Foreigners in ancient Chinese history

Outofin · 2nd June 2005, 03:55 AM

Is anyone interested in this topic?

Li Bai, the greatest poet in Tang dynansty, was born in Sui Ye, where is currently in Kyrgyzstan territory. Was he a foreigner?

Sun Quan, the king of Wu in the Three Kingdoms period, was famous for his blue eyes. Was he a foreigner?

ala · 2nd June 2005, 04:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Outofin

Sun Quan, the king of Wu in the Three Kingdoms period, was famous for his blue eyes. Was he a foreigner?

No, the blue eyes is a metaphor.

Outofin · 2nd June 2005, 05:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ala

No, the blue eyes is a metaphor.

Really? A metaphor for what? People said he had blue eyes and purple beard. I though it's a physical description. Now I'm no longer sure.

Ian_Lee · 2nd June 2005, 05:19 AM

It depends on how you define the difference between a Chinese and a foreigner.

During Tang Dynasty, its territorial boundary reached the Caspian Sea. Definitely present day Kyrgyxstan was within Tang territory by that time.

And Tang was born after the great ethnic mix of the "Five Barbarian Sixteen Kingdoms" and "Northern-Southern Dynasty" period. By that time, China was like US where nobody was pure blood.

Not only Li Bai was not pure blood. An Lu Shan was neither. Yang Kuei Fei was neither. (You ever saw any pure-Han gal having such big breasts as Yang had?)

We should get rid of the concept that Chinese = Han.

China has always been a melting pot as US is.

马杰 · 2nd June 2005, 06:57 AM

Isn't the idea of China=Han promoted within China itself? The Han, by a huge percentage, are the majority in the present day borders.
China has mixed ethnicities due to the same practice most modern countries used going back to Charlemagne...conquest.

I think there is something odd about calling Mongols, Khyrgs, Muslims, etc as Chinese when they actually were not. Kind of an odd "absorption" thing.

xuezhongwen · 2nd June 2005, 07:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ian_Lee

It depends on how you define the difference between a Chinese and a foreigner.

During Tang Dynasty, its territorial boundary reached the Caspian Sea. Definitely present day Kyrgyxstan was within Tang territory by that time.

And Tang was born after the great ethnic mix of the "Five Barbarian Sixteen Kingdoms" and "Northern-Southern Dynasty" period. By that time, China was like US where nobody was pure blood.

Not only Li Bai was not pure blood. An Lu Shan was neither. Yang Kuei Fei was neither. (You ever saw any pure-Han gal having such big breasts as Yang had?)

We should get rid of the concept that Chinese = Han.

China has always been a melting pot as US is.

Perfectly said, including the 'big breast' part.

in all, they are all Chinese at the time.

Outofin · 2nd June 2005, 07:13 AM

Nothing in particular. Just thought it would be cool if Sun Quan was a furious kid from Sweden.

bokane · 2nd June 2005, 04:03 PM

I have to say, I'd love to see someone show definitively that Li Bai wasn't Chinese (in the sense of being any one of the 56 minorities that make up the happy Zhonghua minzu family). I seem to remember a reference to him drinking grape wine, which is pretty non-Chinese...

Lu · 2nd June 2005, 06:59 PM

1) Hard to know for sure just how big Yang Guifei's breasts were.
2) Any woman, Chinese or not, gets bigger breasts if she gets as fat as YGF was.
3) Women with exceptionally big breasts exist in all races, also in China.

But still, it would be intesting if she was a foreigner :-)

Outofin · 2nd June 2005, 11:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lu

1) Hard to know for sure just how big Yang Guifei's breasts were.
2) Any woman, Chinese or not, gets bigger breasts if she gets as fat as YGF was.
3) Women with exceptionally big breasts exist in all races, also in China.

But still, it would be intesting if she was a foreigner :-)

C'mon, don't exaggerate Tang's peculiar interest in fat women. (I don't know an appropriate word to say a person is fat in a positive way. "Fat" is definitely a bad word in English.) I think no one would like obesity, right? Perhaps just between 林黛玉 and 薛宝钗, Tang people would always choose the latter.

skylee · 2nd June 2005, 11:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Outofin

Sun Quan, the king of Wu in the Three Kingdoms period, was famous for his blue eyes.

碧眼 ~ green eyes

Interesting discussion on Sun Quan's appearance -> http://www.threekingdoms.com/note.php?n=2127

skylee · 2nd June 2005, 11:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Outofin

I don't know an appropriate word to say a person is fat in a positive way. "Fat" is definitely a bad word in English.

plump ... full ...

gato · 3rd June 2005, 12:21 AM

Portly, stout for men. Voluptuous for women.

