I am a Manchu, but most of my family are pretty sicinized after all these generations of Chinese influence. Besides the fact that I still like to eat noodles over rice, and I like cold weather rather than warm. Mmm the one thing that bothers me is that shortly after the KMT took control of the Forbidden City in 1912, there was an Anti-Manchuism campaign going on about sending the Manchus back to where they belong (the northeast and outter Manchuria). Well in 1934 when the Imperial Japanese founded Manchuguo in Manchuria, I know by then there was already lots of Han Chinese that lived there for perhaps decades yet there were also many Manchus due to the conflict have decided to moved back to the Liaodong province. The thing is... why were the Manchus who participated in the Manchuguo campaign were actually called traitors according to the Han Chinese in 1949 when the Anti-Manchuism movement was solely focusing on removing the Manchus out of the Greatwall.

Excuse my ignorance if I don't get my historical facts straight, please do enlighten me because I know everyone who reads this prob. has the knowledge to to support a concrete validation.

So are Manchus Chinese? or have we been forgotten by history as an idenity? sigh.
-Quinn

The controversy goes back to the question of whether Manchuria is an integral and historic part of China. Right after the 1911 Revolution, the revolutionaries did not tend to think it was. Hence their willingness to contemplate 'deporting' all Manchus to Manchuria and excluding Manchuria from the new Chinese republic. After all, it was the homeland of a foreign people who had invaded and conquered China.

But the ROC government realized that letting Manchuria become an independent country would be tantamount to giving Russia or Japan a chance to make it a client state, and from there pose a threat to China. So the ROC incorporated Manchuria into its territory and encouraged more Han immigration to the region (which IIRC had already grown rapidly in the last years of the Qing when non-Manchu settlement in Manchuria was legalized). The ROC also promoted a new conception of Chinese nationhood, a Republic of Five Races (including the Manchus), so as to uphold the legitimacy of state borders that were inherited from the Qing empire.

In the early 1930s, Japan did try to justify its occupation of Manchuria by arguing that Manchuria was never part of China before the Qing, and thus rightfully belonged to the Manchu people alone. This led to the Manchukuo project. The ROC historian Fu Sinian led a team in writing "The Draft History of the Northeast" in 1932, which used many distortions of the historical record to 'prove' to the Lytton Commission that "the Northeast" (Manchuria) had been governed by Chinese dynasties since the beginning of recorded history.

The obvious flimsiness of the historical arguments used by Fu Sinian led other historians in the 1930s and 1940s to use a different approach in which the Manchus were Chinese because like the Han, Mongols, Hui, and Tibetans, they were all descended from the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi). They were thus just different branches of the same Zhonghua (Chinese) race.

The PRC has adopted a different approach to the question of who was historically Chinese: since the early 1980s, the official position has been that all ethnic groups living within the borders of the Qing empire at its height were naturally part of the Chinese nation, and therefore Chinese. The basis for this is the argument that the expansion of the Qing empire followed natural laws of history, such as the prior existence of strong economic and cultural ties between the Qing empire and those peoples whom it conquered. Therefore the Qing period marked the final complete unification of a Chinese nation that had previously never been under a single government.

The PRC argument is, of course, far too teleological and ideologically-motivated to be acceptable to historians outside China.

So the short answer to your question is: no, the Manchus have not always been considered Chinese, but since the early 20th century they have been considered Chinese because Manchuria for political reasons has to be considered Chinese.

No prizes for guessing how I voted in the poll

Manchus was NATION. Now it all depends on Manchus themselves, if you prefer to consider yourself Chinese, you are Chinese. If not, then go for Manchu.

There are so many facts ( you can find many, too many hard fact) that Manchus are not born to be Chinese. Only since 1911, for political reason, as Mr Yun stated. Manchus are considered as Chinese.

Political reason is not stable and truthful, it always changes.

the last 2 options don't contradict each other in my point of view.

The last option is wierd. Being "just a nomadic ethnic group" and "still Manchu" does not mean "not Chinese".

It would appear that English usages often lack the finesse that "written Chinese" has for considering this question. In the latter context, there would ordinarily be no question than ethnic Manchus would be counted among the peoples of China, i.e., Chinese citizens, albeit a minority when compared to those who identified themselves as Hua or Han (at 93% of total).

But often in English usages, being Chinese and Manchu are posed as mutually exclusive identities due to ignorance of the matter in question or laziness (i.e., not wanting to always say Han Chinese so end up saying Chinese instead in those contexts when in "written Chinese"). At other times, English writers take Chinese to stand for a nationality (PRC citizenship for instance) as well as an ethnicity (e.g., being Han Chinese) and use the two meanings interchangeably even in the same piece of writing, resulting in much hilarity and even more confusion.

This kind of slippage is apparent in today's Boston Globe Sunday paper by David Lague (International Herald Tribune) who happens to be writing the decline of Manchu language in today's China ("Voices of a Powerful Dynasty Fading"). Interestingly-and alarmingly, he reports that only 18 native Manchu speakers now remain and all of them live in an fairly isolated village of Sanjiazi (in the Northeast).

i choose the 2nd option, why? well genetically and culturally(ie Linguistically and their usage of non-chinese characters) aren't the manchus different from Han?

There are couple ways to view the problem.

