000).

In Cavalli-Sforza's genetic clustering work (1988) South Chinese join Southeast Asians in genetic clustering while the North Chinese associate with Koreans, Japanese, Ainu, Bhutanese and Tibetans in genetic clustering. Other Southeast Asians include Malaysian, Viet Muong, Thai, Western Indonesian and Philippine.

Xiao and Cavalli-Sforza (2000) find the boundary between Northern and Southern Mongoloids to approximate the Yangtze River, and suggest that their ancestors arrived from Africa via separate routes. Principal component analysis of gene frequencies of Chinese populations

Other scientists have suggested that the finding of sharp genetic differences between North and South China is an artifact of using an insufficient number of samples. However, Xiao and Cavalli-Sforza (2000) has a larger number of samples than previous studies.

Modern biological evidence from the anthropological textbook Human Species (2003) contradicts earlier theories of which groups were more genetically related to other groups. The Human Species(2003) and Physical Anthropology used the genetic clustering of Cavalli-Sforza (2000) in their publication. Humans are all related. Humanity divided itself into the African and the Eurasian/Oceanic branch. The Eurasian and Oceanic branches are the products of this common origin. The Eurasian branch split into the Amerindian and major East Asian branch. The major East Asian branch divided itself into eastern Russian and the East Asian. The Oceanic branch divided itself into the Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders. According to the Human Species (2003), East Asians generally are more genetically similar to the South Asians than to Southeast Asians, because the Far East and the Indian Subcontinent are members of the Eurasian branch while Southeast Asians (including south Chinese) are members of the Oceanic branch. More interestingly, Asians have very local genetic clusters inside these regions, implying different Asian ethnic groups have not historically intermarried with each other. Examples of localized genetic clusters include Japan, Korea, Mongolia and China which form separate genetic clusters from each other.

 

 

Southern Mongoloid

Map of the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang)

Southern Mongoloid populations are a subgroup of Mongoloid populations, distinguished by older criteria like appearance and craniology, or dental patterns. Genetically Northern Mongoloids are very unrelated to Southern Mongoloids.

In Cavalli-Sforza's genetic clustering work (1988) South Chinese join Southeast Asians in genetic clustering while the North Chinese associate with Koreans, Japanese, Ainu, Bhutanese and Tibetans in genetic clustering. Other Southeast Asians include Malaysian, Viet Muong, Thai, Western Indonesian and Philippine.

Xiao and Cavalli-Sforza (2000) find the boundary between Northern and Southern Mongoloids to approximate the Yangtze River, and suggest that their ancestors arrived from Africa via separate routes. Principal component analysis of gene frequencies of Chinese populations

Other scientists have suggested that the finding of sharp genetic differences between North and South China is an artifact of using an insufficient number of samples. However, Xiao and Cavalli-Sforza (2000) has a larger number of samples than previous studies.

Modern biological evidence from the anthropological textbook Human Species (2003) contradicts earlier theories of which groups were more genetically related to other groups. The Human Species(2003) and Physical Anthropology used the genetic clustering of Cavalli-Sforza (2000) in their publication. Humans are all related. Humanity divided itself into the African and the Eurasian/Oceanic branch. The Eurasian and Oceanic branches are the products of this common origin. The Eurasian branch split into the Amerindian and major East Asian branch. The major East Asian branch divided itself into eastern Russian and the East Asian. The Oceanic branch divided itself into the Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders. According to the Human Species (2003), East Asians generally are more genetically similar to the South Asians than to Southeast Asians, because the Far East and the Indian Subcontinent are members of the Eurasian branch while Southeast Asians (including south Chinese) are members of the Oceanic branch. More interestingly, Asians have very local genetic clusters inside these regions, implying different Asian ethnic groups have not historically intermarried with each other. Examples of localized genetic clusters include Japan, Korea, Mongolia and China which form separate genetic clusters from each other.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Sino-Austronesian

Sino-Austronesian is a proposed language family. Its original version was first presented by Laurent Sagart in the early 1990s. Using reconstructions of the Old Chinese language, Sagart argued that the Austronesian languages were related to the Sinitic languages both lexically and morphologically. Additionally, the Tai-Kadai languages were placed internally within the Austronesian family as a sister branch of Malayo-Polynesian. He also considers the Austro-Asiatic language family to be a likely candidate for inclusion, since if the Austric hypothesis proves to be true, Austro-Asiatic would follow along with the Tai-Kadai branch's inclusion in Sino-Austronesian.

If compared with genetic evidence, the Sino-Austronesian family would correspond to Haplogroup O, a paternally-transmitted human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup. Laurent Sagart has also shown that his Sino-Austronesian proposal does not contradict genetic studies in any major way.

Related proposals include Austric (Wilhelm Schmidt), Austro-Tai (Paul K. Benedict), and Dené-Caucasian (Sergei Starostin).

• Sino-Austronesian (Sino-Tibetan-Austronesian)
  • Tibeto-Burman ("Sino-Tibetan languages")
  • Austronesian
    • Luilang, Pazeh, Saisiat
    • Pituish
      • Atayalic (Thao, Favorlang, Taokas, Papora, Hoanya)
      • Enemish
        • Siraya
        • Walu-Siwaish
          • Tsouic (Paiwan, Rukai, Puyuma, Amis, Bunun)
          • Muish
            • Northeastern Formosan (Ketagalan, Kavalan, etc.)
            • Daic or Kra-Dai (Tai-Kadai)
            • Malayo-Polynesian

 

* The Higher Phyolgeny of Austronesian and the Position of Tai-Kadaii by Laurent Sagart

The An Settlement of Taiwan With the MP and TK Migrations

[a]: The pre-Austronesians, from NE China, expand southward along the SE China seaboard in the 5th and early 4th millennia BC: they cultivate rice, foxtail millet, exploit marine resources, practice tooth evulsion. [b]: the Nanri and Pingtan islands, from which the top of Mt Xueshan (3884 m., at center of 200-km radius visibility circle) can be seen, are reached. From there one group crosses to Taiwan c. 3500 BC, while [c] the rest continues expanding in a SW direction towards the Pearl River Delta. [1]: location of earliest An (PAnspeaking) settlements on Taiwan. [2]: location of Pituish, [3] location of Enemish, [4] location of Walu-Siwaish, [5] location of Muish, [6] Tai-Kadai migration, [7] Malayo-Polynesian migration, c. 2000 BC.

 

Excerpt: I have argued elsewhere (Sagart, in press, b) that the pre-Austronesians spoke a language related to Sino-Tibetan, and that they reached Taiwan from a location in NE China where millet and rice were cultivated, and where ritual evulsion of the upper lateral incisors in boys and girls was practiced. The eastern China seaboard region north of the Yangzi estuary, from north Jiangsu to north Shandong, is the one area in East Asia where the distribution of these three traits overlaps in the period before the arrival of the Austronesians in Taiwan: thus both rice and millet were cultivated in Xihe in north Shandong (Wright 2004) c. 8000 BP and in Longqiuzhuang in the lower Huai basin c. 7000-5000 BP. Tooth evulsion is attested from 6500 BP on in Shandong and north Jiangsu (Han and Nakahashi 1996). We may surmise that before they reached Taiwan, the pre-Austronesians were expanding southward along the coastal plains of central-eastern China in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and north Fujian. We can expect that archaeological sites with rice, Setaria, tooth evulsion, and a technology intermediate between the Dawenkou culture of north-east China and Ta-Pen-K'eng of Taiwan will eventually appear there.

If this scenario is correct, it is likely that the passage to Taiwan did not exhaust the pre-An population of the Fujian coast. More likely, this population continued expanding along the coast in a south-westerly direction towards the Pearl River delta, even after a group of them had crossed to Taiwan. Their archaeological traces SW of Fujian are perhaps seen in the Pearl river delta, although direct evidence of agriculture there has so far not appeared; Hedang in the Pearl River delta, with tooth evulsion (Higham 1996:84), c. 3000-2000 BC, may be one such site. In Taiwan, Tsang (in press) describes the newly excavated site of Nan-kuan-li near Tainan in south-west Taiwan, where a team led by him recently discovered a neolithic culture having rice, millet, and practicing ritual tooth ablation around 5000-4500 BP. In the same paper he argues that the Ta-Pen-K'eng culture, as seen in Nan-kuan-li near Tainan, "has close affinities with the Neolithic cultures of Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta". I disagree with Tsang when he concludes that "The Pearl River Delta of Kuangtung is mostprobably the source area of the Tapenkeng Culture in Taiwan". I think it more likely that both cultures are descended from a common precursor on the Fujian coast. Pearl River delta sites having affinities to Taiwan TPK like Hedang are also probably too early and too far east to be ancestral to the Tai-Kadai-speaking cultures.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

History of Fujian

Recent archaeological discoveries demonstrate that Fujian (especially the northern coastal region around Fuzhou) had entered the Neolithic Age by the middle of the 6th millennium BC. From the Keqiutou site (7450-5590 BP), an early Neolithic site in Pingtan Island located about 70 km southeast of Fuzhou, numerous tools made of stones, shells, bones, jades, and ceramics (including wheel-made-ceramics) have been unearthed, together with spinning wheels, a definitive evidence of weaving.

The Tanshishan (昙石山) site (5500-4000 BP) in suburban Fuzhou spans the Neolithic and Chalcolithic Age where semi-underground circular buildings were found in the lower level. The Huangtulun (黄土崙) site (ca.1325 BC), also in suburban Fuzhou, was of the Bronze Age in character.

These findings, however, also indicate that the agricultural tradition was weak if not lacking in this area, which is consistent with the early records stating that the indigenous people in Fujian, primarily those living along the Min River, were possibly Austronesians with "large eyes, flat nose and tattooed bodies", who made their living by fishing.

These people were probably the original inhabitants of southern China. Some of them may have been assimilated, driven further south, or exiled during Han Dynasty to eastern China (north of present-day Shanghai).

This area was also the place for the kingdom of Minyue. The word "Mǐnyuè" was derived by combining "Mǐn" (閩), perhaps an ethnic name and associated with the Chinese word for barbarians (蠻), and "Yue", after the State of Yue, a Spring and Autumn Period kingdom in Zhejiang Province to the north. This is because the royal family of Yuè fled to Fujian after their kingdom was annexed by the State of Chu in 306 BC. Mǐn is also the name of the main river in this area, but the ethnonym is probably earlier.

Minyue was a de facto kingdom until the emperor of Qin Dynasty, the first unified imperial Chinese state, abolished the status. In the aftermath of the fall of the Qin Dynasty, however, civil war broke out between two warlords, Xiang Yu and Liu Bang; the Minyue king Wuzhu sent his troops to fight side-by-side with Liu Bang, and his gamble paid off. Liu Bang was victorious, and founded the Han Dynasty; in 202 BC he restored Minyue's status as a tributary independent kingdom. Thus Wuzhu was allowed to construct his fortified city in Fuzhou as well as a few locations in the Wuyi Mountains, which have been excavated in recent years. His kingdom extended beyond the borders of contemporary Fujian into eastern Guangdong, eastern Jiangxi, and southern Zhejiang. By this time Minyue was being sinicized and had a combination of aboriginal (possibly Austronesian) and Han Chinese elements.

