(Redirected from Han people)
'Han Chinese' () are an
ethnic group indigenous to
China and the largest single
human ethnic group in the
world.
Han Chinese constitute about 92 percent of the
population of the
People's Republic of China and about 19 percent of the entire
global human population. There is substantial genetic, linguistic, cultural and social diversity between its
various subgroups, mainly due to thousands of years of regionalized assimilation of various ethnic groups and tribes in China. The Han Chinese are a subset of the
Chinese nation (''Zhonghua minzu''). An alternate name that many
Chinese peoples use to refer to themselves is "Descendants of the Dragon." Han Chinese are traditionally symbolized by the color
red.
Terms and etymology
Map of ethnolinguistic groups in
China (Han is in green).
The name ''Han'' comes from the
Han Dynasty, which succeeded the short-lived
Qin Dynasty that united
China. It was during the
Qin Dynasty and the
Han Dynasty that the various tribes of
China began to feel that they belonged to the same ethnic group, compared with other ethnic groups around them. In addition, the Han Dynasty is considered a high point in Chinese
civilization, able to expand its power and influences to
Central and
Northeast Asia, and rivaled the
Roman Empire in population and territory.
In English, the Han Chinese are often, and in the view of many Chinese incorrectly, referred to as simply "Chinese".
[1] Whether or not the use of the term Chinese correctly or incorrectly refers only to Han Chinese often becomes heated as the restriction of the term Chinese to Han Chinese can be viewed as calling into question the legitimacy of Chinese rule over non-Han areas.
Amongst some southern Han Chinese, a different term exists within various languages like
Cantonese,
Hakka and
Minnan – ''Tángrén'' (唐人, literally "the people of Tang"). This term derives from another Chinese dynasty, the
Tang Dynasty, which is regarded as another zenith of Chinese civilization. The term survives in one of the Chinese names for
Chinatown: 唐人街 (); literally meaning "Street of the people of Tang".
Another term commonly used by
Overseas Chinese is ''Huaren'' (), derived from ''Zhonghua'' (), a
literary name for China. The usual translation is "ethnic Chinese". The term refers to "Chinese" as a cultural and ethnic affiliation and is inclusive of both Chinese in China and persons of Chinese descent residing abroad.
History
Main articles: History of China
Prehistory and the Huaxia
The history of the Han Chinese ethnic group is closely tied to that of China. Han Chinese trace their ancestry back to the
Huaxia, people who lived along the
Yellow River in northern China. The famous Chinese historian
Sima Qian's
Records of the Grand Historian dates the reign of the
Yellow Emperor, the legendary ancestor of Han Chinese, to 2698 BCE to 2599 BCE. Although study of this period of history is complicated by lack of historical records, discovery of
archaeological sites have identified a succession of
Neolithic cultures along the Yellow River. Along the central reaches of the Yellow River were the
Jiahu culture (7000 BCE to 6600 BCE),
Yangshao culture (5000 BCE to 3000 BCE) and
Longshan culture (3000 BCE to 2000 BCE). Along the lower reaches of the river were the
Qingliangang culture (5400 BCE to 4000 BCE), the
Dawenkou culture (4300 BCE to 2500 BCE), the
Longshan culture (2500 BCE to 2000 BCE), and the
Yueshi culture.
Early history
Main articles: Xia Dynasty,
Shang Dynasty,
Zhou Dynasty
The first dynasty to be described in Chinese historical records is the
Xia Dynasty, a legendary period for which scant archaeological evidence exists. They were overthrown by peoples from the east, who formed the
Shang Dynasty (1600 – 1046 BCE). Some of the earliest examples of Chinese writing date back to this period, from characters inscribed on
oracle bone divination. The Shang were eventually overthrown by the people of Zhou, which had emerged as a state along the Yellow River sometime during the 2nd millennium BC.
The
Zhou Dynasty was the successor to Shang. Sharing the language and culture of the Shang people, they extended their reach to encompass much of the area north of the
Yangtze River. Through conquest and colonization, much of this area came under the influence of
sinicization and the proto-Han Chinese culture extended south. However, the power of the Zhou kings fragmented, and many independent states emerged. This period is traditionally divided into two parts, the
Spring and Autumn Period and the
Warring States Period. This period was an era of major cultural and philosophical development known as the
Hundred Schools of Thought. Among the most important surviving philosophies from this era are the teachings of
Confucianism and
Taoism.
