I've heard of the han-chinese migrating from central plain of China towards southern China during Age of Fragmentation, Tang dynasty, Song dynasty etc.

During age of fragmentation, because of invasion from northern nomads who later settled in Northern China, many han-chinese had to flee their homes in central plain of China and moved towards the South. Many settled in Fujian and Guangdong province. Some would probably have inter-mixed with the local indigenous tribes (such as 100 Yue/Min), but most would probably end up being today's Fujianese or Cantonese. In fact, the Hokkien or Holo or cantonese was said to be very similar to Middle Chinese, that differ alot from today's Modern chinese. This could probably reason that the Fujianese or Cantonese's ancesters could be traced back to Central plain China. Holo people's ancestors could also be traced back to Heluo (Luo River in Henan region).

Although there continues to have debate whether the southern chinese were 'more originally han' than northern chinese, certainly there was no doubt that part of southern chinese's root can be traced to central China.

My surname "Zhuo 卓" originated from Chu kingdom during Warring States Period, but I personally am unawared of my ancestry. I'm a Taiwanese with ancestry traced from Fujian province. But whether I was a "Min" sinificized/intermarried with Han, or was originally han-chinese migrating from Central China towards the south, I cannot be sure, as that migration history probably took place 1500 years ago. I also did not have genealogy records, so it was hard for me to trace my ancestry history.

Can someone tell me more about this migration history? Does anyone have exact statistic figure for the number of people migrated in chinese history?

I don't have census stats for the period you were referring to. But going back to the Han era, according to compilation in Keith Taylor's book.

Table 1. Han Census Statistics for Chao-Chi Circuit
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prefectures Former Han (A.D. 2) Later Han (140)
====================================================================
In Modern China Hearths Heads Hearths Heads
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nan-hai 19,613 94,253 71,477 250,282
Ts'ang-wu 24,379 46,160 111,395 466,975
Yu-lin 12,415 71,162 No Data No Data
Ho-pu 15,398 78,980 23,121 86,617
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subtotal 71,805 390,555



Table 2. Han Census Statistics (A.D. 2 and 140)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prefectures Former Han (A.D. 2) Later Han (140)
====================================================================
Hearths Heads Hearths Heads
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Modern China


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Northen China (Yellow Basin) 50/40 % Decrese in Hearth/Heads
Central Chna (Yangtze Basin) 102/84 % Increase in Hearth/Heads
Southern China (Nanhai,Hopu) 204/152 % Increase in Hearth/Heads


----------

It is also recorde that Zhao Tuo brought with him some 500,000 second class citizens, vagabons and convicts during his campaign in the Yueh territory. A large number of these stayed and settled there.

1. O2a and O1 lineages are not really found in north China but amounts to roughly 50% or more of areas in SE China. These 2 lineages are also found exclusively or in large % in the "SE" Asian ethnicities. So, I'd say a good % of southern ancestry is non-Sinitic.

2. It's also pretty easy to tell southern Han from northern Han once you've seen enough. Besides skin color or eyes or facial flatness differences, the southern Han tend to have very weak chins and jaws, shorter faces and stature, shorter, rounder, flatter noses.. giving a general rounded impression.

3. Southern Han tend to look like Hmong people the most in my eyes, who don't necessarily look SE Asian. So, the Chu region is perhaps a good place of origin for many SE Han.

4. I have a study which mentions census records for Fujian, and it seems that it was settled in two waves from two regions.

- The first wave was through the interior mountainous regions, from Jiangxi and Zhejiang. Since there were no north-south flowing rivers in Fujian like Guangdong, it couldn't be settled massively from the north, so people trickled in from Jiangxi and Zhejiang. This initial settlement resulted in the Minzhong and Minbei languages.
- The second wave came via the coast from ships, which would carry people from Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shangdon I guess, and this resulted in the Minnan and Mindong (Fuzhou) dialects.

Didn't you say that there were no chinese migration to vietnam since the Qin dynasty ?

Regarding Chinese migration into Vietnam throughout our recent history, the most significant and well recorded accords were probably the 500,000 "outcasts" or "second class citizens" who brought by Zhaotuo to settle in the Kingdom of Nanyue. The second significant migration wave was taken place during the "Wang Mang" rebellion, whereas Jiaozhi served as a "santuary" for many of Chinese elitists who opted to escape persecution in the southen most region of "Han" kingdom during this period. Since Jiaozhi became an "integral" part of China at least through the Tang Dynasty therefore there was little written accords to show any mass migration of Chinese into Vietnam from the Sui through the Tang dynasty.