First you need to define "Chinese". China has always been a universal nation where various ethincities reside within it, so in this sense, anybody reside within the state of China is a Chinese. Think Roman Empire and modern Canada as examples.

A more precise question would be are Manchus Han Chinese? Could be, that depends how you are intergrated into the Han culture. At the end we just have to remind us that Han, Manchu etc are just words that help us to understand certain concepts. Take Italian-American for example, for a person being one it does not mean that he is less of an Amerian or Italian, it's merely a tool for the people in his society to recognize his background.

As to the question why Manchuria is an intergral part of China, it has to do with the socio-economic development over the course of history. Han Chinese had been migrating to various part of Manchuria for a few centuries, and during the Qing dynasty national resources had been spent into the development of Manchuria, thus the economy was intergrated with the rest of China. That's how Manchuria became part of the historical boundary of state of China and if anybody were to take that away it would be seens as an action against the state of China. It would be like if China invaded Canada and without Canadian permission, created a puppet state under the aboriginal people.

As for the anti-Manchus movements in the early part of the 20th cen., they were revenge attitude and resistance against against the Manchu montrosities at the beginning of Qing and Manchus absolute monarch ruling over China, which escalated into the nationalism that is manifested by the nationalist revolution. I know it is unpleasant to be the receiving end of nationalism; however, it was a historical phenomenon and had fade away already.

By all means, Manchus in China can keep their identity, and as a matter of fact, celebriting such identity is encouraged by the Chinese government; nonetheless, in such identity will not be recognize in the realm of basic level foreign relations, and in the eyes of a foreign state, Manchus will just be Chinese, just like Italian-American is American.

of course Manchu are chinese in the sense that they live within the boundaries of China..but ethnically they r Manchu because they r culturally and genetically different.

Out of curiosity, during what period did Hans migrated to Manchuria? and why? I also heard that many of them came from Shandong province..is this true?

Well no one is arguing that the Manchu identity does not exist. And genetically different? Everyone in the world is genetically different from another. What exactly do you mean by that.


One major wave in early-mid Qing, many migrated north for the lands. Second major wave in late Qing when Manchuria was beginning to industrialize.

An Italian-American sounds so much easier to define versus if I'd ever call myself Manchurian-Chinese-American (I believe no one has ever used it like this lol). I believe during the early/mid Qing dynasty, the Liaodong province was forbbided for Han Chinese to migrate, at least near the Changbai Mt. region.

As far as conversating to a common person, I realized not everyone knows about Manchuria (geographically & historically speaking). Everytime I mention my heritage people would just jump immediately and said "oh I've seen the Manchurian Candidate!" therefore I began to question myself about using a word to common Westerners who might actually know what I am refering to. (for sure Chinese does the job)

I voted option 2 before I read all of the replies simply because it is probably the most accurate based on facts as well as my own personal believe. The options listed above were just questions I've asked myself a million times. It's ironic how the Manchus were once the rulers of China, while other minorities got to keep their cultural, language, customes..etc but the Manchus have simply lost it.

If Manchuria was intergrated as part of China... how the heck did Mongolia get away and was able to declared independence from China. The word "China" is sounding bigger and bigger to me everyday.

Manchu is a ethnic while Chinese is a race ,Manchu are in China more longer than those Hui why Manchu are not consider as Chinese ,they form 2 Major Dynastly Jin and Qing why not consider as Chinese, i vote Manchu is Chinese .

Cantonese, Manchu, etc are all considered Chinese. Although I'm not sure if Han was an ethnicity or a geographic designation.


"Manchu is a ethnic while Chinese is a race "

A race would be Mongoloid, Negroid, Caucasoid, Aborigines, etc
"Asian" is a race. "Chinese" is more like a nationality...

Culture? It's arguable. Genetics? Ho, that's pretty racy. You can't be Chinese because you don't have the right DNA! Ouch.

I agree that Manchu is an ethnic, but disagree that Chinese is a race. I think Chinese is a nationality and mongoliod is what we would call ourselves when comes to race.

I cannot disagree with the Jin and Qing dynasties being part of the Chinese history, therefore Manchus are Chinese. I guess the concept of ethnic nationalism is purely fictional since no such nation contains only one ethnic which represents that country.

greetings! before i get into the main topic.. i just wonder if you are of the fuca hala?

ok to the main topic..

ethnicities losing identities and culture after conquering and settling down is not unique to the manchu, there were the xianbei and perhaps the tujue in the past... the manchus just happened to be the last last ones where much of the memory are still fresh

there seemed to be a bit of a boom in interest in manchu stuff in recent years , i do hope these might help do whatever little it could to help preserve a interesting unique culture in china

Manchurian -American would sound very exotic.
In its begining Qing Dynasty, it was prohibited for Han Chinese to settle in the homeland (Manchuria) and Mongolia ( North and South Mongolia). Huge wave settlement started with reformation in late XIX century.