Imperial history
Main articles: Qin Dynasty
The era of the Warring States came to an end with unification by the
Qin Dynasty, which conquered all the other rival states. Having unified China,
Qin Shi Huang declared himself the first emperor, using a newly created title, thus setting the precedent for the next two millennia. He established a new centralized and bureaucratic state to replace the old feudal system, creating many of the institutions of imperial China, and unified the country economically and culturally by decreeing a unified standard of weights, measures, currency, and writing.
Main articles: Han Dynasty
However, the reign of the first imperial dynasty was to be short-lived. Due to the first emperor's autocratic rule, and his massive construction projects such as the
Great Wall which fomented rebellion into the populace, the dynasty fell soon after his death. The
Han Dynasty emerged from the succession struggle and succeeded in establishing a much longer lasting dynasty. It continued many of the institutions created by Qin Shi Huang but adopted a more moderate rule. Under the Han Dynasty, arts and culture flourished, while the dynasty expanded militarily in all directions. This period is considered one of the greatest periods of the history of China, and the Han Chinese take their name from this dynasty.
Main articles: Three Kingdoms,
Sixteen Kingdoms,
Southern and Northern Dynasties,
Northern Wei
The fall of the Han Dynasty was followed by an age of fragmentation and several centuries of disunity amid warfare by rival kingdoms. During this time, areas of northern China were overrun by
various non-Chinese nomadic peoples which came to establish kingdoms of their own, the most successful of which was
Northern Wei established by the
Xianbei. The inhabitants of these areas were called 'Hanren', or the "People of Han" to distinguish from the nomads from the steppe. Warfare and invasion led to one of the first great migrations in Han population history, as the population fled south to the
Yangtze and beyond, shifting the Chinese demographic center south and speeding up
Sinicization of the far south. At the same time, in the north, most of the nomads in northern China came to be Sinicized as they ruled over large Chinese populations and adopted elements of Chinese culture and Chinese administration. Of note, the Xianbei rulers of the Northern Wei ordered a policy of systematic Sinicization,
adopting Han surnames, institutions, and culture.
Culture
Main articles: Culture of China
Han China is one of the world's oldest and most complex
civilizations. Chinese culture dates back thousands of years. Han Chinese believe they share common ancestors, mythically ascribed to the patriarchs
Yellow Emperor and
Yan Emperor, some thousands of years ago. Hence, some Chinese refer to themselves as "''Descendants of the Yan and/or Yellow Emperor''" (
Traditional Chinese: 炎黃子孫;
Simplified Chinese: 炎黄子孙), a phrase which has reverberative connotations in a divisive
political climate, as in that between
mainland China and
Taiwan.
Throughout the
history of China, Chinese culture has been heavily influenced by
Confucianism. Credited with shaping much of Chinese thought, Confucianism was the official
philosophy throughout most of
Imperial China's history, and mastery of Confucian texts provided the primary criterion for
entry into the imperial bureaucracy.
Language
Main articles: Chinese language
Han Chinese speak various forms of the
Chinese language; one of the names of the language group is ''Hanyu'' (), literally the "Han language". Similarly,
Chinese characters, used to write the language, are called ''Hanzi'' (), or "Han characters."
Names
Main articles: Chinese name
Chinese names are typically two or three syllables in length, with the
surname preceding the
given name. Surnames are typically one character in length, though a few uncommon surnames are two or more syllables long, while given names are one or two syllables long.
There are 4000 to 6000 surnames in China, but only around 1000 surnames are popularly used. According to a study by Li Dongming (李栋明), a Chinese historian, as published in the article "Surname" (姓) in ''Dongfang Magazine'' (东方杂志) (1977), the common Han surnames are:
Top 10 surnames, which together account for about 40% of Chinese people in the world, (transciptions in
Pinyin):
Li 李,
Wang 王,
Zhang 張/张,
Zhao 趙/赵,
Chen 陳/陈,
Yang 楊/杨,
Wu 吳/吴,
Liu 劉/刘,
Huang 黃/黄,
Zhou 周
The 11th to 20th common surnames, which together account for more than 10% of Chinese people in the world:
Xu 徐,
Zhu 朱,
Lin 林,
Sun 孫/孙,
Ma 馬/马,
Gao 高,
Hu 胡,
Zheng 鄭/郑,
Guo 郭,
Xiao 蕭/萧
The 21st to 30th common surnames, which together account for about 10% of Chinese people in the world:
Xie 謝/谢,
He 何,
Xu 許/许,
Song 宋,
Shen 沈,
Luo 羅/罗,
Han 韓/韩,
Deng 鄧/邓,
Liang 梁,
Ye 葉/叶
The next 15 common surnames, which together account for about 10% of Chinese people in the world:
Fang 方,
Cui 崔,
Cheng 程、
Pan 潘,
Cao 曹,
Feng 馮/冯,
Wang 汪,
Cai 蔡,
Yuan 袁,
Lu 盧/卢,
Tang 唐,
Qian 錢/钱,
Du 杜,
Peng 彭,
Lu 陸/陆
Dress
Main articles: Han Chinese clothing
A small group of southern Han Chinese in
Guizhou Province still retaining their daily attire in
Ming Dynasty (14th-17th century) style due to the relative geograhical isolation and the strong adherence to traditional culture.