Per Vietnamese records, there were "thousands" of Southern Song troops escaped from China, surrendered to the local authority and fought alongside with Dai-Viet against the Mongolian/Yuan's forces during the 13th Century. After the demise of the Ming dynasty, there were also a mass migration of the Ming's subjects into Vietnam as well. Among the Ming's subjects, Mac Cuu, a Chinese Noteable who brought his whole clan into Vietnam and was granted a court title by the Nguyen Lord, who assigned him to develop and protect the southern part of An Nam in 1708. This was the main reason, many Chinese in Vietnam was being call as the "Minh Huong", which attributes as the "former subjects of the Ming". During the recent Japanese occupation and then the civil war in China, there were also hundred thousands of Chinese fled and settled in Vietnam. After the fall of the KMT in the mainland China, Saigon used to boast that it has the best Chinese foods in the world (due to the numerous Chinese chefs who arrived and settled in Cho-Lon, a Chinese district in Saigon after 1949).

Most Chinese were able to integrate successfully into Vietnamese society since our value cultures are basically identical. Most Chinese eventually became Vietnamese merely after 3rd or 4th generation therefore it would be extremely difficult for anyone to distinguish the superficial differences. Genetically, whereas the Vietnamese came from China or the Southern Chinese came from the ancient Viet people is remained to be discussed by further and more complete genetic studies yet!

Yes, I did. That statement was referring to the same table. Data shown here are with respect to area within modern day China (excluding Vietnam)

The 500,000 that came with Chao Tuo settled mostly in Guangxi /Minnan area. No evidence that they settled in VN. I will post the remainder of the table shortly.

from http://www.republicanchina.org/Vietnamese.html

During the early conquest, Qin mobilized an army of 100 to 200 thousand people, mostly consisting of the so-called outcasts of then China, i.e., the men who lived in wives' homes after the marriage and the merchants whose occupation was deemed the lowest in then society. History recorded that altogether 500,000 people, again consisting of the disgraced men and the merchants, were relocated to southern China by Qin Shihuangdi. This explains the fact that today's Guangdong Province still possesses the most variety of ancient Chinese dialects.

Keith taylor's book mentioned immigration to Nam Viet which included gwangxi, gwangdung and annam. The yueh territory also includes annam.

Min province was not conquered until late Han dynasty ! Please look at the map of qin dynasty conquest, there is a large 'hole' in south east china.

There is no evidence that they ONLY settled in gwangdung. At that time, annam/vietnam was part of the same kingdom of Nam Viet so I don't think they keep records of immigration within the same country.

I can't see of a preference of gwangdung over annam when those two places are equally foreign during the qin dynasty.

Annam was considered southern china then as it was part of the same country.

Guangdong does not contain the most variety of ancient chinese dialect. Its main dialect is cantonese. The rest like hakka and minnan came in much later waves after the tang dynasty.

The immigration in large numbers to guangdong continued after Tang dynasty whereas the immigration to vietnam slowed due to the fact that they were different countries after the collapse of the Tang dynasty.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prefectures..................Former Han (A.D 2)....................................Later Han (140)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Modern Vietnam
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.................................Hearths................Heads....................Hearths................heads
Giao Chi....................92,440...............746,217....................no data
Cuu Chan..................35,743...............166,013....................46,513..................209,894
Nhat Nam..................15,460...............69,485......................18,263..................100,6776
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subtotal....................143,643.............981,755
Total.........................215,448.............1,372,290


Percentage increased or decreased from AD 2 to 140
................................Hearths................heads
Northern Vietnam.......+27%....................+31%

31% increase in population growth over 138 years is attributed to natural population growth. A comparison to modern time, Vietnamese population grew more than 25% in 40 years (60s to today)

A documented Chinese migration into Vietnam during the earlier north/south partition:

After the demise of the Ming dynasty, in 1679 a fleet of 3000 Ming armed loyalists and 50 boats (number of people per boats unknown) requested refuge in the South from the Nguyen Lord. Uneasy with a large number of armed men at the same time having symphathy for their condition without a country, the Nguyen Lord allowed them to settle at the southern most tip of the frontier (then Water Chen La), thus solving his moral dilema. The Chinese settlers helped shaped the frontier land into villages and towns. Most notable was Mac Thien Cuu, able and loyal, was seeking patronage from the Nguyen Lord to counter the Thais, who was harassing him while he was a mandarin for the Chen La Kingdom. The area he developed is Ha Tien (Literally means River Fairy).