After the death of Wuzhu, Minyue maintained its militant tradition and launched several expeditions against their neighboring kingdoms in Guangdong, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang, mostly in the 2nd century BC, only to be stopped by the Han Dynasty. The Han emperor eventually decided to get rid of the potential threat by sending in large forces simultaneously from four directions via land and sea in 111 BC. The rulers in Fuzhou surrendered to avoid a futile fight and destruction; thus the first kingdom in Fujian history came to an abrupt end. Nonetheless, the people of northern Fujian still erect temples in memory of their first kings.

The Han Dynasty collapsed at the end of the 2nd century AD, paving the way for the Three Kingdoms era. Sun Quan, the founder of the Kingdom of Wu, spent nearly twenty years subduing the Shan Yue people, the branch of the Yue people living in mountains.

The first wave of immigration of the noble class arrived in the province in the early 4th century AD when the Western Jin Dynasty collapsed and the north was torn apart by invasions by nomadic peoples from the north, as well as civil war. These immigrants were primarily from eight families in central China: Lin (林), Huang (黄), Chen (陈), Zheng (郑), Zhan (詹), Qiu (邱), He (何), and Hu (胡). The first four remain as the major surnames of modern Fujian.

Nevertheless, isolation from nearby areas owing to rugged terrain contributed to Fujian's relatively backward economy and level of development, despite major population boost from northern China during the "barbarian" invasions. Population density in Fujian remained low compared to the rest of China. Only two commanderies and sixteen counties were established by the Western Jin Dynasty. Like other southern provinces such as Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, and Yunnan, Fujian often served as a destination for exiled prisoners and dissidents at that time.

During the Northern and Southern Dynasties era, the Southern Dynasties reigned south of the Yangtze River. Their sovereigns put significant efforts into populating the area with Han Chinese.

The Tang Dynasty (618-907) oversaw the next golden age of China. As the Tang Dynasty ended, China was torn apart in the period of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. During this time, a second major wave of immigration arrived in the safe haven of Fujian, led by general Wang, who set up an independent Kingdom of Min with its capital in Fuzhou. After the death of the founding king, however, the kingdom suffered from internal strife, and was soon swallowed up by Southern Tang, another southern kingdom.

Quanzhou was blooming into a seaport under the reign of the Min Kingdom, and may have been the largest seaport in the Eastern hemisphere. In the early Ming dynasty, Quanzhou was the staging area and supply depot of Zheng He's naval expeditions. Further development was severely hampered by the sea trade ban of the Ming Dynasty, and the area was superseded by nearby ports of Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Ningbo and Shanghai despite the lifting of the ban in 1550. Large scale piracy by Wokou (Japanese pirates) was eventually wiped out by Chinese military and Japanese authority of Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

Late Ming and early Qing Dynasty symbolized an era of large influx of refugees and another 20 years of sea trade ban under the Kangxi Emperor, a measure intended to counter the refuge Ming government of Koxinga in Taiwan. Incoming refugees, however, did not translate into a major labor force owing to their re-migration into prosperous regions of Guangdong province. In 1689, the Qing dynasty officially incorporated Taiwan into Fujian province. Settlement of Taiwan by Han Chinese followed, and the majority of people in Taiwan are descendants of emigrants from Southern Fujian. After Taiwan was separated into its own province in 1885 and ceded to Japan in 1895, Fujian arrived at its present extent. It was substantially influenced by the Japanese after the Treaty of Shimonoseki of 1895 until the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) of WWII.

Owing to the mountainous landscape, Fujian was the most secluded province of the PRC in eastern China due to the lack of rail and underdeveloped networks of paved roads before the 1950s. The first railway to the province was completed in mid-1950s connecting Xiamen to the rest of the mainland. Despite its secluded location, Fujian has had a strong academic tradition since the Southern Song Dynasty. At the time, north China was occupied by the Jurchen Jin Dynasty, which caused a shift of the cultural center of China to the south, benefiting Fuzhou and other southern cities. In the Chinese Academy of Science and Chinese Academy of Engineering, there are more members from Fuzhou than from any other city. In addition, it should also be pointed out that the slow development of Fujian in its early days has proven a blessing for the province's ecology; today, the province has the highest forest coverage rate and the most diverse biosphere in China whereas central China suffers from severe overpopulation and displays severe signs of soil erosion accompanied by frequent droughts and floods due to lack of forest coverage.

Since the late 1970s, the economy of Fujian along the coast has greatly benefited from its geographic and cultural proximity to Taiwan. In 2003, Xiamen ranked number eight GDP per capita among 659 Chinese cities, ahead of Shanghai and Beijing, while Fuzhou ranked no. 21 (number 4 among 30 provincial capitals). The development has been accompanied by a large influx of population from the over-populated areas in the north and west, and much of the farmland and forest as well as cultural heritage sites such as the temples of king Wuzhu have given way to ubiquitous high-rise buildings, and the government faces a challenge at all levels to sustain development while, at the same time, preserving the unique and vital natural and cultural heritage of Fujian.

 

Fujian by Y. M. M. Yeung, David K. Chu (Editor)

 

 

 

Development and Decline of Fukien Province in the 17th and 18th Centuries by E. B. Vermeer

 

 

 

Southern Fujian: Reproduction of Traditions in Post-Mao China by Tan Chee-beng

 

 

 

Fujian: Gateway to Taiwan by Brian Hook

 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Yue Peoples

Yue (越 or 鉞; also seen as Yueh or Yuet) refers to ancient semi-Sinicized or non-Sinicized peoples of southern China, originally those along the eastern coastline of present-day Zhejiang province. In archaic Chinese, a number of characters (越, 粵, 鉞) were often used interchangeably to represent the same meaning.

Origins and Ancient Usage: In ancient times, the northern Han Chinese referred to the peoples to their south collectively as the Yue. Historian Luo Xianglin has suggested that these peoples shared a common ancestry with the Xia Dynasty. There is little evidence, however, that the Yue peoples held any common identity. Historical texts often refer to the Hundred Yue tribes (百越. There is little evidence, however, that the Yue peoples held any common identity. The "Treatise of Geography" in Han Shu notes: "In the seven or eight thousand li from Jiaozhi to Kuaiji (modern southern Jiangsu or northern Zhejiang) the Hundred Yue are everywhere, each with their own clans." Just as the term Celt was used by the Greeks to describe what they perceived to be a broad cultural group, so the term Yue was a culturally relative term for the ancient Chinese. Also like "Celt", Yue is now used in a number of different ways.

Ethnolinguists have suggested that the pronunciaton of Yue may be related to a type of hemp produced in what is now Zhejiang. The character itself is related to the character for "ceremonial axe" (鉞), usually considered a symbol of royal or imperial authority. A number of stone axes have been found in the area of Hangzhou, and there is evidence that the ceremonial axe was a southern invention.

Ancient texts mention a number of Yue peoples. Most of these names survived into early imperial times and can be roughly construed as cultural groupings:

Chinese	Hanyu Pinyin	Cantonese Yale	Vietnamese	Notes
雒越	Luòyuè	Lokyuht	Lạc Việt	Sea Bird Yue
閩越	Mǐnyuè	Mànyuht	Mân Việt	River Yue
西甌	Xī'ōu	Sāi'āu	Tây Âu	West Valley Yue
甌越	Ōuyuè	Āuyuht	Âu Việt	(East) Valley Yue
滇越,盔越	Diānyuè, Kuīyuè	Dīnyuht, Kwaīyuht	Điền Việt, Khôi Việt	Heavenly Yue, Basin Yue
東越	Dōngyuè	Dōngyuht	Đông Việt	Eastern Yue
於越	Yūyuè	Yūyuht	Ư Việt	Major Yue
揚越	Yángyuè	Yèungyuht	Dương Việt	Ocean Yue
幹越	Gānyuè	Gonyuht	Cán Việt	Main Yue
山越	Shānyuè	Saānyuht	Sơn Việt	Mountain Yue
夜郎	Yèláng	Yehlòng	Dạ Lang	Night Yue
句吳	Gōuwú	Geui'ngh	Câu Ngô
南越	Nányuè	Naàhmyuht	Nam Việt	Southern Yue

Sinification and Displacement: From the Ninth century BC, two northern Yue peoples, the Gou-Wu and Yu-Yue, were increasingly influenced by their Chinese neighbours to their north. These two states were based in the areas of what is now southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang respectively. Their aristocratic elite learned the written Chinese language and adopted Chinese political institutions and military technology. Traditional accounts attribute the cultural change to the Grand Earl of Wu (吳太伯), a Zhou prince who had fled to the south. The marshy lands of the south gave Gou-Wu and Yu-Yue unique characteristics. They did not engage in extensive agrarian agriculture, relying instead more heavily on aquaculture. Water transport was paramount in the south, so the two states became advanced in shipbuilding and developed riverine warfare technology. They were also known for their fine swords.

In the Spring and Autumn Period, the two states, now called Wu and Yue, were becoming increasingly involved in Chinese politics. In 512 BC, Wu launched a large expedition against the large state of Chu, based in the Middle Yangtze River. A similar campaign in 506 succeeded in sacking the Chu capital Ying. Also in that year, war broke out between Wu and Yue and continued with breaks for the next three decades. In 473 BC, the Yue king Goujian finally conquered Wu and was acknowledged by the northern states of Qi and Jin. In 333 BC, Yue was in turn conquered by Chu. The Kings of the state of Yue, and therefore its succesor state Minyue also claimed to be descended from Yu the Great of the chinese Xia dynasty. According to Sima Qian, Wu was founded by Wu Taibo, a brother of zhou wu wang, the King of the chinese Zhou dynasty.

After the unification of China by Qin Shi Huang, it became incorporated into the Chinese empire. The Qin armies also advanced south along the Xiang River to modern Guangdong and set up commanderies along the main communication routes. Throughout the Han Dynasty period two groups of Yue were identified, that of the Nan-Yue in the far south, who lived mainly in the area of what is now Guangdong, Guangxi, and Vietnam; and that of the Min-Yue who lay to the southeast, centred on the Min River in modern Fujian. The Kings of Minyue claimed to be descended from Yu the Great of the chinese Xia dynasty.

Sinification of these peoples was brought about by a combination of imperial military power, regular settlement and Chinese refugees. The difficulty of logistics and the malarial climate in the south made the displacement and eventual sinification of the Yue peoples a slow process. When the Chinese came into contact with local Yue peoples, they often wrested control of territory from them or subjugated them by force. When a serious rebellion broke out in 40 AD by the Trung Sisters in what is now modern Vietnam, a force of some 10,000 imperial troops was dispatched under General Ma Yuan. Between 100 and 184 no less than seven outbreaks of violence took place, often calling for strong defensive action by the Chinese.

As Chinese migrants gradually increased, the Yue were gradually forced into poorer land on the hills and in the mountains. Unlike the nomadic peoples of Central Asia, such as the Xiongnu or the Xianbei, however, the Yue peoples never posed any serious threat to Chinese expansion or control. Sometimes they staged small scale raids or attacks on Chinese settlements - termed "rebellions" by traditional historians. The Chinese for their part regarded them as being highly uncivilised and prone to fight one another.

While most Yue peoples were eventually sinicized, the Kam-Tai (Daic): Zhuang, Buyi, Dai, Sui (Shui), Kam (Dong), Hlai (Li), Mulam, Maonan, Ong-Be (Lingao), Thai, Lao, Shan, and Vietnamese peoples retained their ethnic identities. Some of these peoples also have their own nation-states today. In particular, the Vietnamese people broke free from Chinese rule in the 10th century and have their own state to this day.