It is nothing ironic. This kind of historical process ( Barbarian rulers dissappear among conquered population) happened thousands of years in history of Han and Northerners. Unlike Mongols, Manchus themselves did not maintain their own homeland/ backyard to retreat.
Manchus ( Jurchen) abandoned their root, land and spread out all over China, living in their walled settlements. Nothing will grow strong without root.
Plus Manchus themselves heavily defended on Chinese to govern China. Mongols had very different approach during Yuan Dynasty. Mongols did not defend on Chinese. You Manchus did not maintain that clear line between Lords and Subjects. Mongols always warned Manchus of danger of sinosization. Late Manchu Emporer were really weak fellows and were completely defendant on Chinese.



some chinese easily say Russian White Bear robbed Mongolia from China. In fact Russia never occupied Mongolia at all.
XX century Mongolia was always in on the edge of danger, somehow we got through it.
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Manchus alone could not occupy all China without alliance of Mongols and collabrated Chinese forces. Mongols were weak against Russian expanision without Manchus protection. I doubt Manchus could beat Russians without Chinese economic resource and man power.

Independance of Mongolia was not without cost. Various Mongol clans were sacrificed for existance of Mongolia.
Buryat Mongols, Urianhai Border region in the North became buffer against Russian expansionist and they were joined Russia.
Western Mongols- Oirats were another burden for Qing dynasty force. Unfortunately with help Halh Mongols, Manchus completely destroyed Oirats. With help of Manchus, Halh Mongols also get rid of troublesome brother. Inner Mongolia was also another sacrifice for Mongolian independance.
Mongols got very good term with Manchus.
- Manchus protected them from Russia Expansion, in return Mongols enjoyed long peace (which also alomost destroyed Mongols-- mongols become second Tibet) and easy duty of Border Guard and joined various military campaigns of Qing, quelling rebellions and etc.
- Mongol aristocrats maintained their own status. Thus Mongol culture, language, living style remained same as before. Mongolian language and culture were somewhat the same as before except they had to trainn some of their servants to read and write in Manchurian. The first time Mongols mentioned the necessity of learning Chinese was in 1898
Mongol aristocrats ( specially Inner Mongolians, Harchin, Horchin Mongols) had close relationship with Imperial Family of Qing Dynasty through marriage in the most of the period of Qing Dynasty.
- Han Chinese were not allowed to settle on Mongol territory and also chinese were not allowed to marry local woman until late reform.

Qing Dynasty Reform completely turned off Mongols. As conservative traditionalist, Mongols seek to resist reformation, han chinese settlement. As Late Qing Dynasty Manchu Imperial family abandon Mongolia in the hands of Chinese hands, Mongols started to seek separation and various movements started operating. Not all Mongols were united for Mongol Independance. Inner Mongolians were still supporting Qing Manchu Imperial Family. Western Mongols were also seeking to be separate.
Only Halh Mongol determined to seek independance. Only 500000 Mongols achieved their Independance. And still we are going through many historical turning points in 1911, 1921, 1924, 1945, 1949, 1961, 1990....

So
- Manchus helped Mongols maintain Mongolian Homeland against Russia.
- Russia and USSR helped Mongolia to stand against Chinese bully policy. Both of USSR and PRC were competing to win Mongols for their side
- PRC and RF will never allow each other to occupy Mongolia. They will not get along.

At the same time Mongolia is seeking solid alliance with 3rd country which is USA.
We can be Buddhist, Christian or Muslim, but our real religion is Independance of Mongolia and Chinggis Khaan

Yawn... its 2am here in L.A. and its time to sleep so I'll make it short.

Yes I am Lifezard and thank you for asking. The clan name came from one of the Jianzhou Jurchen (Changbai Mt. division) called Pucha during Jin Dynasty, and in the Later Jin/ Qing my hala was renamed to Fuca, or Furhaca <--- not really sure about this one after emailing a professors from Inner-Mongolia. My ancesotrs were from the the plain blue banner (正蓝旗|富察氏) The last time I checked the blue plain banner was placed in the Southeast corner within the Forbbiden city (I guess they were banner positions among the eight). I think there was also a garrison from the plain blue banner somewhere in inner-mongolia. I am trying to locate more information about this particular banner but the luck isn't with me so...

--------- some info. I found over the net about Fuca Hala

《皇朝通志-氏族略·满洲八旗姓》。又作“傅察”，“富尔察”。女真最古老的姓氏，唐末女真“通用三十姓”之一——蒲察。金旧姓“蒲察”，以部为氏。蒲察，乃辽代女真旧部，势力强大。金朝时期，为女真黑号之姓第二姓，与皇室世代姻亲。金元时，曾冠汉字姓李。

该族世居沙济（辽宁省新宾）、界凡、叶赫、蜚优城、额宜湖（待考）、扎库塔、长白山、讷殷等地。所冠汉字姓富、傅、礼、石、谭、马、沙、付、庆、宁、李等。其中，世居沙济的汉字姓“沙”；世居讷殷的汉字姓“傅”。

富察氏的祖先名叫旺吉努，带着这150多人起家，历经太祖、太宗、顺治、康熙、雍正各朝。如此的一个大家族后来位居显赫、人才辈出，为大清朝的建立、繁荣建立了不朽功勋。

富察氏早在金朝就有很多著名人物：金肃宗靖宣皇后、睿宗钦慈皇后，兰陵郡王、东京留守、太祖驸马蒲察石家奴，平章政事蒲察通，参知政事兼左副元帅蒲察官奴。

富察氏在清朝著名人物有：太祖继妃，乾隆孝贤纯皇后，乾隆哲悯皇贵妃，乾隆太妃，同治淑慎皇贵妃，内务府总管、户部尚书、议政大臣米思翰，孝贤纯皇后之父察哈尔总管李荣保、傅恒、福灵安、福隆安、福康安、福长安，都为一时炙手可热的人物。“龙翰福先生”傅敏家族，大学士阿兰泰家族，都极有名望。

Anyways... my sinicized surname became Fu (傅) go figure... - Quinn

I voted for option 2.
Manchus are Chinese today as they live in China and are almost no different from Han in any way.
However the identity of Manchus during Qing, Ming and pre-Ming dynasty is debatable.