This explains the fact that most of Chinese ethnics in Vietnam are from the south. Cho Lon (Big Market), is the China Town Center in Saigon.

The census stats below showed no indication of mass migration into Giao Chi as opposed to Guangdong and other parts of southern China.

There are two groups of chinese vietnamese.

1. Those who migrated when vietnam and china were the same country ie. before the collapse of tang dynasty. These people have assimilated into vietnamese society and now belongs to kinh ethnic group because they have been there for so many generations.

2. Those who migrated during ming or later dynasties. They are classified as hoa.

It is the same case in Malaysia/Singapore.

1. The first group are sometimes classified as baba/nyonya and have lost their mother tongue although genetically they look every bit chinese. They have been there since the Ming dynasty.

2. The second group were the chinese who migrated during the 19 th and 20th century but classified as chinese.

Census only show the number of people staying there at that time. It doesn't show migration patterns. At any time, the birth rate can be high or low. So percentage increase don't indicate migration path.


1. For migration of chinese to vietnam in early times. Please read.

http://www.asia.msu.edu/seasia/Vietnam/His...lonization.html

"Chinese colonization and pressure increased with the collapse of the Western Han Dynasty in 9AD which caused a large migration of Chinese aristocrats into Southern China and later into Vietnam. There was a massive immigration of scholars, officers, and wealthy Chinese and many local rulers were replaced by Chinese officials. Some of these officials married into the Vietnamese aristocracy, creating what became a major force in Vietnam-an educated class of Sino-Vietnamese, or people of mixed Chinese and Vietnamese origin. "

2. For intermarriage of modern vietnamese chinese (hoa) in the 20th century with vietnamese, please read

http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSCo.../multi0page.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoa#_note-0

"Due to similar culture with Vietnamese and close proximity with China, the Chinese Vietnamese have tended to retain the strongest ties and greater affinity to traditional Chinese culture. The intermarriage between the Hoa and the majority Kinh ethnic is the highest compare to other minorities in Vietnam. "

3. There is one journal which you can get from universities.

Liu, Haiming 1953-
The Chinese Diaspora: Space, Place, Mobility, and Identity (review)
Journal of Chinese Overseas - Volume 2, Number 1, May 2006, pp. 150-153

Excerpt from this journal :

"Chinese migration history in Vietnam deserves much attention because many Chinese in Vietnam, like the Chinese in Thailand, "assimilated" into the local

I thought it was general Ma Yuan and not Wang Mang.

After the general quelled the trung sister rebellion, he sent more han chinese to colonise annam.

I forgot the website link but I read it long time ago.

I thought the O1 lineage is found up to Shandong and even Siberia...
Let me think how I could get that (wrong?) conclusion..

Maybe it's even possible to distinguish more.. like Fujianese vs Zhejiangnese vs Cantonese.
East-West difference in North Chinese might also be possible (not too sure).

Some Cantonese do not give the impression of round-ness, the faces are much longer than they are wide, but don't look Northern either.
The ones with more rounded faces in Hong Kong are possibly Fujianese/Chaozhounese.

What is now "Cantonese" looks far too new for that time (it's too similar to Middle Chinese).
I am guessing that the main dialect before the Cantonese was a kind of Min dialect instead.

I think that at least some baba/nyonya would be mixed Chinese with locals.
The Indonesian analogue, "Cina Benteng" most likely means the mixed ones. You will not believe if they say they are Chinese in front of you.

That is true, yes, but it is not "common" in the north, but a NE origin for it is possible if not likely. Sagart's theory is that Austronesian (including Tai-Kadai) originated in norther-middle coastal areas and expanded south, based on his linguistic and some archaeolgical evidence. O1/M119 is basically common among Austronesian and Tai-Kadai speakers as well as southern Chinese and coastal Chinese. It is not a common lineage in Austro-Asiatics, if I remember correctly, besides groups receiving immigration.