Legacy of the Yue Peoples: The fall of the Han Dynasty and the succeeding period of division sped up the process of sinification. Periods of instability and war in northern China, such as the Northern and Southern Dynasties and during the Song Dynasty led to mass migrations of Chinese. Intermarriage and cross-cultural dialogue has led to a mixture of Chinese and non-Chinese peoples in the south. By the Tang Dynasty, the term "Yue" had largely become a regional designation rather than a cultural one A state in modern Zhejiang province during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, for example, called itself "Wu-Yue". Likewise, the "Viet" in "Vietnam" (literally, "Viet South") is a cognate of the "Yue".

The impact of Yue culture on Chinese culture has not been determined authoritatively but it is clear that it is significant. The languages of the ancient states of Wu and Yue form the basis the modern Wu language and to some extent the Min languages of Fujian. Linguistic anthropologists have also determined that a number of Chinese words can be traced to ancient Yue words. An example is the word "jiang" (江), meaning river. To some extent, some remnants of the Yue peoples and their culture can also be seen in some minority groups of China and the Vietnamese people retain the identity.

Modern Usage: In modern Chinese, the characters of "越" and "粵" (both yuè) are differentiated. The former is used to refer to the original territory of the Yue Kingdom, the area of what is now northern Zhejiang, southern Jiangsu, and Shanghai, especially the areas around Shaoxing and Ningbo. The opera of Zhejiang, for example, is called "Yue Opera" (yueju, 越劇). The first character "越" is also associated with Vietnam. The second character "粵" (yuè) is associated with the southern province of Guangdong. Popularly called "Cantonese", both the standard form and regional dialects of the Cantonese language(Yue language) are spoken in Guangdong, Guangxi, Hong Kong, Macau and in many Cantonese communities around the world.

 

 

越族

百越又稱為百越族、越族，泛指古代居於中國南方的族群（人類社會）。

因為有許多支系，所以也就稱百越。其中句吳、于越、東甌、南越等幾支百越中的大族，先後與中原的華夏族融合，成為漢族形成的來源之一，其餘百越中靠近西部和西南部的幾個支系西甌、駒越、駱越等演變為現代中國南方的壯侗語民族以及越南 (Vietnam)、寮國 (Laos)、泰國 (Thailand)、緬甸 (Burma)、印度 (India) 境內的京、佬、泰、撣族、阿洪姆等民族。

起源: 根據有關文獻的記載，早在商、 周時期，就有被稱之為「越」的古民族（古代中國人泛稱東南方蠻族為「越」，北方蠻族為「胡」），生活在現今中國的東南及南部地區（王東 2003，3）。春秋晚期至戰國前期，越族曾在今江浙一帶建立強大的越國，共傳8代，歷160多年，與當時中原國家會盟，雄視江淮地區，號稱「霸主」（請參見「勾踐」條目；陳國強 2000）。有學者根據《史記》「越王勾踐世家」的描述，認為越族是夏禹的後代。不過，研究百越族的中國學者宋蜀華認為：「勾踐的祖父夫鐔以上至夏少康庶子無餘，世系不清楚；夏少康經商至周敬王共60餘代，兩者世系相差近1000年，把越王勾踐說成是夏少康的後裔，實難信服」（引自龔佩華 nd）。此外，宋蜀華也認為夏文化和越文化截然不同，因為：「夏人活動地區從未發現過『印紋陶文化』，而『印紋陶』流行地區也從未發現過『二里頭文化』」（引自龔佩華 nd）。

根據目前考古學的證據，距今7000年的浙江「河姆渡文化」遺址，很可能就是古越族所創造出來的文化。河姆渡遺址發現了稻穀、稻草和稻殼的堆積，是當時世界發現最早的稻作文化，後來在黃河流域的裴李崗遺址、賈湖遺址和長江中游流域的彭頭山遺址等地發現了更早的稻作文化。此外，現在的考古學家也普遍認爲，廣泛分佈於中國南方各地的以幾何印紋陶爲主要特徵的文化遺存，可能也是由古越族所創造出來的。最近數十年來的考古發掘表明：這種以幾何印紋陶爲主要特徵的文化遺存，在時間上從4000多年前的新石器時代晚期開始，一直延續到商周秦漢時期，在空間上則遍佈於中國東南地區及嶺南一帶（王東 2003，3）。

歷史: 和「古越族」相關的最早文字記錄涉及「於越」，于越是春秋時期之越國的前身，最晚在商朝的時候就已經存在，雖然沒有參加武王伐紂，但至少曾經北上當周成王的賓客。該國傳至勾踐 (500 B.C.)的時候，他試著向北擴張，曾經沿著江蘇的海岸北上膠州灣。古越族和漢族早期的關係主要在貿易，越人以象牙、玳瑁、翠毛、犀角、玉桂和香木等交換北方的絲帛和手工產品(鍾倫納 2004)。

有觀點認為古籍中的『百越』由『古越族』經過漫長的歷史演變而成。戰國時代文獻中便出現了「百越」這一個新的稱謂。戰國後期，除了有百越這個名稱以外，還有「揚越」這個名稱指代揚州地區的越族。揚州包括今淮南、長江下游和嶺南的東部地區，有時又包括整個嶺南地區。所以揚越實際也是戰國以來至秦漢對越人的另一種泛稱(王東 2003，3；陳國強 2000)。

秦漢時，相關史籍則泛稱中國南方的民族為「越族」，史稱「北方胡、南方越」。由於歷史的發展和變化，至遲在漢朝初期，百越族已經逐漸形成幾個較強盛而明顯的部分，即「東甌」(東海)、「閩越」、「南越」、「西甌」、以及「雒越」(駱越)。東甌在現今浙江省南部的溫州一帶；閩越在今福建省福州一帶；南越在今廣東省境，後來又發展到廣西以及以南地區；西甌則大概分佈在今廣東西部、廣西南部及以南地區；駱(雒)越主要分佈在現今的越南北部與海南島。雲南有滇越,緬北有越裳,這些部分都形成了當時該地的政治中心，比如說閩越第一代君主無諸、東海第一代君主騶搖、以及南越王趙佗，都曾經叱吒風雲過一段不算短的時間(陳國強 2000)。

越族所建立的這些政治中心，後來都被漢武帝征服，改為漢朝的郡縣。此後，百越這個名稱就不見於史載，越族之名也十分罕見(陳國強 2000)。

關於越的名稱: 古代「粵」、「越」通用。越族就是生活在長江以南的一個古老的民族。夏朝稱「于越」；商朝稱「蠻越」或「南越」；周朝稱「揚越」、「荊越」；戰國稱「百越」。宋朝人羅泌的《路史》說：「越常、駱越，甌越、甌皚，且甌、西甌，供人，目深、摧夫、禽人、蒼吾，雜處於現今中國南方各地。在中國歷史上，整個廣大的江南之地，即所謂「交趾至會稽七八千里」，在秦漢以前都是、越區、桂國、損子、產里、海癸、九菌、稽余、北帶、仆句、區吳，是謂百越。」（摘自黃現璠撰《試論百越和百濮的異同》一文）。

文獻上也稱之為百粵、粵，其分佈甚廣，內部「各有種姓」百越族的居住地，他們所使用的古越語（非粵語），與中國北方所使用的古漢語也相差極大，彼此不能通話，古越語是南島語族的始祖。

文化特點: 百越族有自己的民族語言和生活、文化特點。百越語為黏著型，不同於漢語的單音成義，故百越語譯成漢語時一字常譯為兩字，如愛為「憐職」，熱為「煦蝦」。有人認為越語與今壯侗語系的語言十分接近。

百越族的生活、風俗習慣也有特點，主要是：水稻種植,椎髻,著貫頭衣,鑿齒; 斷髮紋身,雞卜；契臂為盟；多食蛇蛤海產；巢居,干欄式建築；善使舟及水戰；以及善鑄銅器，如青銅劍、銅鐸(大鈴)(與彌生時代文化相似),銅鼓,獵頭,食人,喜吃檳榔,男女混浴,喜鬥雞等。

文化影響: 雖然在今天已經找不到一個名字叫做「百越族」的民族或族群，不過，百越文化事實上卻透過種種不同的方式，在很多不同民族的文化裡面留下了種種痕跡。以下是一些比較值得加以探討的議題。

在新石器時代，該古代民族文化遺存中有一種以幾何印紋陶為特徵，該族是一個崇拜龍的圖騰的部族，有紋身的習俗，生活於水鄉，自比是龍的子孫。有咀嚼檳榔黑齒的習慣。

對於當今某些民族語言的影響: 現有的一些語言學研究均指出，在百越族被漢化以後，其所使用的很多字詞，卻依舊遺留在不少民族現在的語彙當中，比如說屬於侗壯語系和苗瑤語系的中國某些少數民族，被歸為漢語方言的一些南方方言，甚至包括印尼、馬來西亞、夏威夷、紐西蘭等地的南島民族，其語言中都可以找到屬於古越語的「同源字」(盧溢棋 1997)。比如說古越語的「蜘蛛」(***lakwa)一詞，就可以在鶴佬語(發音為lâ-giâ)、客家話(發音為lakia)、畲語(發音為laukhoe)、馬來/印尼語(發音為lawa、lawa-lawa、labah-labah)、夏威夷語(發音為lanalana、nananana)以及紐西蘭毛利人的拉巴怒伊語(Rapanui)(發音為nanai)等語言當中找到類似的發音(Hoklo.org nd)。 日本語的字眼很多來自南島語族。

對於當今某些民族之習俗的影響: 端午節習俗是他們創立用於祭祖的習俗，在歷史發展中已經融合到漢族中去了

所謂的「拾骨葬」，或稱「二次葬」，在中國長江以南各地，比如說江蘇、浙江、福建、廣東、台灣的漢人，以及很多少數民族，比如說壯族、藏族，都有這種習俗。事實上，一直到現在，台灣、香港採用這種喪葬儀式十分普遍，中國大陸已實施火葬。拾骨葬是土葬數年後開棺取骨，然後將全副骨骼一一置入一稱為「金斗」的陶甕當中。直到馬達加斯加也有此習俗。

這種拾骨葬的習俗，事實上並不是漢族所固有的，而是環太平洋原始民族中普遍分佈的一種文化特質，廣及中國大陸、東南和東北亞洲、南太平洋諸島、以及南北美洲。根據台灣中央研究院民族學學者凌純聲的研究，整個洗骨文化圈裏諸民族所採行的洗骨文化，基本上均為來自相同起源的一個文化習俗，而這個習俗最早的起源地，正是百越族所分佈的華南地區。倭人的水稻種植，斷髮紋身，與生活習慣與百越人出奇相似。

 

印紋陶文化

Impressed Pot from the Collection of The Shihsanhang Museum of Archaeology

印紋陶文化是指新石器時代晚期，出現在中國東南沿海的江西、廣東、浙江、江蘇、福建以及台灣等地的以印紋陶為特徵的古代陶文化。它的延續時間也很長，一直到商周時期的遺址還有發現，而且流傳到北方中原地區。

印紋陶: 印紋陶是一種胎質比較細膩、堅硬，燒制溫度要求較高，器表刻有幾何形圖案的陶器。

遺址: 茅灣里印紋陶窯址——位於浙江蕭山，為古越族人遺址，省級重點文物保護單位。該窯址存有大量陶瓷碎片及燒壞變形的完整陶器，表紋飾有米字紋、方格紋等。

 

* 台灣史前時代遺址簡表 by 台灣教師聯盟

* 十三行遺址, 番仔園文化

 

 

* DNA檢測解密中國人種遷徙 純種漢族人已不存在 by 李寧源

Excerpt: “越人，也就是河姆渡人，是曾經在中國南方比較興旺的民族。”謝小東說。

根據考古發現，越人隨著海平面上漲逐漸向內陸退縮，最後向湖北，江西，廣西遷徙，並最終在廣西消失。

“這種消失並不是人種的滅絕，而是完全與當地民族融合，最終自身民族徹底消失，包括語言和文字，但他們的遺傳基因卻依然頑強的存在，這也是科學家能夠發現越人遷徙路線的依據。”
但謝小東說，這種文化上的消失也不完全，比如江南女人過去經常穿著的蘭褂子和頭上戴的蘭帕子，都有越人的痕跡。

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Minyue

Map of Asia, 200 BC

Minyue (閩越) was an ancient kingdom located in today Fujian, Southern China, during Han Dynasty. There lived a mix of multi tribes, namely Baiyue. The state survived roughly from 334 BC to 110 BC. According to Shiji, the founders were of the Yue royal family who fled after the state was defeated by Chu and Qi states in 334 BC.