Outofin · 3rd June 2005, 12:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by skylee

碧眼 ~ green eyes

Interesting discussion on Sun Quan's appearance -> http://www.threekingdoms.com/note.php?n=2127

Thanks for the link. I found the answer to my question in it.

Quote:

Green eyes mean innocent-looking eyes. Children are often described with green eyes. Green eyes also mean dreaming eyes or loving eyes. For example, "in her green eyes, he is perfect." Blue eyes mean a person is looking at the sky or the ocean. For this reason, a few superhumans in this book are described with blue eyes, for they spend most of their time contemplating azure heaven.

I can certainly buy it, but... this doesn't explain why even his enemies called him "green eyes" if this was an admiration. Maybe for his enemies, that was a way to say he was native like a child? Anyway, now it's clear that his eyes were not really green nor blue.

Nipponman says my head is too big. But still, I smile!

Jack MacKelly · 3rd June 2005, 01:46 AM

I'm not sure if Li Bai was foreign

some big foreign players were the Russians, Marco Polo ,Western penetration and influence continued with. The Polos became wealthy in Cathay. But they began to fear that jealous men in the court would destroy them when the khan died, Britain's desire to continue its illegal opium trade with China collided with imperial edicts prohibiting the addictive drug, most dynasty came from outsiders like the Mongol conquest of China, British businessman surnamed Welles, along with several other British and American bankers, set up a bridge company. The company built a wooden bridge at the Suzhou Creek, there was outside influence from the Manchus and so on. American named Frederick Townsend Ward and the British general known as Chinese Gordon caused the Chinese trouble. There were many from Russian, Tianjin Massacre with France in 1870, Arabic and British empires who came to the Chinese, Kashgar, folk from Siberia, there were also a series of attacks from Japan, Beijing has the Marco Polo Bridge. I know of many stories of Foreigners in Chinese history but never heard of Li Bai being foreign

wix · 3rd June 2005, 10:43 AM

This thread about Morrison of Peking mentions a few foreigners who have played an important part in Chinese history.

xuechengfeng · 4th June 2005, 01:35 PM

Matteo Ricci and Marco Polo, to name a couple.

peeyuwu · 7th July 2005, 06:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bokane

I seem to remember a reference to him drinking grape wine, which is pretty non-Chinese...

July 6, 2005

Dear Friend bokane:

Do you mean the following poem?

客中行李白

蘭陵美酒鬱金香
玉碗盛來琥珀光
但使主人能醉客
不知何處是家鄉

I'm not sure that the "美酒" is refering to wine though.

P5

大肚子 · 15th July 2005, 02:39 PM

And of course there's always the Romans. Thought to be honest I'm not sure how much I buy that particular theory.

andycmda · 20th July 2005, 03:00 AM

To refer to those ethnic minorities living under Tang dynasty rule as foreigners is like to refer 55 non-Han ethnic minorities in China as foreigners, which is absurd.

Even the Emperors of Tang dynasty were not pure Han, they traced parts of their ancestry to the aristocrats, mostly Barbarians who ruled Northern China for hundreds of years when CHina was divided into North and South. Later those ethnic groups were Hanized, they lost their language and culture, and they were fully assimilated into Han civilization.

Foreigners mean people living in a country they do not have citizenship in, they live there temporarily. There were lots of foreigners living in the capital Chang'An during Tang dynsaty who were mosly merchants from Middle East and Persia.

Li Bai was a Han Chinese, not an ethnic minority nor a foreigner. His family name is Li, only Han people have Li as the last name and the emperors' family name was also Li during Tang dynasty.

Yes, he was born outside the current Chinese territory becuase Tang dynasty ruled parts of today's southern Russia and the government sent soldiers to protect the borders. There were also some Han people who moved there to live, Li Bai's family was one of them.

If you have ever heard of The Anshi Rebellion, you probably know the top general An LuShan who started the rebellion from Nothern China was a mixed stock of Turkic and other ethnicities. He was actually the most powerful military general before the rebellion controlling more than half of Tang Army. That rebellion brought Tang dynasty into 8 year long civil war and when the government finally won, Much of Northern CHina was in ruins, many peole fled to Southern China. It was the first time in history the population of Southern China exceeded the North. Tang dynasty was never able to fully recover, the glory of Tang dynasty was totally washed away.

After that rebellion, Han civilization was never able to build a glorious empire like Tang dynasty did. The Song Empire was small which didn't even have Beijing under control. The Ming dynasty was the only Han civilization afterwards. We know China was under Manchu control during the past hundreds of years.

The word China came to the west during Qing dynasty when emperors of China were Manchus. If you only think Hans are Chinese while other ethnicities are not, then even the Emperors of China were not Chinese which is ridiculous.