Actually China was originally a geographical concept applied by foreigners to the Central Plains region; its meaning expanded in use to refer to larger empires ruled by Central Plains regimes. The 'Chinese' never referred to their own state as 'China', or to themselves as 'Chinese', until late-19th century relations with Western powers made it necessary.

So the real question should be whether the Manchus were considered as 'Zhongguoren' or 'Huaren' (these being the indigenous ethnic terms most equivalent to 'Chinese') during the Qing period. The answer to this is that they tried to be considered as both Manchu and Zhongguoren/Huaren at the same time. However, there was no shortage of 'Han' supremacists who insisted that the Manchu were foreign barbarians, and that only the 'Han' were truly Chinese (i.e. Zhongguoren/Huaren). The 1911 revolution grew out of this kind of 'Han nationalism', but the revolutionaries changed their position upon realizing that a purely Han nation-state would be a considerably smaller one than the multi-ethnic Qing empire. However, they did continue to have hopes that the Manchus and other non-Han peoples would eventually be assimilated into a Han identity. This assimilationist ideal remained influential throughout the ROC period.

Because Manchus are not Han which is a fact.
Thus in Qing dynasty, many manchus considered themsevles chinese(Zhongguoren) however there were also others who did not and was thinking along the lines of China being only one part of the Qing dynasty thus if they can't hold china they can simply go back to their home ie Manchuria.
Same with Han, many considered manchus to be chinese while others adamantly state that manchus are foriegners and should be kick out of china.
This identity debate continues to this day.
So the question once again is what is chinese? Han or multi-ethnic.

I find that the term "Han Chinese" is out of date and misleading. If we are talking about the Hua culture, then the meaning of Hua Ren has to be incorporating. If Han Chinese do not appreciate the universal aspect of Hua culture then they are not really Chinese at all.

That depends on which commentarial tradition of the Chunqiu you are using as an authority. The Gongyang and Guliang traditions were more inclusive (and in fact did not even use the term 'Hua', only 'Zhongguo'), while the Zuoshi/Zuozhuan tradition (from which we get 'Hua') was racially exclusive.

Generally speaking, throughout imperial Chinese history the ethnic inclusivists cited the Gongyang/Guliang, while the racists cited the Zuozhuan.

For more details, read my thesis when it's written

"Han chinese" actually do exist, there is really a huge group of people who identify themsevles and are identified as 'Han'.
I use to think that it was just some artificial creation, however now I have realised that actually is a very strong identity.

It can be both. Try tracing when in history the 'Han' first called themselves or were called 'Han' in terms of an ethnic identity, despite not being under a dynasty known as Han.

The German identity has been a very strong one for centuries, but the tribes of 'Germans' originally never knew themselves as such until they settled in the Roman Empire and found out that the Romans called them Germans.

Have no idea about the subtle distinctions of various versions of Chunqiu. Let me know when your essay is done.


I think it only exists as a form of self-affliation. I never hear anyboby providing definitions of Han Ren. This term has no meaning other than providing a sense of idenity to people.

My theory is, in fact, that it started as an ethnic boundary imposed by the 'non-Han' on the 'Han', so as to stop them from monopolizing the term 'Hua'.

Again - wait for my thesis...

thanks for inputting so much, i finally learned about the origins of fuca hala here, in the past i had various sources saying either they are jianzhou or they are mongols.. your attachment does great clarification..

i just wonder, how the sinicised surnames were chosen? even among similar sounding characters, there were 傅, 富, 福 to choose from ... was there a procedure then?

Zunjing de Galvatron Xian Sheng,

Since I am quite ignorant on some of the terms, can you please enlighten me on the difference(s) between a race and an ethnic? I have always thought those two words were synonyms of each other and can be used interchangeably. Have I been wrong all these times? Perhaps Manchurians were not always considered to be Chinese because the definition of “Chinese” is always being reconstructed?

Xie Xie,

I think race (人種) is defined in biological features where an ethnic (族群) is identified with humanity-related factors such as culture and social roles. Asians have what we know as the Mongoloid skull structure, so as a sub-category it may be divided into north, south, or central Mongoloids, nevertheless I believe thats just about as far as you can get with the term race. Other races are Caucasoid and Negroid; along with Mongloid are knowns as craniofacial anthropometry (the three races of human).

---> wiki has a pretty solid explaintion on this --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craniofacial_anthropometry

An ethnic is classified as a group of people who share similar believes such as religion, custom, ritual and lifestyle, typically an ethnic is formed within a region, and to me it pretty much comes down to geographic variations. Let's just say a group of people that live on the tree has been recently discovered, and the location is rather hidden within China. Well, as a result this group of people who seem to bond together due to their unique culture maybe be labeled as the "tree" ethnic (樹族 )... but regardless of what ethnic they are... their skulls are Mongoloids, and their nationality is Chinese because they happen to live within China's political boundaries.