Minyue was partially conquered by Han dynasty by the end of the 2nd Century BC. However its position (being closed off by mountains) made it almost impossible for the Han people to establish a strong grip over this area. An ancient stone city located in inner mountains of Fujian is said to be the Minyue capital. The nearby tombs show the same funerary tradition as the state of Yue. Hence, it is concluded that the city was a Minyue center.

 

 

閩越國

閩越或稱閩越國，亦有稱為無諸國，其國土大致位於今中國福建省，是中國歷史上戰國時期被楚國所滅的越人、在逃到該地時與當地的百越族原住民所共同建立的一個國家，主體民族為閩越族，存活的時間大致上在西元前333年至西元前110年之間。尤其是西元前202年之後的六、七十年之間，國力達到鼎盛，是當時中國東南一帶勢力最強的國家，閩越王無諸在城村（今福建省武夷山市南邊的興田鎮）所建的王城，也是當時東南一帶規模最大的城市。

背景 : 中國歷史上的戰國(西元前475年-西元前221年)中期，那個由越王勾踐所恢復起來、位於今浙江省紹興一帶的越國，再一次遭到滅國之災。西元前334年，越王勾踐七世孫無彊與楚威王作戰，失敗被殺，越國遂被楚國所滅。越國王族於是航海入閩，越國國民則徙居越遷山(今福建省長樂市)。越族人的體質特徵和生活習慣與中原的華夏族有很大的差別。越人身軀中等、短面、鬚髮少、鼻形廣、眼睛圓而大，習慣傍水而居、好水鬥、善於駕舟行筏、還有「斷髮紋身」的習俗。

兩千多年前，福建還是遠離政治中心黃河流域的偏遠之地，毒蛇很多。人們敬畏蛇，把蛇當作是部落的圖騰。蛇在古語中又被稱為長蟲，就以蟲為義，把這裡稱為閩。按照台灣學者吳守禮的考證：

「	漢朝許慎著作《說文解字》時解釋這個「閩」字為「東南越蛇種」。請看：「閩」字的構成，從「門」從「虫」；「門」是音符，「虫」是義符。依我看，這義符「虫」，可能就是許慎解釋做「蛇種」的由來，就是說許氏據字形而做的解釋。如今我們似乎可以用民俗學的眼光，把「閩」解釋為：以蛇紋的形狀做「圖騰」（Totem）的民族，並不是「蛇」變「人」，這樣比較合理。	」
—吳守禮 1986

失去家園的越人在福建北部定居下來後，與當地原住民逐漸融合成閩越人，建立了閩越國。閩後來也就演變成福建省的簡稱。

秦「閩中郡」的設置: 西元前221年，秦在統一六國以後，派軍隊向福建進軍。第二年，在閩越人活動的區域設置了「閩中郡」。當時秦王朝認為閩中遠離中原，是「荒服之國」，地處偏遠，山高路險，而且越人強悍，難於統治。因此，「閩中郡」雖為秦王朝的四十郡之一，建制卻不相同，秦未派守尉令長到閩中來，只是廢去閩越王的王位，改用「君長」的名號讓其繼續統治該地。因此，秦只是名義上建立了閩中郡，實際上並未在閩中實施統治。但是，為了加強對閩中的控制，秦王朝一方面把大量閩越族人遷移到現在的浙江省北部和安徽、江西等省境內；另一方面又把中原的罪犯流放到閩中來。這一政策一方面造成了各個不同民族的互相融合，另一方面也造成了閩越族原本的文化和漢文化的互相交流(唐風宋韻網頁 2004a)

漢閩越王的分封與「閩越王城」的修建: 西元前209年，陳勝、吳廣領導的農民起義爆發，各地人民紛紛響應。無諸率閩越兵從閩中北上，響應中原的農民起義，打擊秦政權。西元前206年，秦滅，楚漢戰爭爆發，無諸再次北上中原，幫助劉邦擊敗了項羽，為漢王朝的建立作出了貢獻。西元前202年，因為無諸幫助劉邦戰勝了項羽，劉邦封無諸為閩越王，把都城建在東冶，統治閩中，仙游一帶正是屬於其勢力範圍內。也是在這一年，無諸開始在今武夷山市城村修建閩越王城(唐風宋韻網頁 2004a；李菁 2005；中華萬年網 nd)。

閩越王城佔地48萬平方公尺，有四個城門。東西城門之間是一條寬10公尺的大道，用鵝卵石鋪成。大道北面是佔地兩萬平方公尺的宮殿區，僅主殿就有900多平方公尺。當時的閩越國是漢代時東南一帶勢力最強的國家，城村的王城也是東南一帶規模最大的城市(李菁 2005)。在往後將近一個世紀的發展中，閩越人民一方面保持了福建遠古百越文化中的風俗習慣、宗教觀念、文化、藝術等，又在政治和經濟等方面受到華夏文化某種程度的影響，從而創造出燦爛一時的閩越古國文化。

滅亡: 無諸死後，子孫內訌疊起，頻頻挑起戰爭。曾經北征東甌，南擊南越，百越諸民因此臣服，周邊的劉姓諸國均以財物珍寶討好閩越國，閩越國已成為西漢王朝南方的一股強大勢力。閩越王無諸的後代東越王余善最後發展到刻「武帝」璽，自立為帝，並發兵反漢。這時的西漢王朝經過近百年的休養生息，國富民強，特別是漢武帝在位期間，漢朝進入鼎盛時期，他不能容忍各邊遠地區政權的日益強大。漢武帝在擊敗北方匈奴、解除北方邊患之後，調遣四路大軍共數十萬人圍攻閩越國。漢王朝同時對閩越國內部採取分化瓦解的手段，爭取了閩越(越繇)王居股和部份貴族殺余善後降漢。漢武帝為了徹底消除後患，詔令大軍將閩越舉國遷往江淮內地，焚燬閩越國的城池宮殿。城村古城及其宮殿正是在西元前110年被漢武帝所派遣的大軍所毀(新浪 2004)。

古城遺跡的發現: 1958年，閩越古城遺跡正式被發現，並進行了試掘，出土了大量的文物。古城平面似長方形，南北長約860公尺，寬約550公尺，總面積48萬平方公尺。在已發掘的高湖坪，出土了一個大型的宮殿建築群，布局嚴謹，結構完整，底下還舖設了流暢的排水系統。在城內外還發現了多處居住遺址和冶鐵遺址，出土了大量的鐵器、陶器、建築材料和銅器。其中的陶器，無論是形制或紋制，皆與中原的「漢式」陶器截然不同，具有濃厚的地方風格(唐風宋韻網頁 2004b)。

2000年，在閩越王城遺址東南3公里處，又發現了一處古墓。2002年10月，研究人員開始了探索性的挖掘，經考察後，發現這是一處閩越王時期的貴族古墓(唐風宋韻網頁 2004b)。

閩越國君主列表

閩越國君主

稱號	姓名	在位時間	備注
閩越王	無諸	前202年－？	越王勾踐後裔
閩越王	（不詳）	？－？	無諸之子
閩越王	郢	？－前135年	與先代王關係不詳。為余善所殺
繇王	丑	前135年－？	無諸的後裔
東越王 （東越武帝）	余善	前135年－前110年	郢之弟。為居股所殺
繇王	居股	？－前110年	降漢，舉國遷江淮，國除

 

 

閩越人

閩越人是公元前110年以前生活在今天中國福建一帶的居民，是福建的早期原住民，屬於百越的一支。

史學界有觀點認為閩越人是福建最早的的原住民，也有觀點認為閩越人是由越國滅亡後南下入閩的越人和當地七閩居民（或稱古閩族人）融合而成的。

七閩是西周至春秋戰國時期中國南方的古代民族，可能包括了七個部落，最早見於《周禮》的記載，屬於「蠻之別種」。該古民族活動範圍可能是今天的福建，也有人認為還包括了廣東潮州和梅州、浙江溫州和台州，甚至有人認為包括了整個東南中國。七閩文化處於青銅器時代，與當時的中原文明有一定的交流，曾向周朝進貢，但歷史典籍上對他們的記載極其有限。他們可能就是生活於古代福建的原住民古閩族，是閩越人的前身。

公元前306年越國被楚國滅亡後，一部分越國貴族南逃至閩地，與當地居民融合，並臣服於楚國。公元前222年，秦朝統一天下，在閩設閩中郡，當時的閩越王無諸被降為君長。然而閩越之地的實際控制權仍在無諸手中。

陳勝、吳廣起義後，無諸率領閩越人與東甌的搖一起跟從鄱陽令吳芮幫助諸侯消滅秦朝。後來，無諸又率閩越輔佐漢劉邦打敗項羽。漢五年（前202年），劉邦重新立無諸為閩越王，管轄原有區域，建立閩越國，都城設在東冶。後又封搖為東海王，領東甌地。也有人認為搖與東甌也是屬於閩越族的。此後閩越社會經濟文化迅速發展，閩越進入了最強盛的時期。無諸死後，閩越人頻頻挑起對周邊越人國家的戰爭，公元前138年閩越王郢北征東甌，導致東甌民眾棄地徙於江淮間，閩越隨後吞併東甌的地盤，公元前135年又南伐南越未果，導致內亂，漢武帝同時封繇君丑為越繇王，封余善為東越王，閩越形成二王並處。公元前111年余善反漢，漢武帝隨後在公元前110年滅亡閩越，遷徙閩越人到江淮一帶，閩越族於是消亡。也有人認為，仍有相當數量的閩越人殘留在福建，直到後來被入閩的漢人漢化。

 

 

古閩族

約3200年前古閩族使用的陶器，福州閩侯縣黃土侖遺址出土

古閩族是在約從夏商時代到戰國中期這段時期內，即約公元前1000年—前2000年至公元前4世紀時，生活於今天中國福建及鄰近地區的一個原住民族，是福建最早的土著民族，可能就是《周禮》中的七閩，後與越國南下的於越族人融合成閩越族。

