The Han dynasty

[yoMAMA]

There's an article in this month's issue of national geographic about the Han dynasty, pretty interesting stuff.

Anyone else read it?

[amietron]

is this the article?

By Mike EdwardsPhotographs by O. Louis Mazzatenta

As mighty in the East two thousand years ago as the Romans were in the West, the Han emperors—brilliant, cunning, and cruel—left a mark on China that endures today.

Get a taste of what awaits you in print from this compelling excerpt.

"At last the whole world is mine," the first Han emperor, Liu Bang, is said to have declared as he claimed the imperial throne in 202 B.C., the first of 27 Lius to reign. Far from the whole world, his writ extended across a territory only about half as large as today's China. Tough, and common as his surname—China swarms with people named Liu—he despised learned Confucians, whom he readily identified by their distinctive peaked hats. According to an incident recounted by a famous Han historian, Sima Qian, when Liu Bang encountered one of these worthies he "immediately snatches the hat from the visitor's head and pisses in it."

Liu Bang had been a minor official in the previous dynasty, the Qin (or Chin, from which "China" derives). The Qin was the first dynasty to weld China's oft-warring kingdoms into a single state. It was also cruel and soon collapsed. With the throne up for grabs, Liu Bang raised an army. His most formidable opponent, a general named Xiang Yu, captured Liu Bang's father and sent Liu Bang an ultimatum: "Surrender or I will boil your venerable sire alive!"

Liu Bang replied merely: "Send me a cup of the soup."

Bravado won out; Dad wasn't stewed, and Liu Bang finally crushed Xiang Yu, who then, to deal with the humiliation, committed suicide with his one remaining concubine.

The victor put his capital in the city of Changan ("eternal peace"), whose ruins lie today in the suburbs of its bustling, tourist-packed successor, Xian ("western peace"). In those ruins on a June afternoon, I stood atop a mound 50 feet (20 meters) high—the site of Liu Bang's palace. Portions of Changan's city wall, which encompassed 13 square miles (33 square kilometers), poked from fields where peasants were reaping wheat, some with scythes, some at the wheels of combines.

Liu Bang, also known as Gaozu, "high ancestor," (symbolic names were often posthumously conferred on emperors) called his palace Lasting Joy. Joy? I thought I heard screams from the ruins. After his death in 195 B.C. his empress, Lu Zhi, tried to hijack the empire for her own family. She had several Liu Bang sons born to concubines murdered and for good measure mutilated his favorite mistress and had her tossed into a privy.

Routing other Liu kin and loyal generals from their fiefdoms—the spoils of rulership—she replaced them with her own relatives. Fifteen years passed before the Liu clan managed to regain control, enthroning a surviving Liu Bang son, Emperor Wen. The Lius then wiped out all the empress's kin they could get their hands on.

Oh, the Han women! This wouldn't be the last time an empress or concubine colluded in a dangerous political game.

Get the whole story in the pages of National Geographic magazine.

[yoMAMA]

Originally Posted by amietron

is this the article?

yep!

[Napoleon Chynamite]

Interesting. Yet conveniently cutting the article off after insinuating they would go into greater detail regarding Han women. Conniving bastards ^^ they must be desperate for new subscriptions.

[yoMAMA]

Originally Posted by Gumby

Interesting. Yet conveniently cutting the article off after insinuating they would go into greater detail regarding Han women. Conniving bastards ^^ they must be desperate for new subscriptions.

they are desperate-they even have a swimsuit issue now.

[SunWuKong]

arguably the most glorious dynasty in the history of China, after the Tang dynasty.

[hooligan]

i ran across the article in a national geographic at the student clinic, i was going to steal it but i carelessly left it out in the open when i left so i couldn't grab it on my way out. :( looking at the captions and pictures, the article is definitely well put together. i didn't have a chance to read it before i left.

[Napoleon Chynamite]

Originally Posted by hooligan

i ran across the article in a national geographic at the student clinic, i was going to steal it but i carelessly left it out in the open when i left so i couldn't grab it on my way out. :( looking at the captions and pictures, the article is definitely well put together. i didn't have a chance to read it before i left.

haha, I used to have those types of temptations as a teen, except it was more like the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, and not National Geographic.

[hooligan]

Originally Posted by Gumby

haha, I used to have those types of temptations as a teen, except it was more like the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, and not National Geographic.

well i only flipped through the pages of national geographic to catch some nudie shots <3

[Seamus]

I subscribe to NG and read that article. It was short, but the writing was better than NG's usual cliche-ridden boilerplate. Good photos, too. I was actually in Xinjiang in December, one of the areas discussed in more detail in the article, as the Tarim basin was the western outpost of the Han dynasty. Incidentally, does anyone know why only Northern (or "real," as I like to kid) Chinese people (like myself)--not counting ethnic minorities--consider themselves "Han" people? Why do Cantonese people name themselves after the Tang dynasty, and do they consider themselves ETHNIC Chinese (as opposed to citizens of the Chinese state, which they obviously are)?