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2nd June 2005, 03:55 AM	#1
Outofin	Foreigners in ancient Chinese history Is anyone interested in this topic? Li Bai, the greatest poet in Tang dynansty, was born in Sui Ye, where is currently in Kyrgyzstan territory. Was he a foreigner? Sun Quan, the king of Wu in the Three Kingdoms period, was famous for his blue eyes. Was he a foreigner?

2nd June 2005, 04:01 AM	#2
ala	Quote: Originally Posted by Outofin Sun Quan, the king of Wu in the Three Kingdoms period, was famous for his blue eyes. Was he a foreigner? No, the blue eyes is a metaphor.

2nd June 2005, 05:07 AM	#3
Outofin	Quote: Originally Posted by ala No, the blue eyes is a metaphor. Really? A metaphor for what? People said he had blue eyes and purple beard. I though it's a physical description. Now I'm no longer sure.

2nd June 2005, 05:19 AM	#4
Ian_Lee	It depends on how you define the difference between a Chinese and a foreigner. During Tang Dynasty, its territorial boundary reached the Caspian Sea. Definitely present day Kyrgyxstan was within Tang territory by that time. And Tang was born after the great ethnic mix of the "Five Barbarian Sixteen Kingdoms" and "Northern-Southern Dynasty" period. By that time, China was like US where nobody was pure blood. Not only Li Bai was not pure blood. An Lu Shan was neither. Yang Kuei Fei was neither. (You ever saw any pure-Han gal having such big breasts as Yang had?) We should get rid of the concept that Chinese = Han. China has always been a melting pot as US is.

2nd June 2005, 06:57 AM	#5
马杰	Isn't the idea of China=Han promoted within China itself? The Han, by a huge percentage, are the majority in the present day borders. China has mixed ethnicities due to the same practice most modern countries used going back to Charlemagne...conquest. I think there is something odd about calling Mongols, Khyrgs, Muslims, etc as Chinese when they actually were not. Kind of an odd "absorption" thing.

2nd June 2005, 07:05 AM	#6
xuezhongwen	Quote: Originally Posted by Ian_Lee It depends on how you define the difference between a Chinese and a foreigner. During Tang Dynasty, its territorial boundary reached the Caspian Sea. Definitely present day Kyrgyxstan was within Tang territory by that time. And Tang was born after the great ethnic mix of the "Five Barbarian Sixteen Kingdoms" and "Northern-Southern Dynasty" period. By that time, China was like US where nobody was pure blood. Not only Li Bai was not pure blood. An Lu Shan was neither. Yang Kuei Fei was neither. (You ever saw any pure-Han gal having such big breasts as Yang had?) We should get rid of the concept that Chinese = Han. China has always been a melting pot as US is. Perfectly said, including the 'big breast' part. in all, they are all Chinese at the time.

2nd June 2005, 07:13 AM	#7
Outofin	Nothing in particular. Just thought it would be cool if Sun Quan was a furious kid from Sweden.

2nd June 2005, 04:03 PM	#8
bokane	I have to say, I'd love to see someone show definitively that Li Bai wasn't Chinese (in the sense of being any one of the 56 minorities that make up the happy Zhonghua minzu family). I seem to remember a reference to him drinking grape wine, which is pretty non-Chinese...

2nd June 2005, 06:59 PM	#9
Lu	1) Hard to know for sure just how big Yang Guifei's breasts were. 2) Any woman, Chinese or not, gets bigger breasts if she gets as fat as YGF was. 3) Women with exceptionally big breasts exist in all races, also in China. But still, it would be intesting if she was a foreigner :-)

2nd June 2005, 11:12 PM	#10
Outofin	Quote: Originally Posted by Lu 1) Hard to know for sure just how big Yang Guifei's breasts were. 2) Any woman, Chinese or not, gets bigger breasts if she gets as fat as YGF was. 3) Women with exceptionally big breasts exist in all races, also in China. But still, it would be intesting if she was a foreigner :-) C'mon, don't exaggerate Tang's peculiar interest in fat women. (I don't know an appropriate word to say a person is fat in a positive way. "Fat" is definitely a bad word in English.) I think no one would like obesity, right? Perhaps just between 林黛玉 and 薛宝钗, Tang people would always choose the latter.

2nd June 2005, 11:23 PM	#11
skylee	Quote: Originally Posted by Outofin Sun Quan, the king of Wu in the Three Kingdoms period, was famous for his blue eyes. 碧眼 ~ green eyes Interesting discussion on Sun Quan's appearance -> http://www.threekingdoms.com/note.php?n=2127

2nd June 2005, 11:27 PM	#12
skylee	Quote: Originally Posted by Outofin I don't know an appropriate word to say a person is fat in a positive way. "Fat" is definitely a bad word in English. plump ... full ...

3rd June 2005, 12:21 AM	#13
gato	Portly, stout for men. Voluptuous for women.