分佈與早期情況: 古閩族大約在距今3000年前的夏商時代已經進入青銅器時代，分佈於今日的中國東南沿海以福建為中心的區域，除了福建外，其分布區尚包括廣東東部的潮州、梅州一帶，浙江南部的溫州、處州、台州一帶。部份學者認為古閩族亦分佈在臺灣，甚至認為台灣原住民是其後裔，唯此說未在學界形成主流觀點。

閩的名稱最早見於《周禮》，《周禮·職方氏》中的七閩可能就是指代古閩族。新石器時代，古閩族人在福建沿海和閩江流域發展出了曇石山文化和黃土侖文化等。大約在公元前1200年左右（中原的商代），古閩族人進入青銅器時代，並從事漁獵、原始農業，還擁有一定的陶瓷、紡織和造船技術，蛇則是他們崇拜的圖騰。

文化習俗: 閩族是「蠻」的一種，其服飾有別於越人，可能為「頂髻徒跣」，但沿海的閩族人可能也像越人一樣「斷髮文身」。他們崇拜的圖騰為蛇，這種崇拜被記錄在從上古流傳下來的神話傳說中，甚至在今天福建的一些地方還有殘留。在山區的古閩族人還有崖葬、懸棺葬（即船棺葬）的喪葬習俗。古閩族有著比較發達的鋤耕農業，但並沒有發展到犁耕農業，畜牧業也不發達，社會發展較為緩慢。船隻是他們重要的交通工具。而他們的居住場所經歷了由半地穴式建築到干欄式建築的不同階段特點。

與其他民族的關係: 和古閩族人聯繫比較緊密的民族是於越人，由於地理上的鄰近關係，在越國的越侯允常在位的時代就有於越族人到閩族人的居住地定居。傳說春秋末年的越國歐冶子也到屬於古閩族地域的湛盧山（在今福建松溪縣）和冶山（今福州市鼓樓區）鑄造寶劍，福州現在仍有歐冶池的遺迹。古閩族還曾向中原的周朝進貢，進貢路線往往選擇江海行船運輸，其貢品既包括特產的水果，也包括沿海的水產品，但由於相距太遠，周朝對閩越族並無管轄或控制的能力。到了戰國時期，隨著楚國勢力的擴張，古閩族和楚人也有一定的交流，曾有楚國人進入古閩越族的地界生活，在閩侯庄邊山還出土了戰國時期的楚墓。唐代賈公彥甚至認為楚人和古閩族還有源流關係。

與越人融合為閩越族: 古閩越族和於越族有著長期的交流乃至一定的融合，到了公元前334年（周顯王三十五年、楚威王六年），無彊統治的越國被楚國所滅，越國王室貴族南逃，其中的一支進入古閩族所生活的閩地，並佔據了該地，極大加速了於越族和古閩族的融合，二者最終融合為閩越族，而入閩的越國王室第七代的無諸也於戰國末年自立為閩越王。

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Migration of the Eight Clans

During the reign of the Jin Dynasty, many tribes overran parts of China. The "eight clans" relocated to the south after the invasion.

During the Jin Dynasty (265 to 420 AD), five non-Han Chinese, semi-nomadic tribes ravaged and overran Northern China. They were the Turkic Xiongnu, the Jie, the Xianbei, the Di and the Qiang.

Unwilling to live under the rule of these foreign tribes, many big and powerful families as well as the upper classes followed the Jin Court and migrated to the south. The eight clans recorded as part of this migration were the Lin (林), Huang (黄), Chen (陳), Zheng (鄭), Zhan (詹), Qiu (邱), He (何), and Hu (胡).

According to the Jin Shu, or the historical records of the Jin Dynasty, it was recorded that:

"When Luojing [present day Luoyang in Henan] was overrun, 60 to 70 percent of the government officials in the Zhong Zhou [Henan] found refuge near the Yangtze River."

According to the book called the Jin Book, written by Wang Dau:

"Some of these [in the] exodus moved to Qunyang, Wuhu, and Jingyi (in present-day southern Anhui province), and others to the regions of present-day southern provinces of Jiangsu, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang. Administrations were installed by the Jin Court [Note: The Eastern Jin dynasty was not established until March 317 in Jiankang, in present-day Jiangning county, Jiangsu province] to care for these new settlers, who were called liu wang ke ren ['refugee guests'], in several regions. . . The refugees settled down in these regions permanently and they multiplied."

 

Lin is a pinyin transcription of one of several Chinese surnames, with 林 being overwhelmingly the most common. The literal meaning of this surname is "forest" or "woods".

The majority of people with this surname are concentrated in the Fujian province of China and Taiwan. Among the overseas Chinese, the surname Lin (also spelled as Lum, Lim or Liem) may be more common than in China because many overseas Chinese have origins in Fujian. This is due to the migrating Fujian Chinese seeking their fortunes particularly in Southeast Asia. In Hong Kong and in Vietnam, the name most often takes the form "Lam". Lin is the 2nd most common surname in Taiwan, with a population of 9% Taiwanese (2.1 million, 2005 estimate), only behind Chen. In mainland China (except Fujian) Lin is less common.

A Korean surname 임 Im (Korean name) is the Korean equivalent of Lin. There are two clan branches of 임, the first being 수풀-림 (Supul-Im) and second, 맡길-임 (Matgil-Im).

The Vietnamese surname, Lâm, was formerly written using the same Chinese character.

A rare Chinese surname which is also transcribed Lin is 藺 (pinyin Lìn).

A Japanese common surname, Hayashi, is written with the same character 林, also meaning forest, but is not necessarily related to the Chinese surname.

 

Huang (黃) is a Chinese surname that means "golden yellow". While Huáng is the pinyin romanisation of the word, it may also be romanised as Houang, Hoang, Wong, Vong, Hung, Hong, Bong, Eng, Ng, Uy, Wee, Oi, Oei or Ooi, Ong, Hwang, or Ung due to pronunciations of the word in different dialects and languages. The surname is known as Hoàng or as Huỳnh in Vietnamese, and Hwang, Whang in Korean.

Huang is the 7th most common surname in China. The population of Huangs in China and Taiwan was estimated at more than 29 million in 2000; it was also the surname of more than 2 million overseas Chinese, 4.3 million Vietnamese (5.1%), and an estimated 1 million Koreans (The 2000 census of South Korea revealed it was the surname for 644,294 South Koreans, ranked 17th).

See also Wong, the common English transliteration of Cantonese on the surname Huang.

 

Chén (陳) is one of the most common Chinese family names. It ranks at the 5th most popular surname in Mainland China and the most popular surname in Singapore and Taiwan. Chen is also the most common family name in Guangdong, Zhejiang, Fujian (spelled Tan in Singapore and Malaysia), Hong Kong (spelt Chan in Hong Kong) and Macau. It is usually romanised as Chan in Cantonese, and sometimes as Chun. In Min (including dialects of Chaozhou (Teochow), Hainan, Fujian, and Taiwan), the name is pronounced Tan. In Hakka and Toisan, the name is spelt and pronounced as Chin. Some other Romanisations include Zen (from Wu), Ding and Chern

In Vietnam, this surname is written in Quoc Ngu as Trần, and is the second most popular Vietnamese surname, accounting for 11% of the population, after the surname Nguyễn (38.4%).

Chen is also a Hebrew name used by Israelis. It is pronounced khen, and means grace or favour.

The initial surname Chen was from Gui (媯), which was an ancient Chinese surname of descendants of Emperor Shun, who was one of the Three August Ones and Five Emperors. Shun (舜) was a legendary 23rd-22nd century BC leader whose half-century of rule was one of the longest in Chinese history. According to Mencius, Shun is a Dongyi.

When King Wu of Zhou established the Zhou Dynasty, he gave the Land of Chen to the descendants to establish their own state. To show his respect for Emperor Shun, the new state, which was also named by Chen, was one of the Three Guest States of Zhou (三恪), which meant this nation was not the subordinate, but the guest of Zhou. However, the Chen state was occupied by Chu after the 10th century BC. Since then, the people of this state began to use Chen as their surname.

During the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420-589), Emperor Wu of Chen established the Chen Dynasty (557-589), the fourth and the last of the Southern dynasties in China, eventually destroyed by the Sui Dynasty.

 

Zhèng (鄭) or Cheng is a Chinese family name and is the name of an ancient state, Zheng State, in today's Henan.

When China released its 2006 list of top 100 most common surnames, Zhèng was 21st in the list. Zhèng belongs to the second major group of ten surnames which makes up more than 10% of the Chinese population Zhèng was a major surname of the rich and powerful during China's Tang dynasty.

In Taiwan, the name is often Romanized "Cheng". The surname also has taken form outside of Chinese-speaking societies as well: in Japanese as "Tei"; and in Vietnamese as "Trịnh". In Korean, the name appears as "Chung," "Jung (surname)" or "Jeong" (정)—which is the 4th or 5th most common Korean surname (after Kim, Yi, Park, and Choi), with about 4.85% of the South Korean population (2,230,611 people) having this name.

The meaning of the Zhèng surname can be translated roughly as an adjective: either "class" or as "seriousness", "sincere", or "reserved". The use of it as a surname might have started as an adoption of the "Zheng" in Zhengzhou, the provincial capital of Henan where the family once ruled. However, the history of Zhengzhou predates the family as Aodu of the Shang Dynasty and subsequent renaming of the city came during Sui Dynasty in 581 A.D. after the family has already adopted Zheng as their name.

The Zhèng family originated in Henan Province. King Xuan or Xuan Wang (827–781 bc) the penultimate king of the Western Zhou Dynasty bestowed on his younger brother Ji You the title Duke Xuan of Zhèng, along with the fiefdom of Zhèng (today's eastern Hua county, Shaanxi), the last vassal state decreed by the Zhou Dynasty. Duke Xuan of Zheng was succeeded by his son, Luo Yang, Duke Gong of Zhèng. When Luo Yang was duke of Zhèng the king of Zhou was killed and his capital, destroyed. Luo Yang, Duke Gong of Zhèng moved his people to the east, where Henan province in central China lies, and established his new state, Zhèng, on the south banks of the Yellow River. His descendants took Zhèng as their surname.

 

Qiu is the Hanyu Pinyin transliteration of the Chinese family names 丘(Qiū), 邱(Qiū), 秋(Qiū), 仇(Qiú), and 裘(Qiú). The names are transliterated as Chiu in Wade-Giles.

There are two origins of the surname 丘. One sect stems from descendants of Jiang Ziya who named themselves after the fiefdom their ancestor was given, Yingqiu (營丘), and dropped the "Ying"; this clan thrived in the Fufeng County of Shaanxi. The second sect came from the Qiudun (丘敦) clan of the Wuhuan, who changed their clan name to Qiu when they became sinicized during the Southern and Northern Dynasties.

 

He is the Romanised transliteration of several Chinese family names. Of these family names, 何 is the most common at 21st and 賀 is the second most common at 71st in the list of the top 100 most common Chinese family names. Other less common family names include 河, 佫, and 赫).

A common alternative spelling of this surname is Ho, the Mandarin dialect Wade-Giles romanization and the Cantonese dialect romanization of several Chinese family names.

 

Hu is a Chinese surname. It is the 15th most common surname in China, according to a study published in 2006.