Today, Han Chinese usually wear
Western-style clothing. Few wear traditional
Han Chinese clothing on a regular basis. It is, however, preserved in religious and ceremonial costumes. For example,
Taoist priests dress in fashion typical of scholars of the
Han Dynasty. The ceremonial dress in
Japan, such as those of
Shinto priests, are largely in line with ceremonial dress in
China during the
Tang Dynasty. The traditional Chinese clothing worn by many Chinese females in important occasions such as wedding banquets and Chinese New Year is called the
qipao. Ironically, this attire comes not from the Han Chinese but from a modified dress-code of the
Manchus, the ethnic group that ruled China between the seventeenth (
1644) and the early twentieth century.
Housing
Chinese Han people traditionally commonly lived in large houses that were rectangular in shape with the whole family. This house is called a 四合院 (traditional and simplified characters) or sì hé yuàn (Hanyu Pinyin). These houses had four rooms in the front, the guest room,
kitchen,
lavatory, and
servants' quarters. Across the large double doors was a wing for the elderly in the family. This wing consisted of three rooms, a central room where the four tablets, heaven, earth, ancestor, and teacher, were worshipped. There the two rooms attached to the left and right were
bedrooms for the grandparents. The east wing of the house was inhabited by the eldest son and his family, while the west wing sheltered the second son and his family. Each wing had a
veranda, some had a "sunroom" made from a surrounding fabric supported by a wooden or
bamboo frame. Every wing is also built around a central courtyard used for study, exercise, or nature viewing.
[2]
Literature
Main articles: Chinese literature
Chinese has a rich history of classical literature dating back several thousand years. Important early works include
classics texts such as
Analects of Confucius, the
I Ching, and the
Art of War. Some of the most important Han Chinese poets in the pre-modern era include
Li Bo,
Du Fu, and
Su Dongpo. The most important novels in Chinese literature, or the
Four Great Classical Novels, are:
Dream of the Red Chamber,
Water Margin,
Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and
Journey to the West.
Contribution to humanity
Main articles: Science and technology in China
Han Chinese have played a major role in the development of the
arts,
sciences,
philosophy, and
mathematics throughout
history. In ancient times, the scientific accomplishments of China included seismological detectors, matches, paper, dry docks, sliding calipers, the double-action piston pump, cast iron, the iron plow, the multi-tube seed drill, the wheelbarrow, the suspension bridge, the parachute, natural gas as fuel, the magnetic compass, the relief map, the propeller, the crossbow, gunpowder and printing. Paper, printing, the compass, and gunpowder are celebrated in Chinese culture as the
Four Great Inventions of ancient China. Chinese astronomers were also among the first to record observations of a
supernova.
Chinese art,
Chinese cuisine,
Chinese philosophy, and
Chinese literature all have thousands of years of development, while numerous Chinese sites, such as the
Great Wall of China and the
Terracotta Army, are
World Heritage Sites. Since the start of the program in 2001, aspects of Chinese culture have been listed by
UNESCO as
Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
Throughout much of history, successive
Chinese Dynasties have exerted influence on their neighbors in the areas of art, music, religion, food, dress, philosophy,
language,
government, and
culture. In modern times, Han Chinese form the largest ethnic group in China, while an
overseas Chinese diaspora numbering in the tens of millions has settled in and contributed to countries throughout the world.
In modern times, Han Chinese have continued to contribute to the maths and sciences. Among them are
Nobel Prize recipients
Steven Chu,
Samuel C. C. Ting,
Chen Ning Yang,
Tsung-Dao Lee,
Yuan T. Lee,
Daniel C. Tsui,
Gao Xingjian,
Fields Medal recipient
Shing-Tung Yau, and
Turing Award recipient
Andrew Yao.
Tsien Hsue-shen was a prominent scientist at
NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, while
Chien-Shiung Wu contributed to the
Manhattan Project.