[SunWuKong]

Originally Posted by Seamus

I subscribe to NG and read that article. It was short, but the writing was better than NG's usual cliche-ridden boilerplate. Good photos, too. I was actually in Xinjiang in December, one of the areas discussed in more detail in the article, as the Tarim basin was the western outpost of the Han dynasty. Incidentally, does anyone know why only Northern (or "real," as I like to kid) Chinese people (like myself)--not counting ethnic minorities--consider themselves "Han" people? Why do Cantonese people name themselves after the Tang dynasty, and do they consider themselves ETHNIC Chinese (as opposed to citizens of the Chinese state, which they obviously are)?

well, really, it's Minnan Hua that's the closest to how they spoke in the Han dynasty, but i don't think Fukienese people consider themselves to be northern.

and there was a wave of migration to the south during the Tang dynasty, specifically to the area of what is now Guangdong. that's why many Cantonese people still refer to the Chinese as Tang people, and that's why Tang poetry sounds better when read in Cantonese.

[Seamus]

Yeah, I remember reading that Cantonese has changed less from the original ancient Chinese than Mandarin has, which is kind of surprising given that the Sino-Tibetan languages originally came from the north, and that the south of China was originally populated by speakers of the Miao-Yiao, Tai-Kadai and Austroasian language families. I know there is a bit of Altaic influence on Mandarin pronunciation and vocabulary due to the influx of Turkic peoples into the northern Chinese population, but the grammar is obviously not in the least bit Altaic.

I think Cantonese songs are beautiful, but I think the spoken language sounds rather harsh, maybe because I understand none of it.

[Napoleon Chynamite]

If anything, I thought the Cantonese considered themselves more 'real Chinese' since much of the Han population arguably migrated to the south, whereas the remaining Han population in the north became repeatedly intermixed by other groups from Northern Asia like Manchurians and Mongolians. Of course much of the people who resulted from this mixture also in turn migrated to the south and mixed with southern indigenous groups as well, so....yea but I dunno, I still have always had this impression that many southern Chinese are more closer to 'pure Han' than northern Chinese, but once again, you can't draw a clear boundary. I've also noticed more Turkic features in the southern Chinese than the northern Chinese, such as larger eyes, long faces, etc. like myself, but I dunno. I also have this Turkish friend that literally looks like a slightly whiter or more 'middle-eastern' version of me, haha.

[Seamus]

I don't think the southern Chinese are that "pure" either, if by "pure" you mean unmixed with groups who did not arise from the Yellow and Yangtze river valleys. (Of course, all the groups originally came from the west and, ultimately, from Africa). They're just mixed more with the Austroasiatic peoples that got pushed into southeast Asia, whereas northern Chinese are mixed more with Turks, Mongols and other Altaic groups.

As for southern Chinese looking more "turkic," I think you might be onto something. This is odd because northern Chinese are definitely much more mixed with Central Asians. I was in Xinjiang and, while a lot of the Uyghurs look very Caucasian, the more Asian looking folks do seem to look more similar to "Cantonese" and other southern Han people (if you can call Cantonese people Hans). But a lot of Turks do share the squinty eyes and other "Mongoloid" features characteristic of northern Chinese.

[Napoleon Chynamite]

Originally Posted by Seamus

I don't think the southern Chinese are that "pure" either, if by "pure" you mean unmixed with groups who did not arise from the Yellow and Yangtze river valleys. (Of course, all the groups originally came from the west and, ultimately, from Africa). They're just mixed more with the Austroasiatic peoples that got pushed into southeast Asia, whereas northern Chinese are mixed more with Turks, Mongols and other Altaic groups.

As for southern Chinese looking more "turkic," I think you might be onto something. This is odd because northern Chinese are definitely much more mixed with Central Asians. I was in Xinjiang and, while a lot of the Uyghurs look very Caucasian, the more Asian looking folks do seem to look more similar to "Cantonese" and other southern Han people (if you can call Cantonese people Hans). But a lot of Turks do share the squinty eyes and other "Mongoloid" features characteristic of northern Chinese.

Southern Chinese may have more Turkish features simply because perhaps the existing Chinese gene pool that migrated towards the south had already turkish blood infused (I think much from what is now the present day Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces), before mixing with indigenous groups already in what is today the southern part of China (but to a lesser extent than the mixing with the Chinese that remained in the north). This is evident in myself and some of my cousins, who could pass for mixed or are assumed to be half-Portuguese if they are from the HK/Macau area. I think both my parents trace their lineage (very distant lineage I'm assuming) back to the Shanxi and Shaanxi province(s), but I've heard that a lot of Chinese today can also. The Chinese that did not migrate south were in turn mixed with, as you mentioned, say Manchurians or Mongolians or other central Asian peoples. I do remember reading however that the southern part of China (what used to be part of the Mongol empire) was not as influenced by invaders and the so-called 'barbarians' during much of history as the culturally Han populations of the north.

Well regardless I think it's safe to say that there are really no more pure-Han people to be found anywhere, so I always find it interesting to read up on this topic. When people use the term 'Han chinese', I take it more to mean it from a cultural angle rather than from a genetic angle, since the Chinese gene pool is enormous. Heck, I don't even look anything like my brother, who in turn doesn't look anything like my parents.