The spelling Hu can be used by numerous less common Chinese family names including but not limited to 瓠,護,戶,扈,虎,呼,忽,斛 etc

Non-Chinese peoples in China (see Ethnic minorities in China) sometimes took the name of their ethnic group as surname. The best example is Hu (胡), which was also used to refer to all "barbarian" groups on the northern frontier of China in ancient times. In addition, some adopted Chinese surnames that sound similar to their name, such as Hu for Hussain.

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Sixteenth Century Japanese Pirate Raids

From the 13th century, Wokou based in Japan made their debut in East Asia, initiating invasions that would persist for 300 years.

Piracy in South East Asia began with the retreating Mongol Yuan fleet after the betrayal by their Javanese allies (who, incidentally, would found the empire of Majapahit after the Mongols left). They preferred the junk, a ship using a more robust sail layout. Marooned navy officers, consisting mostly of Cantonese and Hokkien tribesmen, set up their small gangs near river estuaries, mainly to protect themselves. They recruited locals as common foot-soldiers known as 'lang' (lanun) to set up their fortresses. They survived by utilizing their well trained pugilists, as well as marine and navigation skills, mostly along Sumatran and Javanese estuaries. Their strength and ferocity coincided with the impending trade growth of the maritime silk and spice routes.

However, the most powerful pirate fleets of East Asia were those of Chinese pirates during the mid-Qing dynasty. Pirate fleets grew increasingly powerful throughout the early 19th century. The effects large-scale piracy had on the Chinese economy were immense. They preyed voraciously on China's junk trade, which flourished in Fujian and Guangdong and was a vital artery of Chinese commerce. Pirate fleets exercised hegemony over villages on the coast, collecting revenue by exacting tribute and running extortion rackets. In 1802, the menacing Zheng Yi inherited the fleet of his cousin, captain Zheng Qi, whose death provided Zheng Yi with considerably more influence in the world of piracy. Zheng Yi and his wife, Zheng Yi Sao (who would eventually inherit the leadership of his pirate confederacy) then formed a pirate coalition that, by 1804, consisted of over ten thousand men. Their military might alone was sufficient to combat the Qing navy. However, a combination of famine, Qing naval opposition, and internal rifts crippled piracy in China around the 1820s, and it has never again reached the same status.

Hai jin (海禁 literally "ocean forbidden") was a ban on maritime activities during China's Ming Dynasty and again during the Qing Dynasty. It is commonly referred to as "Sea Ban". Intended to curb piracy, the ban proved ineffective for that purpose, while imposing huge hardships on coastal communities and legitimate sea traders.

Ming Policy: Under the Ming Dynasty, Hongwu Emperor was the first to propose the policy to ban all maritime shipping in 1371. The only way that foreigners might visit Ming China was via the tribute system. After extreme pressure from the bureaucracy, by 1550 the ban was lifted. To facilitate the maritime trade, the Ming government established ambassadors at Ningbo, Quanzhou and Guangzhou. Each vassal state received about 200 paper passports afterwards.

Qing Policy: Zheng Chenggong was a military leader from the Ming government situated in the coastal region, capable of threatening the Qing. In 1647, another sea ban was issued to limit foreign trade with severe punishment imposed. In 1655 the "Frontier Shift" was imposed in Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shandong. It required coastal residents to move in land 30-50 li (est. 15 to 25 kilometers). All private boats and ships were burned. Small rafts were not allowed at sea. In 1684, the ban was stopped, trading was reopened under Kangxi Emperor. In 1685 a "Taxation Rule for Sea Trade" was drafted by Yiergetu.

Wōkòu (倭寇) or Japanese pirates were pirates who raided the coastlines of China and Korea from the thirteenth century onwards. Originally, the Wokou were mainly soldiers, ronin, merchants and smugglers from Japan, but became predominantly from China two centuries later.

The Ming government first labeled the Japanese raiders as "dwarf pirates", and soon discovered many to be renegade Chinese who joined ronin samurai to battle the Ming regime. By the early seventeenth century, virtually all pirates on China's coast were various Chinese ethnicities such as the Han, though they continued labeled as wokou.

Controversy: The purpose of the Ocean Prohibition is unclear and disputed; the only certainty is that the law prohibited private ships from sailing in the ocean.

Some have argued that the Hai jin marked a retreat from maritime activities such as the voyages of Zheng He and was symptomatic of a technological decline and stagnation that would culminate in China's 19th-century humiliation by Europe.

The ban was also seen as a deceptive proposal, since it prevented the rise of any self-sufficient economies along the coast. Eventually new economies could not be born, and no power was drawn away from the existing imperial courts, thus making this ban a political move.

The law worked a great hardship for coastal dwellers and stimulated rebellions, piracy and a great wave of overseas migration. Traditionally, southeast Asia was the preferred destination for Chinese emigrants (see Liang Dao Ming).

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Wuyi Mountains

The Wuyi Mountains (武夷山) are a mountain range located at the prefecture Nanping, at the northern border of Fujian (Hok-kian) province with Jiangxi province, China. The mountains cover an area of 60 km². In 1999, Mount Wuyi entered UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites, both natural and cultural. It is the most outstanding biodiversity conservation zone of Southeast China. Numerous types of tea are produced around Mount Wuyi, it is the origin of the real Da Hong Pao tea and Lapsang souchong, further described in Wuyi tea.

Human settlement on the slopes of Mount Wuyi can be traced back 4,000 years by archeological remains. During the Western Han Dynasty, the ancient city of Chengcun was the capital of the Minyue kingdom. In the 7th century, the Wuyi Palace was built for emperors to conduct sacrificial activities, a site that tourists can still visit today. The mountains were an important center of Taoism and later Buddhism. Remains of 35 academies erected from the era of the Northern Song to the Qin Dynasty and more than 60 Taoist temples and monasteries have been located. However, most of these remains are very incomplete. Some of the exceptions for which authentic remains are preserved are the Taoyuan Temple, the Wannian Palace, the Sanqing Hall, the Tiancheng Temple, the Baiyun temple, and the Tianxin temple. The area is the cradle of Neo-Confucianism, a current that became very influential since the 11th century.

 

 

Major Cities in Fujian:

• Fuzhou (Foochow; see Foochow People)
• Xiamen (Amoy)
• Quanzhou
• Zhangzhou
• Putian

 

Xiamen

Xiamen (廈門), also known as Amoy, is a coastal sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian province, People's Republic of China. It looks out to the Taiwan Strait and borders Quanzhou (Chôan-chiu) to the north and Zhangzhou (Chiang-chiu) to the south.

Xiamen and the surrounding countryside are famous for being an ancestral home to overseas Chinese and one of China's earliest Special Economic Zones in the 1980s. It covers an area of 1 565 km² with a local population of 5 million. It was recently named China's 2nd most livable city.

Xiamen was the port of trade first used by Europeans (mainly the Portuguese) in 1541. It was China's main port in the nineteenth century for exporting tea. As a result, Hokkien (also known as the Amoy dialect) had a major influence on how Chinese terminology was translated into English and other European languages. For example, the words "Amoy", "tea" (茶), "cumshaw" (感謝), "ketchup" (茄汁), and "Pekoe" (白毫), kowtow (磕頭), and possibly Japan (Ji̍t-pún) originated from the Hokkien.

Xiamen was one of the five Chinese treaty ports opened by the Treaty of Nanjing (signed in 1842) at the end of the First Opium War between Britain and China. As a result, it was an early entry point for Protestant missions in China.

Amoy Magic by Bill Brown

 

 

 

History and Ecclesiastical Relations of the Churches of the Presbyterial Order at Amoy, China by Rev. J. V. N. Talmage

 

 

 

 

Quanzhou

Quanzhou (泉州) is a prefecture-level city in Fujian province, People's Republic of China. It borders all other prefecture-level cities in Fujian but two (Ningde and Nanping) and faces the Taiwan Strait. In older English works, its name may appear as Chinchew or Chinchu.

Geography: Quanzhou is a coastal prefecture bordered by Xiamen sub-provincial city to the south west. It also forms another border with Zhangzhou and Longyan prefecture level city towards the west. Putian and Fuzhou forms Quanzhou's north east border and Sanming from the north.

Quanzhou is mountainous and has many rivers and tributaries originating from the interior.

History: Quanzhou was established in 718 during the Tang Dynasty (618–907). In those days, Guangzhou was China's greatest seaport, but this status would be surpassed later by Quanzhou.

During the Tang Dynasty, a steady stream of Arab (Ta'shi) and Persian (Po'si) traders arrived in China through the silk road and the overseas route through the port of Quanzhou. Not all of the immigrants were Muslims, but many of those who stayed formed the basis of the Chinese Muslim population and the Hui ethnic group. The Persian immigrants introduced polo, their cuisine, their musical instruments, and their knowledge of medicine to China.

During the Song Dynasty (960–1279) and Yuan Dynasty (1279–1368), Quanzhou was one of the world's largest seaports, hosting a large community of foreign-born inhabitants from across the Eurasian world.

Due to its reputation, Quanzhou has been called the starting point of the Silk Road via the sea. In The Travels of Marco Polo, Quanzhou (called Zayton, T'swan-Chau or Chin-Cheu) was listed as the departure point for Marco Polo's expedition to escort the 17-year-old Mongol princess bride Kököchin to her new husband in the Persian Ilkhanate. In 1357 however a military revolt by the local Persian militia led to a ten-year rebellion that resulted in large civilian casualties in Quanzhou.

Quanzhou Overseas Relations Museum preserves a number of relics related to the Quanzhou's era as a major seaport. A particularly important exhibit is is the so-called Quanzhou ship, a sea-going junk that sunk some time after 1272, and was recovered in 1973-74.

Quanzhou is also a migration source of many Overseas Chinese living in South East Asia and to Taiwan during the last couple of centuries.

Dialect: Local people speak a variant of Hokkien which is similar to Amoy and Taiwanese.

 

The Emporium of the World: Maritime Quanzhou, 1000-1400 by Angela Schottenhammer (Editor)

 

 

 

Marionette Theatre in Quanzhou by Robin Ruizendaal

 

 

 

 

Zhangzhou

Zhangzhou (漳州): Chiang-chiu) is a prefecture-level city in southern Fujian province, People's Republic of China. Located on the banks of the Xi River, Zhangzhou borders the cities of Xiamen (廈門) and Quanzhou (泉州) to the northeast, Longyan City to the northwest and the province of Guangdong to the southwest.

In older English works, its name may appear as Chang-Chow or Changchow.

 

Zhangzhou Ware Found in the Philippines: Swatow Export Ceramics 16-17th Century by Rita C. Tan

 

 

 

 

Fuzhou

Fuzhou  (福州) also seen as Foochow, Fuchow or Fuh-chau is the capital of Fujian province

Although traditionally called a dialect, Foochowese is actually a separate language according to linguistic standards, because it is not mutually intelligible with other branches of Min Language and other Chinese languages. After Han China's occupation of Minyue (閩越) in 110 BC, Han people began its reign in what is Fujian Province today. Having lost their nationalities, the aboriginal Minyue people, a branch of Yue peoples (百越), were gradually assimilated into Chinese culture. The Ancient Wu and Ancient Chu language brought by the mass influx of Han immigrants from Northern area gradually mixed with the local Minyue language and finally developed into the Ancient Min language, from which Foochowese evolved.