People start to look "southern" between Hangzhou and Ningbo. Ningboese were pretty indistinguishable from Minnan people to me. I forgot to mention that southerners tend to be more prognathic, with jutting jaws. The average southerner, perhaps due to poor nutrition but not likely since the south has always been more affluent, has a quite unattractive combination of traits. (Why do I feel the need to mention? Sorry.)


I didn't go to Guangdong but long, narrow faces (usually dark-skinned and round eyes) also tend to be common in north China, perhaps more so than in Guangdong based on my observation of Cantonese in the U.S. However, I do concede that I've seen Cantonese with very narrow, dark faces and extremely prominent brows and sunk-in eyes and strong cheek bones, looking very un-Chinese. Can you post an image of what you are talking about?

Basically, this is what most southern Chinese girls (Ningbo, Minnan area, Hunan, Anhui, Jiangxi) looked like, like Miao:

Do you mean sort of the following guy?


The only real centre of narrowfacedness in the Pacific region (eastern hemisphere) is PNG plus some surrounding isles. I'm referring to zy-zy distances here, narrow jaws are a different topic IMO. Or did you mean narrow jaws (regardless of zygomatic breadth) in particular when referring to "narrow faces"?

sorry, accidental double post.

We are not going to argue about linguistics in this thread (wrong section).

I don't deny that there were intermarriages in the babas/nyonyas group.
But from what I gather from interviewing some of them, the modern younger babas/nyonyas have married back to the chinese mainstream because they don't want to be converted to become muslim. They retain their chinese names intead of changing to muslim names .

Well, I mean long, narrow faces, which is different from just narrow faces. The absolute width of a face from one cheek to the other is useless to our sense of facial impressions. A 3-inch-wide face that is 3-inches long is still not a narrow face in our impressionable minds, whereas a 5-inch-wide, 7-inch-long face might appear to us narrower, even though the former is narrower in absolute terms.

Southern Chinese as well as SE Asians (including Indonesians) tend to have narrower faces than northern Chinese, no doubt, but also shorter faces.

There's only 2 or 3 populations that I'm aware of in the world with long faces (regardless of broadness); Western Eurasians ("Caucasoids"), Northern Eastern Eurasians and Native Americans ("Mongoloids"), and perhaps Papuans.

I dunno how much sampled numbers or picture searching will help. I think they are flawed, because I had to change my impressions and theories when I got to China. A lot of northern Chinese looked Tibetan or even sort of like the guy who played Geronimo. Right now it can't be explained in terms of "foreign" admixture because things don't add up the right way.

The preferrence lies with the fact that Chao Tuo set his capital in Qwangdung. Furthermore, like Min Yueh, Au Lac was a vassal state to Chao Tuo for some times before its defeat. Even then Chao Tuo did not impose direct rules but sent 2 legates to oversee the territory. The Lac Lords were still running the affairs of the local inhabitants.

Its also Keith Taylor that showed that there was no mass immgration of any scale altering the normal population growth in Giao Chi/Cuu Chan.

Chinese migration into Vietnam, no doubt, has occurred since there was contact between people since day one, it has continued over the millenium to this day. This is not the point of the debate. The point is there is no migration to the extent of mixing the gene pool to 50% as you had asserted at one point or hope to believe. The census has 2 data points spanning 138 years in between, allowing for detection of major movement in population. 30% increase over this span translates to 0.21% population annually. That's from moderate to low for a farming society or any society for that matter.

Fast forward to modern science and anthropology. Skull cranial index and genetic make up of modern Vietnamese are closer to Khmer and other SEA than with Northern Mongoloids.

Everyone knows that Min Yueh was not a state of Nam Viet but you still insist on it. Min Kingdom was separate from Nam viet during Trieu da time.

Where's your proof and link that Giao chi was a vassal state and not part of Nam Viet ?

Where's the proof and link website ?

What about southern chinese ? Southern chinese are on the average shorter than the northern chinese.

What I remember was that Buryat population having a considerably large percantage of O1, whereas the "regular Austro-Asiatics" have much more O2 and rarely O1. I'm not sure if I remember correctly, though.

