If China invades and turns Vietnam to become a province, would you risk your life to defend the country because Vietnamese population is mix of everything already, greatest one is Southern Chinese.
For me, it does not matter any more because I need to have my own life to live. Why would I risk myself to defend the word 'Yue' or 'Han'? Just the word 'Yue' or 'Han' can be changed but the people are pretty much the same.

The subject of this topic still validates its reverse like the Han Chinese is the lost Vietnamese because most of the Han Chinese have genetically, culturally, and linguistically mixed well with the Yue.

Following grasy's link to the page of Chinese Dong Son drums, I do not see any critical information.
However, the page next to it is more interesting: http://www.kepu.net.cn/english/nationality...0312240083.html
The page is talking about the Frog totem of the Zhuang. Similiar to that, there are Toads on Vietnam Dong Son drums. Toad is not considered as Vietnam totem, but an important and noble animal instead.
How do you think of the similarity between the Zhuang (in China) and the Jing (in Vietnam)?

NguoiVietChanhTong:
I think we all coming here for learning and sharing to cultivate our mind rather than to show off the negative racism or naturalism inside us if there is some.

"Most" Han-Chinese? I seriously doubt that... perhaps a small, isolated minority near the Vietnamese border and a tad beyond, but certainly not "most" Han-Chinese.

Also, how is the Han-Chinese culture and language influenced by Vietnamese? Please provide some examples.

I do not know how, but I think there should be in some degree.
On the contrary, the Vietnamese culture and language is heavily influenced by the Chinese's.

Don't get me wrong, I am more curious than skeptical, which is why I asked for examples. But to simply assume there are seems a little irresponsible to me.

Language influence is usually a one-way street, with the more powerful culture influecing the less powerful ones. English today has influenced numerous languages around the world, including Chinese. On the other hand, not many Chinese words are being imported into English with the exception of maybe "kung-fu", "fengshui", and "tea".

Baipu (Ba'ch Bo^.c) people migrated from Northeast China to an area North of Yangxi (Du+o+ng Tu+?) River, and was then called Puyue (Bo^.c Vie^.t). But I think they were still separated from the Xi Ou (Ta^y A^u), ancestors of the Zhuang (Tra'ng) by Tongtinghu (DDo^.ng DDi`nh Ho^`).
/dak/ meaning water is/are the word in languages in Vietnam's Central Highland.

Water is /lak/ through study of Southeast Asian languages. A sea bird is called /lak/ in Chinese, and therefore about 50 years ago, a Vietnamese scholar theorized that the Vietnamese came from maritime trading people from Fujien, who settled in North Vietnam. I think it is gross mistake.

You caught my mistakes in both counts. Gosh!

People migrate back and forth and no one can really deny "Southern" mixture in the "Northern" But that time no one was defined to be "Viet" or "Yue". It depends on how wide you generalize the word "Yue". You can generalize so that every "Mongoloid" is in your "Yue".


About Totem... I forgot but seemingly something is quite special about Turtle and Dragon totem?
But does having the same totem implies close relationship? e.g. Chiyou's Jiuli and Yandi's tribe (ancestors of Qiang) had the same ox totem..


Language... perhaps not Vietnamese, but somebody else.. That makes you have no real past tense (no verb change at all) and tonal. What I know is that Tibetan has past tense by verb change, and some of related languages don't have tones. Words imported to ancient Chinese from outside were usually "non-ancient-Chinese" commodities, like 糖"sugar" (seemingly from Southern people), 蜜"honey" (from Tocharian of Indo-European)..


Hm... I forgot where I found the Pu 濮 river, but there is one Pu-yang 濮阳 North of the Yellow River, in Henan. If I recall correctly 百濮 Bai Pu were just Southern People, regionally close to Bai Yue.
Perhaps there is another Pu 濮 close to Dongting lake?
Also, I've never heard of the term "Pu-yue"...

Reconstruction, of *Îaak, is what I read long ago of proto-Mon-Khmer. But the *l- in Middle Chinese usually reconstructed to be of Old Chinese *r-... Would not satisfy the reading of 駱...