Language as a uniting factor
Despite the existence of many dialects of
Chinese spoken languages, one factor in Han ethnic unity is the
Chinese written language. This unity is credited to the
Qin dynasty which unified the various forms of writing that existed in China at that time. For thousands of years,
Literary Chinese was used as the standard written format, which used vocabulary and grammar significantly different from the various forms of spoken Chinese. Since the twentieth century,
written Chinese has been usually
vernacular Chinese, which is largely based upon dialects of
Mandarin, and not the local dialect of the writer (with the exception of the use of
written Cantonese). Thus, although the residents of different regions would not necessarily understand each other's speech, they would be able to understand each other's writing.
"Han" as a fluid concept
The definition of the Han identity has varied throughout history. Prior to the 20th century, some Chinese-speaking ethnic groups like the
Hakka and the
Tanka were not universally accepted as Han Chinese, while some non-Chinese speaking peoples, like the
Zhuang, were sometimes considered Han.
[3] Today,
Hui Chinese are considered a separate ethnic group, but aside from their practice of Islam, little distinguishes them from the Han; two Han from different regions might differ more in language, customs, and culture than a neighboring Han and Hui. During the
Qing Dynasty, Han Chinese who had entered the
Eight Banners military system were considered
Manchu, while
Chinese nationalists seeking to overthrow the monarchy stressed Han Chinese identity in contrast to the Manchu rulers. Upon its founding, the
Republic of China recognized five major ethnic groups: the Han, Hui,
Mongols,
Manchus, and
Tibetans, while the
People's Republic of China now recognizes
fifty-six ethnic groups.
Whether the idea of ''Han Chinese'' is recent or not is a debated topic in China studies. Scholars such as
Ho Ping-Ti argue that the concept of a Han ethnicity is an ancient one, dating from the Han Dynasty itself. By contrast, scholars such as
Evelyn Rawski have argued that the concept of ''Han Chinese'' is a relatively recent one, and was only invented in the late 19th and early 20th century by scholars such as
Liang Qichao who were influenced by European concepts of race and ethnicity.
[4]
Han diversity
In addition to a diversity of spoken language, there are also regional differences in culture among Han Chinese. For example, China's cuisine varies from
Sichuan's famously spicy food to
Guangdong's
Dim Sum and fresh seafood. However,
ethnic unity still exists between these two groups because of common cultural, behavioural, linguistic, and religious practices.
According to recent scientific studies,
[5] there are slight genetic differences throughout China. Due to several waves of immigration from
Northern China to
Southern China in China's history, there are strong genetic similarities in the
Y chromosome between Southern and Northern Chinese males. However, the
mitochondrial DNA of Han Chinese increases in diversity as one looks from Northern to Southern China, which suggests that many male migrants from northern China married with women from local peoples after arriving in
Guangdong,
Fujian, and other regions of Southern China. As this mixing process continued and more Han people migrated south, the people in Southern China became
Sinicized and identified themselves as Han.
Historical documentation indicates that the Han were descended from the ancient
Huaxia tribes of northern China. During the past two millennia, the Han culture (that is, the language and its associated culture) extended into southern China, a region originally inhabited by the southern natives, including those speaking
Dai,
Austro-Asiatic and
Hmong-Mien languages. As
Huaxia culture spread from its heartland in the
Yellow River basin, it absorbed many distinct ethnic groups which then came to be identified as Han Chinese, as these groups adopted Han language (or variations of it) and customs.
For example, during the
Shang Dynasty, people of the
Wu area, in the
Yangtze River Delta, were considered a "barbarian" tribe. They spoke a distinct language that was almost certainly non-Chinese, and were described as being scantily dressed and tattooed. By the
Tang Dynasty, however, this area had become part of the Han Chinese heartland, and is today the most densely populated and strongest performing economic region in China, the site of China's largest city
Shanghai. The people in the Wu area today speak the
Wu dialects, which are part of the
Chinese language family but are mutually unintelligible with other Chinese languages/dialects, and do not see themselves as a separate ethnic group. The Wu area is one example of many involving the absorption of different cultural groups in contributing toward the diversity of culture and language throughout the Han Chinese ethnic group.
See also
★
Chinese people
★
List of Chinese people
★
Subgroups of the Han ethnicity
★
Chinese nationalism
★
Han chauvinism
★
Sinocentrism
★
China proper
References
1. Definition of "Han" in the American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.
2.
3. Kaup, Katherine Palmer, Creating the Zhuang: Ethnic Politics in China, Lynne Rienner Publishers, Jan 1, 2000, ISBN 1-55587-886-5
4. http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/chinesehistory/pgp/xiaoweiqingessay.htm
5. Table from "Genetic evidence supports demic diffusion of Han culture". Nature (journal, 16 September 2004 issue)
External links
★
How the Han Chinese became the world's biggest tribe - Yahoo News/AFP Sept 15, 2004
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