* Foochow People

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Jian Tea Wares

Jian tea bowl, 960–1279

Jian blackwares, mainly comprising tea wares, were made at kilns located in Jianyang of Fujian province. They reached the peak of their popularity during the Song dynasty. The wares were made using locally-won, iron-rich clays and fired in an oxidising atmosphere at temperatures in the region of 1300°C. The glaze was made using clay similar to that used for forming the body, except fluxed with wood-ash. At high temperatures the molten glaze separate to produce a pattern called hare's fur. When Jian wares were set tilted for firing, drips run down the side, creating evidence of liquid glaze pooling.

The hare's fur Jian tea bowl illustrated in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York was made during the Song dynasty (960 to 1279 AD) and exhibits the typical pooling, or thickening, of the glaze near the bottom. The hare's fur patterning in the glaze of this bowl resulted from the random effect of phase separation during early cooling in the kiln and is unique to this bowl. This phase separation in the iron-rich glazes of Chinese blackwares was also used to produce the well-known oil-spot, teadust and partridge-feather glaze effects. No two bowls have identical patterning. The bowl also has a dark brown iron-foot which is typical of this style. It would have been fired, probably with several thousand other other pieces, each in its own stackable saggar, in a single-firing in a large dragon kiln. One such kiln, built on the side of a steep hill, was almost 150 metres in length, though most Jian dragon kilns were fewer than 100 metres in length.

An 11th century resident of Fujian wrote:

"Tea is of light colour and looks best in black cups. The cups made at Jianyang are bluish-black in colour, marked like the fur of a hare. Being of rather thick fabric they retain the heat, so that when once warmed through they cool very slowly, and they are additionally valued on this account. None of the cups produced at other places can rival these. Blue and white cups are not used by those who give tea-tasting parties."

At the time, tea was prepared by whisking powdered leaves that had been pressed into dried cakes together with hot water, (somewhat akin to Japanese Tea Ceremony). The water added to this powder produced a white froth that would stand out better against a dark bowl. Tastes in preparation changed during the Ming dynasty; the Hongwu Emperor himself preferred leaves to powdered cakes, and would accept only leaf tea as tribute from tea-producing regions. Leaf tea, in contrast to powdered tea, was prepared by steeping whole leaves in boiling water - a process that led to the invention of the teapot and subsequent popularity of Yixing wares over the dark tea bowls.

Jian tea wares of the Song dynasty were also greatly appreciated and copied in Japan, where they were known as tenmoku wares.

 

Hare's Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers: Chinese Brown and Black Glazed Ceramics, 400-1400 Robert D. Mowry, Eugene Farrell

 

 

 

Japanese Tea Culture: Art, History and Practice by Morgan Pitelka

 

 

 

 

Blanc de Chine

Blanc de Chine Tripod, Early 17th Century

Blanc de Chine is a type of white porcelain made at Dehua (德化) in the Fujian province. It has been produced from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) to the present day. Large quantities arrived in Europe as Chinese Export Porcelain in the early 18th century and it was copied at Meissen and elsewhere.

The area along the Fujian coast was traditionally one of the main ceramic exporting centers. Over one-hundred and eighty kiln sites have been identified extending in historical range from the Song period to present.

From the Ming period porcelain objects were manufactured that achieved a fusion of glaze and body traditionally referred to as "ivory white" and "milk white." The special characteristic of Dehua porcelain is the very small amount of iron oxide in it, allowing it to be fired in an oxidising atmosphere to a warm white or pale ivory color. (Wood, 2007)

The porcelain body is not very plastic but vessel forms have been made from it. Donnelly, (1969, pp.xi-xii) lists the following types of product: figures, boxes, vases and jars, cups and bowls, fishes, lamps, cup-stands, censers and flowerpots, animals, brush holders, wine and teapots, Buddhist and Taoist figures, secular figures and puppets. There was a large output of figures, especially religious figures, e.g. Guanyin, Maitreya, Lohan and Ta-mo figures.

Notable artists in blanc de Chine, such as the late Ming period He Chaozong, signed their creations with their seals. Wares include crisply modeled figures, cups, bowls and joss stick-holders.

Many of the best examples of blanc de Chine are found in Japan where the white variety was termed hakugorai or "Korean white", a term often found in tea ceremony circles. The British Museum in London has a large number of blanc de Chine pieces, having received as a gift in 1980 the entire collection of P.J.Donnelly.

 

Blanc De Chine: The Great Porcelain of Dehua by Robert H. Blumenfield

 

 

 

A Royal Menagerie: Meissen Porcelain Animals by Samuel Wittwer

 

 

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Silk Road

 

 

Early Western Influence in Fujian

The first tangible record, for what it is worth, of Westerners in Fuzhou is that of Marco Polo, in about 1285 when he visited Fujiu. He observed that the people were the subjects of Kublai Khan, were ‘idolaters’, and much engaged in commerce and manufacture. ‘In these parts the tigers are of great size and strength. Ginger and galangal are produced in great quantities as well as other drugs.’ He did not seem to be very impressed with Fuzhou and barely gives the city a mention other than to remark that, ‘The people in this part of the country are addicted to eating human flesh, esteeming it more delicate than any other, provided that the person has not been occasioned by disease … They are a most savage race of men, insomuch that when they slay their enemies in battle, they are anxious to drink their blood and afterwards they devour their flesh.’

Given that Marco Polo dictated his book in prison several years after he returned from China, the accuracy of his remarks may be suspect. Either his memory was clouded by that time, or his ghost writer was more imaginative than he was. Some suggest that he did not visit this part of China at all. Nevertheless, he was impressed with Quanzhou (Zaiton), two hundred kilometres to the south of Fuzhou and according to Marco Polo, fifteen miles from Guangzhou. He claims to have visited Quanzhou, after leaving Fuzhou and making a detour that takes in Guilin and Guangzhou. He found to be Quanzhou a bustling port, was impressed by the quantity of pepper imports and noted that sugar was produced.

"There is a remarkable passage by Rustichello of Pisa, the "as-told-to" author of The Travels of Marco Polo, that appears to have escaped the attention of Jewish historians altogether. It tells how, when Messer Maffeo, Marco's uncle, and Messer Marco himself were in the city of Fu-Chau, there was in their company a certain Saracen who spoke to them as follows: "In such-and-such a place there is a community whose religion nobody knows. It is evidently not idolatrous, since they keep no idols. They do not worship fire. They do not profess Mahomet. And they do not appear to observe the Christian order. I suggest that we should go and have a talk with them. "Marco Polo and his uncle did just that. At first, writes Rustichello, the members of this mysterious community were reluctant to talk, for they were afraid that their visitors had been sent by the Great Khan to make this investigation in order to get them into trouble. But Maffeo and Marco attended the place regularly day after day, familiarizing themselves with these people and inquiring about their affairs. They discovered that they did indeed hold the Christian faith. For they possessed books and Maffeo and Marco, poring over them, began to interpret the writing. Translating it word by word from one language to another, till they found that they were the words of the Psalter.

They inquired from what source they had received their faith and their rule; and their informants replied: "From our forefathers." It came out that they had in a certain temple of their three pictures representing three apostles of the seventy who went through the world, preaching. They declared that it was these three who had instructed their ancestors in this faith long ago, and that it had been preserved among them for 700 years. For a long time they had been without teaching, so that they were "ignorant of the cardinal doctrines." In other words, it seems that their ancestors in China were practicing a form of Judaism but were unaware of the events of the Christian era.

The Moroccan traveller Ebn-e Batutta visited the port of Zaytun - (modern day Quanzhou) and still known as Citong - in the mid-fourteenth century. He encountered a certain Shaykh Borhã noddin who gathered donations for the Sufi congregation of the Shrine of Abu Es’hã q-e Kã zeruni in Kã zerun, Iran.

During the period of the Mongol Yuan dynasty, China was open for trade and foreign intercourse of all kinds, including religious tolerance. The Jesuits were most successful in introducing Christianity, but the inroads made and the accumulated trust that might just have encouraged trade were lost when the Pope decided to undo a couple of hundred years of the work of his missionaries by countermanding their acceptance of ancestor respect (worship).

The Mongol empire fell and China officially closed its doors to foreign trade for 500 years. Many tried to engage in trade throughout the Ming and the early parts of the Qing dynasties, but the Chinese simply did not require to trade with the West or any other foreign trader, being satisfied that their own products satisfied their needs. For centuries the West failed to appreciate the validity of such a position and did not recognise the highly sophisticated systems that existed for trade and commerce in China. In 1000 years the only contribution that the West made was through the correction of the calendar by the Jesuits. Many an Emperor told Western ambassadors that he was not interested in the gadgets and toys that the West had to offer.

It was not until the 17th Century that Fujian started to feel pressure from the West to trade. The first probably came in the form of the Portuguese based in Macao who were not averse to raiding and pillaging along the southeast coast. When Portuguese influence was in decline, the Dutch in 1602 made their mark when the viceroy of Fujian Province reported to the Court in Beijing that the ‘Hong Mao’ (Red heads), had attempted to establish a base. He reported to the Emperor that they had been dissuaded from doing so. Whether they established a base or not, the Dutch were apparently in Fuzhou long enough to be able to make an extraordinarily detailed and accurate survey of the mouth of the Min River and Fuzhou District, as shown on Bellin's 1758 map "Suivant les Hollandois". The Dutch were evidently in Fuzhou for some considerable time and were accepted by the Chinese generally. One could hardly create such a chart without the consent and assistance of the local people. This map and others created in the 16th to 18th centuries suggest that foreigners were in China in considerable numbers, sufficient to map accurately much of mainland China and not only the coastal areas.

In the ensuing years from the visit of Marco Polo and the opening of Fuzhou as a Treaty port in 1843, there were many other foreign visitors to Fuzhou, but there is little in the literature other than intense mapping, to mark such occasions. The reasons for this may be twofold. The first is the positioning of Fuzhou City. Fuzhou was established in 202 BC as the City of Ye. It is surrounded by mountains and the approach to the city by sea is through a narrow swift flowing passage of the Min River that is difficult to navigate. Furthermore, by land routes Fuzhou was, as it is now, the end of the line and not part of any major trading route. The second reason is that the only foreign trade port permitted in China was Guangdong (Canton) and foreigners were not supposed to be roaming freely around China.

Immediately before the First Opium War there was considerable visible activity. Opium receiving stations of the great trading houses floated offshore Fuzhou and handled about $2 million of business annually by the mid 1840s - before the port was officially opened.

Problems for the Chinese with foreigners started in the late 18th Century. The British East India Company trading in India, China and Indonesia was prohibited by protectionist Acts of Parliament from importing into Britain any textiles, silks and the like, that would compete with local industry. This left the Company with only tea as a commodity of importance that could be sold in Britain. Since China demanded in exchange for tea, only gold or silver and would not accept any trade materials other than materials from India, the company was left with a serious imbalance in their dealings. From 1792 to 1807 imports to England were valued at 27 million pounds while exports to China were worth only 16 million pounds.