My paternal ethnic has been sinicized long before the Jurchens became Manchus, so should I really stick up to calling myself a Manchu, or Chinese? I do not practice Shamanism (as a matter of fact I am 100% agnostics!) or was I born in a traditional Manchu basket that hangs and swings in my parents' room. So am I still a Manchu even though I do not share the same cultures as them? Yes I am because at least that bit of information about my ancestors has been preserved (thank God you can't sinicized everything!) so historically speaking I carry the Manchu ethnic, but in a cultural sense I think I am more American than Chinese, Manchurian, or Taiwanese.

Hope I did not confuse you more. - Quinn

The manchurians didn't really lost their language completely.
They influenced (manchurianised) the northern chinese language to become the modern mandarin language.

So you can view the mandarin language as having certain influence from manchu.

Just as some elements of baiyue might have creeped into the southern chinese languages.

As for culture, the national dress cheongsam (in cantonese) is manchurian in origin.

Zunjing de Yun the Sage-King,

Hmm, please pardon my ignorance, but I just cannot understand the approach used by other historians in the 1930s and 1940s regarding why Manchu is considered Chinese other than since Manchuria is an integral part of China . Here is the part I am failing to comprehend. Since the Chinese Yellow Emperor (Huang Di) was only a legendary figure, how can Han, Mongols, Hui, Tibetans, and now Manchurians all are descended from this legendary figure? I would assume when something is legendary, it is rather not capable of being proven. Of course, since they lived in different regions for so many years, they just were from various branches of the same Zhong Hua race. However, I believe this theory has full of loopholes to begin with since Huang Di’s existence has never actually been proven! Anyway, I am not sure if I have understood what you are saying or not, but from what I have read so far, this theory really sounds ridiculous! Can you please tell me if I have misunderstood something?

Xie Xie,

That is the interesting thing about nationalistic myth. In the early 20th century, Chinese historians went to great lengths to prove that Huangdi existed, using archaeology and textual analysis. The motivations were twofold: one, to give a historical basis to the glorification of Huangdi as the Father of the Chinese Nation, and two, to give legitimacy to the statements (found in the dynastic histories) tracing nearly all Chinese people as well as originally 'foreign' ethnic groups like the Xiongnu and Xianbi to a common ancestor, i.e. Huangdi. In fact, you can find similar Huangdi projects going on in the PRC today, for the same purpose of promoting national pride and inter-ethnic unity.

After the 'Peking Man' fossil was discovered in 1929, some racial nationalists in China even changed the argument to assert that the Peking Man was the common ancestor of all Chinese ethnic groups. One example of this was Xiong Shili's 1939 lecture series at the KMT Central Military Academy, in which he claimed: "From the distribution of our Huazu, we can infer that our prehistoric ancestor was Peking Man (this is based on the similar racial morphology of Beijing people and Sinanthropus).... It is from the discovery of Peking Man by archaeologists that we now know that our five lineages [i.e. Han, Manchu, Hui, Mongol, Tibetan] originally came from a single source. Simply put, the five lineages share a common blood lineage with Peking Man. This evidence is solid and cannot be disputed."

Details of the Huangdi and Peking Man theories can be found in James Leibold's "Competing naratives of racial unity in Republican China: From the Yellow Emperor to Peking Man", Modern China 32(2), April 2006. This is an academic journal that can be found in university libraries.

Hi Lifezard I'm sorry I don't have an answer for your question. However one thing I can assure you is that during the anti-Manchu period it was up to the Manchus to change their last names to whatever Han surname as they wish. Some of the Fucas even changed their last names to Lee so beats the crap out of me to see the relevance.

Well, to tell you the truth I do not apprecaite my Han last name at all. The reason for that is because Fu means several things in Chinese when you say it. An obvious example will be Fu as in Rich (富) or Fu as in negative (負)... how extreme!!!... anyways... My maternal side of the family would always make fun of my last name when comes to electing a class leader (in Taiwan they used to do this but I am not sure now) in elementary school. So I was elected... but I was always called as Fu (副) Ban Jang (vice class president) even though I was everything but VICE!... well you get the point. It suxxx. I want my Fuca back!!!

Badly!

Using myths such as legendary Yellow Emperor and Peking man as explanation is stretching it I think. Maybe the most practical way to look at it is that what is known as China today was basically an empire(s) ruled by dynasties under various ethnic groups including Hans, Mongols, Manchus, etc. In fact the definition of Hans actually evolved over the centuries and some dynasties were with mixed ethnic origin. The specific term "China" and "Chinese" wasn't officially used to describe a nation or people. "China" was at best a geographic sense (sort of like Asia today). These terms were not used to describe a nation or its people (citizens) until the last century or so where there was a need to define sovereignty and statehood under a European constructed concept. One might argue that China today is still making that transition from imperial empire to a nation state. Having expressed all that, the question of "are Manchus considered as Chinese?" can be seen in the following context: Were Manchus considered Chinese say in the 17th century? Sort of irrelevant since the term Chinese was not clear at the time. A similar reasoning can be applied to Hans and other ethnic groups at the time. However today, Manchus are just as Chinese as Hans, reflecting the reality in modern China. Most of all, Manchus are also an integral part of study of Chinese history, where they were important actors along with Hans, Mongols, etc in centuries of evolvement into what is known as China today.