Yes, very prominent brows and sunk-in eyes sometimes made me mistake people with non-Chinese.
But with the mixing there's sometimes only one "strangeness" compared to regular Southern Chinese.
Someone looks like regular Southern Chinese except the proportion looks more towards "long" but I don't have a good photo of him. But after comparing with some others, I start to doubt my original impression.
It's like an illusion... because of the eye size and some "outer" difference.
The height is around the same.. the max width is also not that different, but it's like Chinese characters 甲 vs 申.. It causes difference of impression though if we make 2 rectangle that just fits with each from outside, they are actually around the same size

[off-topic]
Looks does not translate to ethnicity.
I know there's a rule in Malaysia that if Chinese marries a Malay then they have to be Malay. But, does the rule say that when they are half-Chinese half-Malay they're forced to be Muslim? Or if there is e.g. a Malay from Indonesia then he has to convert to Muslim?

Yeah, I have seen some long + wide faces.

http://www.genome.uci.edu/onlinejournals/ding_china00.pdf
http://www.wufi.org.tw/eng/linmalie.htm
http://www.eva.mpg.de/genetics/pdf/Oota.AJPA.2002.pdf
http://www.genome.org/cgi/content/full/14/10a/1832
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa36...i_n9086739/pg_1
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/95/20/11763

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlere...i?artid=1226206

On the taiwanese aborigines
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlere...i?artid=1166350

You can't just give a lot of links and not show us the paste the key sentences and paragraphs to substantiate your claims like what I did.

There may be one thousand pages in one link, so don't expect the average forummer to read.

Is it a reading comprehension issue or a case of putting words in my mouth ? Min Yueh was conquered by Qin (with Zhao Tuo as general) does not equate to Min Yue being part of Zhao Tuo's Nan Yueh.

Let’s be clear about this. Don’t assume that Nan Yue kingdom only existed at the time Zhao Tuo declared himself king of this land. He was still a Qin general/commissioner when the Qin took the original Nan Yue kingdom.

Keith Taylor:

333 BC. The Yueh kingdom fell to the house of Chu. The Yueh ruling class scattered south to form a number of little states. 4 of them are of notable significance due to size and power. Nan Yue (thus this kingdom was already formed before Zhao Tuo appeared), Min Yue, Eastern Ou, and Western Ou.

221BC. Qin conquered Nan Yue, Min Yue, and Eastern Ou. Qin troops got bogged down in Western Ou. Zhao To and his 500,000 troops were part of this expedition.

214BC. Finding themselves unable to take Western Ou, the Qin troops (Zhao Tuo as commissioner) settled down in previously conquered land Kuang-si to man their garrisons.

219-207BC. Thuc Phan of Western Ou conquered Van Lang, formed Au Lac (modern day north Vietnam)

210BC Chin Shih Huang Ti Died. Zhao To consolidated power and declared himself king of Nan Yue. Min Yue regained some independence.

“Chao To inspired fear on the frontier, with rich presents, he gained Min Yue and Au Lac as vassals”

“Au Lac and Min Yueh temporarily acknowledged the suzerainty of Nan Yueh, but rather than meaning that Nan Yueh had any real control over them, this simply represented anti-Han solidarity”

179BC. Both Nan Yue and Min Yueh again recognized Han suzerainty. Zhao Tuo moved to conquer Au Lac and succeeded after some attempts. Zhao Tuo then divided Au Lac into 2 prefectures and sent 2 legates to oversee the territory.

136BC. Zhao To died

135BC. After the death of Zhao To, Nan Yue was in demise and vulnerable to Min Yue attacks due to its Han leaning politics. Nan Yue and Min Yue both submitted to Hans subsequently.

111BC, Nan Yue rebelled, subsequently put down. End of Nan Yueh kingdom. Au Lac, under the influence of Nan Yue, fell with it.


If you really own the book, a second read would do you some good.

But was Zhao Tuo was a general, or a military leader, of Qin? We had a discussion about it here :
http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=17411

From Sima Qian, I have the impression that Zhao Tuo was one of the people deported to Nanyue by Qin, who rose to a post of small official (head of a district), and only became a military leader (military governor) after the fall of Qin. Does Taylor quote another source?

François

The map that was posted in internet only showed a hole in Min Yue. Maybe that map was not correct.

All the while I thought Min Yue was conquered during han dynasty and not Qin dynasty.

So this needs further investigation because different sources give different information.

Among those 500,000 soldiers a good deal of them died during the prolonged war against the natives. The census of Han even recorded the population of Guangdong as less than 100 thousand. It was very likely that a large part of the army probably defected and returned home after Qin's collapse.

Did the history books say that 500,000 went to gwangzhou alone ? I thought Nam Viet has a much bigger area.