At first diplomatic representations to the Court were made, first by Lieutenant-Colonel Cathcart in 1788 who died on the way to China, and then by Lord Macartney in 1792. Lord Macartney was unsuccessful in obtaining any of the concessions that the Company had hoped for from the Chinese Government and the Company had to take other measures to improve the balance of trade. Two products from India found acceptance in China, one was raw cotton and the other was opium. As the Chinese took up the use of opium for recreational rather than medicinal purposes, imports increased from 600 cases in 1750 to 5000 cases in 1815. In that year a further attempt was made to open trade by diplomatic means through Lord Amherst. He was even less successful than Lord Macartney.

Nonetheless, attempts were made to trade in Fujian before Fuzhou was 'officially' opened to trade. In 1832 the redoubtable Prussian missionary doctor cum diplomat interpreter and later opium trader Karl Friedrich August Gutslaff visited Fuzhou with Captain Lindsey of the British ship Lord Amherst. Lindsey managed to sell some of his trade goods but Gutslaff distributed Christian tracts 'to eager and grateful readers'. Gutslaff also reported that the common people were very friendly, but they received a less friendly welcome from the City’s officials.

By 1825 the balance of trade had swung in the other direction, wherein the demand for silver to pay for opium was beginning to affect the national economy. The trade in opium was made illegal in 1798 but little was done to enforce the law. In 1838 the Emperor appointed Lin Zexu, a highly respected official from Fuzhou to put a halt to the opium trade. Lin had gained some credibility as an honest dealer through the suppression of salt smuggling.

Lin first appealed to the populous to stop using opium, and to the Chinese traders to stop dealing in opium with foreign traders. He even wrote to Queen Victoria threatening to cut off the trade in tea and rhubarb. He felt that to withhold the laxative might bring the constipated nation to reason. In 1839 Lin Zexu finally took decisive action. He demanded that the dealers hand over their opium but for six weeks they refused to comply. He tried to arrest Lancelot Dent, one of the major opium dealers and then blockaded the factories. The dealers persuaded by the British resident handed over some three million pounds of raw opium that Lin Zexu contrived with some difficulty to destroy.

By a curious sleight of mind, the opium traders persuaded the British Government that it was unreasonable to destroy the goods that they intended to smuggle into China. The British Superintendent of Trade in China wrote to the ‘Minister of the Emperor of China’ protesting against the violent outrages against British residents. In response, in June 1840, the British, with 4,000 troops backed by four armed steam ships, blockaded Guangzhou’s harbour and so the First Opium War began. The war ended after the British supported by a number of other nations looking for spoils, had destroyed defences in Guangzhou and Tianjin, and had taken part of Guangzhou city. The Treaty of Nanjing was signed in August 1842. This treaty stipulated the opening of Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Ningbo and Shanghai to Foreign trade and the ceding of Hong Kong in perpetuity. The treaty provisions were then extended to the Americans, the French and later to other nations. From that time on, but only for another twenty or so years, the name of the city of Fuzhou – or Foochow - became well recognised in England.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Mazu

Mazu (媽祖; literally "Mother-Ancestor"), also spelt Matsu, is the indigenous goddess of the sea who protects fishermen and sailors, and is invoked as the goddess who protects East Asians who are associated with the ocean. Her mortal name is Lin Moniang (林默娘).

She is widely worshipped in the south-eastern coastal areas of China and neighbouring areas in Southeast Asia, especially Zhejiang, Fujian, Taiwan, Guangdong, and Vietnam, all of which have strong sea-faring traditions, as well as migrant communities elsewhere with sizeable populations from these areas.

According to legend, Lin Moniang was born in 960 AD (during the early Northern Song Dynasty) as the seventh daughter of Lin Yuan (林愿) on Meizhou Island, Fujian. She did not cry when she was born, and thus her given name means "Silent Girl."

There are many legends about her and the sea.

Although she started swimming relatively late at the age of 15, she soon became an excellent swimmer. She wore red garments while standing on the shore to guide fishing boats home, even in the most dangerous and harsh weather.

According to legend, Lin Moniang's father and brothers were fishermen. One day, a terrible typhoon arose while they were out at sea, and the rest of her family feared that those at sea had perished. In the midst of this storm, depending on the version of the legend, she fell into a trance while praying for the lives of her father and brothers or dreamed of her father and brothers while she was sleeping or sitting at a loom weaving. In either story, her father and brother were drowning. However, Moniang's mother now discovered her and tried to wake her, and diverted Moniang's attention, causing her to drop her brother, who as a result drowned. Consequently, Moniang's father returned alive and told the other villagers that a miracle had happened. Other versions of the story relate four drowning brothers, with three returning and the fourth lost to her being revived (with no mention of a father).

Mazu is usually depicted together with two guardian generals known as "Thousand Miles Eye" (千里眼, Qianli Yan) and "With-the-Wind Ear" (順風耳 Shunfeng Er). Their iconography, apart from resembling fierce demons can vary but "Thousand Miles Eye" is often red in color with two horns, while "With-the-Wind Ear" is green with one horn. They are said to have been two demons whom Mazu conquered and subdued, turning them into her own loyal guardians and friends.

Mazu herself is usually depicted wearing a red robe in paintings or murals, but in sculpture is always clothed in the jewel-festooned robes of an empress holding a ceremonial tablet and wearing the easily recognized flat-topped imperial cap with hanging beads front and back.

There are at least two versions of Lin Moniang's death. In one version, she died in 987 at the age of 28, when she climbed a mountain alone and flew to heaven and became a goddess. Another version of the legend says that she died at age 16 of exhaustion after swimming far into the ocean trying to find her lost father and that her corpse later washed ashore in Nankan Island of the Matsu Islands.

Buddhism and Taoism borrowed popular deities from each other in attempts to attract devotees to their temples. In an attempt to justify Mazu's presence in Buddhist temples, legends were circulated claiming that Mazu's parents prayed to Guan Yin for a son, but Guanyin answered their prayers with the birth of yet another daughter. It was then believed that Mazu was a reincarnation of Guanyin on earth, and it is Guanyin she is said to have been especially devoted to as a child. As a result, Mazu is recognized and respected in both the Taoist and Buddhist pantheons of deities (although to a lesser extent in the Buddhist faith).

After her death, the families of many fishermen and sailors began to pray to her in honor of her acts of courage in trying to save those at sea. Her worship spread quickly. Much of her popularity in comparison to other sea deities resulted from her role as a compassionate motherly protector, in contrast to authoritarian father figures like the Dragon Kings. She is usually depicted wearing a red robe, and sitting on a throne. As often happens to revered folk heroes in Chinese culture, she became an empress figure during the Yuan Dynasty.

Starting from Fujian, worship of Mazu spread to the neighbouring coastal provinces of Zhejiang and Guangdong, and thence to all coastal areas of mainland China. With emigration and especially the Chinese diaspora of the 19th and 20th centuries, it further spread to Taiwan, Vietnam, Ryukyu, Japan, and South East Asia; the role of Mazu as patron of the seas ensured that newly arrived immigrants often erected temples to her first, to give thanks for arriving safely. Today, worship of Mazu is also found in other countries with sizeable populations from these regions. In total, there are around 1,500 Mazu temples in 26 countries of the world.

Her birthday-festival is on the twenty-third day of the third lunar month of the Chinese calendar. It falls in late April or early May in the Gregorian calendar.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

鐵觀音

Tie Guan Yin (鐵觀音; literally meaning iron Guan Yin) is a premium variety of Chinese oolong tea associated with Anxi in the Fujian province. Named after the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara (best known as Guan Yin; 觀音), it has also been translated as "Iron Goddess of Mercy" after the old translation for Guan Yin's name. Recently the tea has been grown in Nantou, Taiwan where it thrives.

A variety of this tea from the Wuyi Mountains in Fujian is called Monkey-Picked. This comes from the story that monkeys were trained by Buddhist monks to pick the youngest leaves of the wild species of tea plants that grew on high cliff faces and such inaccessible places in this area. It is considered the best of the oolong tea varieties. These days none of the so-called 'monkey-picked' teas are actually picked by monkeys.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Lin Yutang

Lin Yutang (林語堂; October 10, 1895 – March 26, 1976) was a Chinese writer and inventor. His informal but polished style in both Chinese and English made him one of the most influential writers of his generation, and his compilations and translations of classic Chinese texts into English were bestsellers in the West.

Lin was born in the town of Banzai, Pinghe, Zhangzhou, Fujian. This mountainous region made a deep impression on his consciousness, and thereafter he would constantly consider himself a child of the mountains (in one of his books he commented that his idea of hell was a city apartment). His father was a Christian minister. His journey of faith from Christianity to Taoism and Buddhism, and back to Christianity in his later life was recorded in his book From Pagan to Christian (1959).

Lin studied for his bachelor's degree at Saint John's University in Shanghai, then received a half-scholarship to continue study for a doctoral degree at Harvard University. He later wrote that in the Widener Library he first found himself and first came alive, but he never saw a Harvard-Yale game. He left Harvard early however, moving to France and eventually to Germany, where he completed his requirements for a doctoral degree (in Chinese) at the University of Leipzig. From 1923 to 1926 he taught English literature at Peking University.

Dr. Lin was very active in the popularization of classical Chinese literature in the West, as well as the general Chinese attitude towards life.

Legacy: After 1928 he lived mainly in the United States, where his translations of Chinese texts remained popular for many years. At the behest of Pearl Buck, he wrote My Country and My People (吾國與吾民) (1935) and The Importance of Living (生活的藝術) (1937), written in English in a charming and witty style, which became bestsellers. Others include Between Tears and Laughter (啼笑皆非) (1943), The Importance of Understanding (1960, a book of translated Chinese literary passages and short pieces), The Chinese Theory of Art (1967), and the novels Moment in Peking (京華煙雲) (1939) and The Vermillion Gate (朱門) (1953).

His many works represent an attempt to bridge the cultural gap between the East and the West. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times in the 1970s.

With his unique facility for both Chinese and English idiom, Lin presided over the compilation of an outstanding Chinese-English dictionary, Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage (林語堂當代漢英詞典) (1972), which contains a massive English index to definitions of Chinese terms. The work was undertaken in Hong Hong, where Lin served for a time at the newly founded Chinese University.

Dr. Lin was buried at his home in Yangmingshan, Taipei, Taiwan. His home has been turned into a museum, which is operated by Taipei-based Soochow University. The town of Lin's birth, Banzai, has also preserved the original Lin home and turned it into a museum.

 

吾國與吾民 by 林語堂

 

 

 

My Country and My People by Lin Yutang

 

 

 

The Importance of Living by Lin Yutang

 

 

 

 

 

伯雄

吳伯雄（1939年6月19日－），臺灣桃園中壢客家人，前桃園縣縣長吳鴻麟之子。曾任前總統府秘書長、行政院內政部部長、政務委員、桃園縣第七屆縣長、台北市長、中國國民黨中央委員會副主席及第五任中國國民黨中央委員會主席，現為中國國民黨榮譽黨主席。

吳伯雄祖籍為福建省永定縣下洋鎮思賢村，是一座地接廣東省的閩西客家家莊，文風興盛、保有中原士族純樸遺緒。之後思賢村吳家於清朝咸豐年間，在吳伯雄的曾祖父吳聖昌(勝昌)的帶領下，渡海遷台，落籍桃園中壢。爾後，吳伯雄的祖父吳榮棣來台後，在台成為光緒年間秀才，並為台灣文吟詩社社長，為當時台灣早期本土著名的鄉土詩人。

____________________________________________________________________________________________