Not if you look at the Shiji or the "Genealogies of Prime Ministers chapters of the Xin Tangshu". These texts literally trace the descent of various aristocratic clans or ruling houses to one or another son of Huangdi, with the exception of a few lineages that are traced to Yandi (i.e. Shennong). But such genealogies should be understood in the context of the invention of prestigious lineages, which was a common practice in elite Chinese society in those times, and in fact gradually spread to non-elite families too.

These texts became the basis, in the early 20th century, for Chinese nationalists to claim that all the ethnic groups of China (but especially the Han) were "descendants of Yandi and Huangdi". However, the interesting thing about this is that the last ruling minority ethnic group in China to have made a claim to descent from Huangdi was the Khitan of the Liao dynasty. In the Jurchen Jin dynasty, there was once a proposal made to recognize Huangdi's great-grandson Ku (i.e. Gaoxin) as the ancestor of the Jurchen, but this proposal was shot down by a minister named Zhang Xingxin (apparently a 'Han') on the grounds that there was no evidence for it. That is why the Jin Shi only identifies the Sushen as the earliest forebears of the Jurchen.

Neither the Mongols nor the Manchus attempted to claim descent from Huangdi. Indeed, the Manchus concentrated their efforts on proving their direct descent from the Jin emperors, and then tracing the ancestry of the Wanyan imperial clan. The Jin Shi identifies the Wanyan as originating from Koryo, but Dajinguo Zhi (as I recently found out from an essay by Hong Wontack) identifies them as originating from Silla. Hence we often see modern Korean nationalists arguing that the Jurchen and Manchus were originally Korean, not Chinese.

lol, that is a nuisance indeed... though, fu is in general less terrible than jia贾, lai 赖... so u can at least console yourself that u are just "negative"

As individual Manchu descendant, certainly you can have your last name changed into your ancestoral Manchu/ Jurchin name.
But be cautious that FUCA might sound like english F*** word depending on who / how spell it

Especially if some joker chooses to pronounce it as F***er in a Brit accent

Zunjing de Yun the Sage-King,

Hmm, it is actually sort of interesting to see how the different ethnic groups are trying to prove their legitimacy by tracing back their hereditary lines to one of the Chinese legendary figures. I think this would be very hard to follow if one is not fluent in Chinese since translations on these issues are pretty rare.

Whoa, I am so shocked to find out that the last minority ruling group to make claims of being the descendants of Huang Di was the Khitan Liao Dynasty. I never thought the Khitan felt that they needed to claim legitimacy through the Chinese’s view since they would have already held the Khitan’s Mandate of Heaven. I assumed the Khitans would take the same approach as other ruling minority groups of just ignoring what was lawful in the Han Chinese’s eyes. Boy, was I so wrong!

I don’t know how the Mongolians viewed themselves, so I won’t get into the Yuan Dynasty. However, the Qing Dynasty certainly did not make any claims of being the descendants of Huang Di; instead Nurhachi saw his legitimacy as the successors of the previous Jurchen Jin Dynasty since he styled his dynasty “Hou Jin.” This is something that I have always failed to understand! I mean how can the Qing imperial family prove they were descendants of the Jin imperial family when it was obvious that they were not? How can the Qing imperial family be the direct descendants of the Jin imperial family if they don’t even share the same surname? The surname of Qing imperial family was Aixinjueluo, while the last name of the Jin imperial family was Wanyan. Therefore, I see absolutely no relations between the two surnames, making it impossible to trace lineages. Perhaps what they meant by tracing the lineage would be making claims of both the imperial families being of Jurchen origin since there were many different Jurchen tribes. Other than this, I really cannot think of any other explanations for the necessities of the Qing to trace their hereditary lines back to the Jurchen Jin. I would really appreciate it if you can further elaborate on this issue!

Xie Xie,

Zunjing de Yun the Sage-King,

Hmm, it is so sad that sometimes modern historians will go out of their ways to prove the existence of certain legendary figures just for political purposes. It is even sadder that nationalistic pride was probably only used as a clever cover up! Tracing nearly all Chinese people as well as originally 'foreign' ethnic groups like the Xiongnu and Xianbi to a common ancestor is only important if one wants to prove if a certain territory still belongs to China or not, or if another ethnic group can be considered as Chinese or not. I surmise something like this is usually very hard to prove since ancient and modern times don’t necessarily share a lot of the same definitions for related terms. I believe national pride and inter-ethnic unity are extremely important; however, one should use both idealistic and practical methods to achieve this goal.

What was the “Peking Man” fossil? Can you please give me some more information on this since I may have read something similar in Vietnamese, but have no idea what it is called in English? Hmm, so the discovery of Peking Man proves the five lineages of Han, Mongol, Manchu, Hui, and Tibetan originally came from one single source, which they share a common blood lineage? Does this mean everyone is related to each other in one way or another?

Thanks for providing the reference; I will definitely check it out!

Xie Xie,

Zunjing de Wang Yun,

Thank you so much for your explanations! Since I have always insisted on applying logical reasoning to everything, I find it quite difficult to truly accept myths and legends as they just seems too unrealistic. Please don’t get me wrong, I am anything, but practical. Hehehe!