3rd June 2005, 12:48 AM	#14
Outofin	Quote: Originally Posted by skylee 碧眼 ~ green eyes Interesting discussion on Sun Quan's appearance -> http://www.threekingdoms.com/note.php?n=2127 Thanks for the link. I found the answer to my question in it. Quote: Green eyes mean innocent-looking eyes. Children are often described with green eyes. Green eyes also mean dreaming eyes or loving eyes. For example, "in her green eyes, he is perfect." Blue eyes mean a person is looking at the sky or the ocean. For this reason, a few superhumans in this book are described with blue eyes, for they spend most of their time contemplating azure heaven. I can certainly buy it, but... this doesn't explain why even his enemies called him "green eyes" if this was an admiration. Maybe for his enemies, that was a way to say he was native like a child? Anyway, now it's clear that his eyes were not really green nor blue.

3rd June 2005, 01:46 AM	#15
Jack MacKelly	I'm not sure if Li Bai was foreign some big foreign players were the Russians, Marco Polo ,Western penetration and influence continued with. The Polos became wealthy in Cathay. But they began to fear that jealous men in the court would destroy them when the khan died, Britain's desire to continue its illegal opium trade with China collided with imperial edicts prohibiting the addictive drug, most dynasty came from outsiders like the Mongol conquest of China, British businessman surnamed Welles, along with several other British and American bankers, set up a bridge company. The company built a wooden bridge at the Suzhou Creek, there was outside influence from the Manchus and so on. American named Frederick Townsend Ward and the British general known as Chinese Gordon caused the Chinese trouble. There were many from Russian, Tianjin Massacre with France in 1870, Arabic and British empires who came to the Chinese, Kashgar, folk from Siberia, there were also a series of attacks from Japan, Beijing has the Marco Polo Bridge. I know of many stories of Foreigners in Chinese history but never heard of Li Bai being foreign

3rd June 2005, 10:43 AM	#16
wix	This thread about Morrison of Peking mentions a few foreigners who have played an important part in Chinese history.

4th June 2005, 01:35 PM	#17
xuechengfeng	Matteo Ricci and Marco Polo, to name a couple.

7th July 2005, 06:55 AM	#18
peeyuwu	Quote: Originally Posted by bokane I seem to remember a reference to him drinking grape wine, which is pretty non-Chinese... July 6, 2005 Dear Friend bokane: Do you mean the following poem? 客中行李白蘭陵美酒鬱金香玉碗盛來琥珀光但使主人能醉客不知何處是家鄉 I'm not sure that the "美酒" is refering to wine though. P5

15th July 2005, 02:39 PM	#19
大肚子	And of course there's always the Romans. Thought to be honest I'm not sure how much I buy that particular theory.

20th July 2005, 03:00 AM	#20
andycmda	Li Bai was not a foreigner nor ethnic minority To refer to those ethnic minorities living under Tang dynasty rule as foreigners is like to refer 55 non-Han ethnic minorities in China as foreigners, which is absurd. Even the Emperors of Tang dynasty were not pure Han, they traced parts of their ancestry to the aristocrats, mostly Barbarians who ruled Northern China for hundreds of years when CHina was divided into North and South. Later those ethnic groups were Hanized, they lost their language and culture, and they were fully assimilated into Han civilization. Foreigners mean people living in a country they do not have citizenship in, they live there temporarily. There were lots of foreigners living in the capital Chang'An during Tang dynsaty who were mosly merchants from Middle East and Persia. Li Bai was a Han Chinese, not an ethnic minority nor a foreigner. His family name is Li, only Han people have Li as the last name and the emperors' family name was also Li during Tang dynasty. Yes, he was born outside the current Chinese territory becuase Tang dynasty ruled parts of today's southern Russia and the government sent soldiers to protect the borders. There were also some Han people who moved there to live, Li Bai's family was one of them. If you have ever heard of The Anshi Rebellion, you probably know the top general An LuShan who started the rebellion from Nothern China was a mixed stock of Turkic and other ethnicities. He was actually the most powerful military general before the rebellion controlling more than half of Tang Army. That rebellion brought Tang dynasty into 8 year long civil war and when the government finally won, Much of Northern CHina was in ruins, many peole fled to Southern China. It was the first time in history the population of Southern China exceeded the North. Tang dynasty was never able to fully recover, the glory of Tang dynasty was totally washed away. After that rebellion, Han civilization was never able to build a glorious empire like Tang dynasty did. The Song Empire was small which didn't even have Beijing under control. The Ming dynasty was the only Han civilization afterwards. We know China was under Manchu control during the past hundreds of years. The word China came to the west during Qing dynasty when emperors of China were Manchus. If you only think Hans are Chinese while other ethnicities are not, then even the Emperors of China were not Chinese which is ridiculous.