Where's the proof that most of them died ?

Taylor does quote Han Shu, but specifically about Zhao Tuo, he quoted Shih Chi.

From all I've read, Zhao Tuo is associated with titles such as commisioner, general, captain. He commanded army, made military decisions and troops planning. It does not sound like he's a lowly official deserving deportation.

With the exception of royalties, all prominent men have to start from somewhere. By the time Zhao Tuo was leading the Qin army, he's already a high ranking leader of some sort.

He Hans do not like Zhao To particularly due to his separatist posture. According to http://www.republicanchina.org/Vietnamese.html

They even dug up his ancenstral tomb and executed his kinsmen.. so I don't know how impartial history recorded about him.

After the fall of Qin, he declared himself emperor and later lowered to King by the Han. The governor must have a king/emperor to serve. When Qin fall, he did not immediately submit to Han. Not having an emperor to serve, it does not make sense that he would keep the title of governor.

The mass migration appeared to have started in the Later Han dynasty - at least to the aboriginal Wu ethnic areas in the Lower Yangtze valley.

The migration was not peaceful. Han citizens and Han army had to repeatedly quell aboriginal native rebellions. Apart from quelling aboringinal ethnic Wu people's rebellions, the Han/Chinese records do not appear to mention what happened to these aboriginal ethnic Wu natives. Judging from what happened to other conquered aboriginal natives (e.g. Australian Abos, North American Indians, New Zealand Maoris, etc.), the aboriginals are usually driven to barren lands, killed, starved, driven to suicide - with very little mixing with the conquerors. The "Wu" people of to-day are just descendents Of Han/Hua people who migrated to the aboriginal Wu lands and took that land from the aboriginal Wu by force - around 2 thousand years ago.

There appeared to be more mixing further South, in Fujing and in Guangdong. Perhaps someone from Fujing or Guangdong can comment on the Han/Hua migration to Fujing and Guangdong.

We Hua people have a very large country.

One reason that we have such a large country is that we Hua people expanded south - starting more than 2,000 years ago. We took the Southern lands by force from the aboriginal natives who lived there. We also expaned into Manchuria, but that happened during the Qing dynasty, with the approval of the Manchu government. Now we are expanding to the West - Xinkiang and Tibet. We are colonists - big time.

How often do Western countries and Western people criticize us for colonizing Xinkiang and Tibet? Apart from the Dalai Lama, the Tibetans are a quiet people. The Uighurs are not so quiet. They know that they are sitting on top of valuable minerals, including oil. They want to partake the wealth generated by these valuable minerals. But I don't think that PRC/Zhongguo will allow Xinkiang to separate - not even a part of it. PRC/Zhongguo allowed Outer Mongolia to separate many years ago; after separation, Outer Mongolia promptly became USSR's client state. Tibet is one big rocky tableland: not good for farming, not good for much of anything. But Tibet is strategically important: it keeps away the powerful Indians and the powerful Pakistanis. PRC/Zhongguo will not allow Tibet to separate.

Now I have given all the excuses: when will the Western democracies and the people living in those democracies start to vilify us for being Colonists?

Does anyone know if some of the Chu ancestors also migrated to Guangdong?
My family's surname is Choo.

thnx.

Chu people are descendents of the citizens of the country named Chu. They were originally from Henan, but now they are everwhere.

You must understand that the chinese language have many homophones.

In your case, it is not even the same pronounciaton and same tone.

Your choo means 'red' and is actually written as Ju in pinyin which is different from the Chu here.

Not mentioning the disagreement between different dialects.

You mean 朱? For Beijing Pinyin, it's Zhu not Ju.

But I am suspecting that it's 周 (Mandarin: Zhou1, Sino-Vietnamese Chu), which is also not the same as 楚.
The Zhou was a name of the state... 周 as a word also has meanings, but I don't think it has relevance to the name of the dynasty.

Check this article out: http://euronews.net/index.php?page=info&am...29933&lng=1 Can someone confirm if this is the next wave of Han Chinese into Guangdong province... Based on the article there are many chinese settling from other parts of china and calling Guangdong home. I've even heard of non-locals learning to speak Standard Cantonese and using it to communicate with the local cantonese population. Personally i think Standard Cantonese will survive and the local variants of Cantonese might die out... which is to me personally not all negative... because Yue will still continue to strive hehe