Hmm, this is where the legend really confused me! If the Yellow Emperor founded the Chinese civilization, then would not he also father or create the entire Chinese race? Please pardon my ignorance, but what did you mean by "civilization" founded by the Yellow Emperor was supposedly some kind of a (tribal/ feudal?) alliance? Did it mean that the Yellow Emperor did not create something new, but merely united all the tribal forces? Why cannot people trace the hereditary lineage back to the Yellow Emperor? Just because someone did not create a monarchy, does not mean his hereditary line will die off. Everyone has his/her own heritage even though not everyone was a descendant of an imperial family.

Argh, this topic is just too confusing for me. I believe the problem with me is that I am trying to understand all this information in English. Sometimes English is an useless language when discussing Chinese history since even the best translations were not very good or even close!

Hmm, I see what you are saying when people are trying to claim themselves as descendants of the Yellow Emperor. It makes a lot of sense for them to just insist on their ancestors coexisting with the Yellow Emperor in which they formed the Xia-alliance civilization. However, did not rulers of the Warring States claim their legitimacy through being the descendants of one member of the ancient Zhou’s house. It was clear that the Zhou Dynasty was initially a very big happy family. However, after being conferred with positions as different feudal lords, a lot of them began to fight with each other for more wealth and power.

Xie Xie,

Peking Man is Homo Erectus and the hardliner Chinese believe multiregion evolution rather than western theory Out of African theory,just like hardliner Muslim who believe evolution is false and create by Jewish ,the hardliner Muslim have wrote a book penipuan evolusi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peking_Man

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/peking.html

http://www.china.org.cn/english/MATERIAL/31256.htm

It proved no such thing, except in the minds of Han nationalists who wanted to deny the Mongols, Manchus, and Tibetans any right to independence.



The Qing emperors were smart. They argued that Aisingioro means 'gold' in Jurchen, so it must have come from the imperial family of the Jin dynasty since Jin also means 'gold'.

As for why they'd feel a need to do so, it was mainly so that they could assert their right to rule over all the Jurchen tribes.



Let me try and summarise the issue for you:

1. The earliest reliable legends about the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi) appear only in the late Eastern Zhou (i.e. Warring States). At this time he was identified as the ancestor of a number of surnames, 12 to be exact. Other surnames were traced to other legendary ancestors.

2. The big change began with Sima Qian's Shiji, which turned all the other legendary ancestors into descendants of the Yellow Emperor. So the Yellow Emperor became the ancestor of almost everybody in the Han empire. He was even said to be the ancestor of the Xiongnu.

3. In the Age of Fragmentation, the Xiongnu, Xianbi, Qiang, and other such 'barbarian' ethnic groups came to buy into this story as well. They then recognized the Yellow Emperor as their ancestor, and made up stories in which one of the Yellow Emperor's descendants left the Central Plains to live among the barbarians for some reason or other. This person then 'went native' and fathered the Xianbi or Qiang, etc. etc.

4. By Tang and Song times, all Chinese who were literate in the classics regarded the Yellow Emperor as the literal father of all the surnames. There was even an attempt to claim the Parthians were descendants of the Yelow Emperor too. The only exceptions were a small number of clans that claimed the Yellow Emperor's predecessor Shennong (Yandi) as their ancestor.

5. In the early 20th century, many Chinese (including both Han and Manchus) started referring to their 'race' as "the descendants of Yandi and Huangdi" (yanhuang zisun).

The funny thing is that many Chinese still take all these historical constructs as the literal truth. I recently saw an article on the website of the municipal government of Chaoyang (provincial capital of Liaoning), claiming that the dynastic histories prove the Xianbi were descendants of the Yellow Emperor, and Liaoning has therefore always been a part of Chinese civilization.

Answer in one word: legitimacy. Every ruling party in the world needs legitimacy to rule over the subjects. The mongols of Yuan dynasty did not claim any legitimacy on China and relied completely on forces was the reason why their regime ended as fast.

People in the old days, East and West, had a common practice of claiming being the descendents of famous people of the same last names. Same reason. The more legitimacy you have, the bigger voice you have anywhere.

Zunjing de Jurchen Fuca,

I am so happy to have found a Manchurian member in CHF. Since I have always been most interested in the Qing Dynasty, I am sure I can learn so much from you if you are willing to teach me! I have always wanted to find out how modern Manchurians would feel regarding their cultures, ethnicities, conquered territories, and Han nationalists!

By the way, I just want to let you know that I think you have picked a very cool displayed name that really fits your identity!

I have a few questions to ask regarding the Manchurian surnames. First of all, was/is the Manchurian language similar to that of the Chinese in that it is also monosyllabic? If so, then would not it be more accurate to write your surname as “Fu Ca” rather than “Fuca?” I have also seen the surname “Fucha.” Is that another variation of your surname or is it a completely different one?

I surmise after the Manchurian’s conquest of Beijing, a few Manchurians sinicized their surnames for the purpose of fitting in. However, I seriously don’t think the changes could be made randomly. I assumed it was more like finding the Chinese surnames with the similar sounds or same letters as the original Manchurian surnames that would eventually become a way of sinicizing the Manchurian surnames into the Chinese ones. For example, Emperor Kang Xi’s mother was originally from the Manchurian clan of Tongiya; however, after living among the Chinese for a few generations, her surname was sinicized to the Chinese surname of “Tong.” I am sure you can see the phonetic or spelling relation of the two names. So, was this the general method for sinicizing names?

Hmm, I personally think you have a very nice surname in both Manchurian and Chinese! I know “Fu” has several meanings; however, you will always have the best one! You won’t have to worry about not having enough money to spend since you will be very rich. I surmise the problem comes with the English language since the two Fu you have mentioned clearly had two different characters, but they are transliterated into the same word in English!

You can certainly change your surname back to Fuca if you have a desire to do so. My point is that you should do things entirely based on your own happiness rather than caring about how it might sound in English. So what if FUCA may sound like F*** in English?! It is your surname, and you will always have the right to use it whenever you want in whatever ways you insist on!

Just one more thing, I am a little confused over the clan name of Fuca Hala. Is it just another clan name or was it an earlier variation of your surname?

Xie Xie,

Personally, I consider Manchurians as another group of Northern Chinese. Afterall, China is composed of 50+ ethnicites, with the Han group itself composed of many groups...

Zunjing de Yun the Sage-King,

I surmise what Han nationalists have in mind would be to deny the Mongols, Manchu, and Tibetans of any right to independence. It was actually funny how Han nationalists previously insisted on calling these ethnic minorities as barbarians; however, they still had the desire of labeling these ethnic groups as part of China . Such thinking really sounds like nationalism!

Yeah, I have also read that “Aixinjueluo” means ‘gold’ in Jurchen; however, I had no idea the meaning of the surname can be used to claim legitimacy. It certainly makes more sense to me now, but it still does not seem to be very logical. The dynastic name “Jin” only means ‘gold’ in Chinese. Hence, it would be very accurate to compare meanings of terms originating from different languages! I surmise “Aixinjueluo” and “Wanyan” were surnames of two Jurchen tribes. They were the only two tribes that united other Jurchen tribes, and succeeded in conquering the capital cities of the current ruling Chinese dynasties. However, they probably had little relations with each other due to the different surnames.

Thank you so much for summarizing all the main points for me! Perhaps I could not really understand this concept right away because I am not Chinese to begin with. It would be hard for me to see how important it is for the Chinese to trace back their lineage since I never had to deal with the same problems! It would be difficult to believe in the legendary myths of a culture if it was not your own.

Yeah, I still remember we had a discussion on the origin of Xiong Nu a few months ago since “Han Wu Da Di” supported a theory proposed in the Shiji in its opening thesis.

I would not be surprised if there are some people who still buy in to these theories since these concepts were probably too deeply rooted in the mind of the people ever since they were young!

Xie Xie,

Hello Rong Qin Wang thank you for commenting my user name. It actually doesn't make sense since during Jin (Jurchen) time Fucha/Fuca was known as Pucha... but I did not know this until after digging through some archives. I am only Manchu by my paternal side (my mother is Han) so I hope I can offer whatever that is you wish to know.

There are less than 100 people in the world who speak authentic/ fluent Manchurian now, the closest ethnic that speaks a modified Manchurian in Xinjiang is Sibe. Uhmm as shameful as I feel I know very little about the Manchu language. For some reason the Manchus/ post-Jurchens were sinicized rather quickly the second time around ruling China. During and after Kangxi's reign only 1/3 of the banner folks could speak and comprehend Manchurian on a reasonable scale, and let's not even talk about the rest of the Qing emperors. So... I am not 'exactly' sure about whether if Manchu is monosyllabic or not but based on what I know about the language I think Manchurian is NOT monosyllabic because some of the nouns that describe certain objects is quite different from the Han pronounciation, after all traditional Han dialect, or Chinese (for some reason I feel like what I just said about the Han/Chinese dialect thing is gonna get corrected by other CHF members within the next 3 posts, sorry guys I do not know a better way of putting it) belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language group while Manchurian is an Altaic language. The best example is the word "book", in Chinese we call it "shoo" or "shu" versus in Manchurian is pronounced "bithe" (bi.the) so... yeah to answer your question I think "Fuca" is the right way to Romanize.

Fucha and Fuca are the same thing (I've seen both Fuca and Fucha translations presented by linguists) I think Fuca might sound closer to the actual Manchu pronounciation because in Mandarin, the 'ca' sound can not be written unless it substitutes with 'cha','jia', or'chia'... nevertheless, I also have doubts about this personal assumption because the official language of China then was not even close to the Mandarin we speak today. The Mandarin we use today is a Manchurianized dialect... the old-Beijing phrases (�北京片�兒) contain many Manchurian adjectives/nouns. I have clips of an old lady speaking Manchu and sounds more like Korean than Chinese, especially the "r" sound at the end of many words really makes the conversation sound Korean. I only say this because I grew up around Koreans so I constantly hear it around my ears.

It makes perfect sense to shorten a Manchu surname into something that sounds similar in Chinese. In my case Fuca to Fu makes perfect sense, but documents revealed other last names like Lee, Shih, Teng...etc which throws me off because obviously they sound nothing like Fuca. Since there wasn't really a book that strandardized this conversion, I think many manchus simply changed their last names to whatever they desire, or the Fucas within a village all changed their last names at once, thus different Fucas from different tribes eventually lead to different Han last names.

Hala just means last name in Manchurian. Sorry I did not clearify this, you may put hala after any Manchu surnames. However... the Manchus do not state their full names together. It is either you say your hala, or you simply just say your given name. Weird eh?

- Q

does anyone have any audio samples of manchurian?? curious about how it sounds like...