Yeah, that is the 鵅 above. It's not a clue of how Vietnamese came just because it reads the same as "Lac".
He wanted to say Fujian spoke Austroasiatic? Oh, just they adapted (including language) to North Vietnam for their language (living together with Dong Son people )?

I am not saying the Chinese language has absolutely no outside influence, as a matter of fact, Mandarin has been much more influenced by foreign languages than their southern counterparts, which retained many elements of old Chinese.

The topic of discussion was whether there were any Vietnamese influence on the Chinese language. If so, what are some examples.

In http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=8491, I quoted a Russian scholar's theory. In that theory, he stipulated that the people who migrated from the Weishu (Vi. Thu?y) River Valley along the Huang He (Hoa`ng Ha`) met in West Henan (Ha` Nam) with a people from the Han (Ha'n) River Valley migrating up, and formed the base of later Yin (A^n) people. This people spoke a Sino-Tibetan (Ha'n Ta.ng) language, but contained differences from other languages of the family.

I didn't read his work, just the quotes and paraphrases from others, but there was no mention of Fujian's (Phu'c Kie^'n) language at the time, and I think he was referring to the North-South migration, not the other way around. However, sites in Zhe Jiang (Trie^'t Giang), as well as, I think, those in ancient Chu (So+?) shows "Dong Son daggers," indicating a two-way cultural interchange, as sites in North Vietnam shows artifacts of Chu and Gu Yue (U Vie^.t or Co^? Vie^.t)/Wu (Ngo^) origins.

The language may have been influenced by southern people, but I think it was before the forming of "Vietnamese" (therefore not really Vietnamese).

When is the Vietnamese language formed?
The mordern language has been being developed for milleniums.
That means that it has its start. At this point, we can say it was Vietnamese.

By the opinions of the linguistics, the Vietnamese language started with
a Mon Khmer language. Therefore, we may try to look at Chinese words
that may come from Mon Khmer languages.

grasy, Krikov hypothesized that part the peple who migrated to the Weishu (Vi. Thu?y) Valley then migrated to West Henan and combined with another group migrated from the Hanshu Valley, and the language of the combined people is still Sino-Tibetan like that of the people from the Weishu Valley, but contains unique elements distinct from others of the family. I assumed that the unique elements are from the people from the Hanshu Valley. But I didn't say that they were Yue. But they were well might be. We know that ancient Chinese have the phrase Handong barbarians, to designate peoples East of the Han River. I guess just as people who were West of the Weishu were called Jung barbarian, though they were related to those that migrated from there to West Henan, people East of Hanshu were Yue barbarian, though they were related to those who migrated from there to West Henan.
We also know that, they it has been Sino-Tibetan all along, originally Chinese had the word order noun-adjective, a Southern order.
TruViet, Vietic, which includes Kinh (Jing) and Muong, is classified as a sub-branch of the Mon-Khmer branch. The Mon-Khmer branch is a branch of the Austroasiatic family. This family of languages is thought by some to begin about 4000 years ago (see La Vaughn H. Hayes on the web). The point of origin is hypothesized as Yunnan. It is also hypothesized to split from Austric (see Hayes), a super-family that includes the Austroasiatic and the Austronesian families. Tai-Kadai influenced Vietic, and is a family hypothesized to belong to the Austronesian family, and in turn, to the Austric. super-family. (This super-family is hypothesized to include also the Hmong-Mien family. The Tai-Kadai and Hmong-Mien were previously classified as belonging to the Sino-Tibetan family).

Just a question regarding how one decides who is your ancestor...

I noticed that some Vietnamese have claimed the Dong Son people to be their ancestors while others have claimed the Bai Yue tribes (part of all of the tribes), and a few even claimed a "seafaring people" from Malaysia.

So assuming ALL these groups have "mixed" to create the modern Kinh-Vietnamese, how do you determine which is your ancestors? Or do you consider ALL of them your ancestors, even if some groups may play only a small role? What about the other peoples that mixed with the Kinh-Vietnamese later on such as the Champas, Khmers or any other people native to southern-Vietnam?

Han-Chinese claim our ancestors are from the Yellow River basin because mainly that's where our culture started. Although over the years, Han-Chinese have assimilated other peoples and interbred with them, they were absorbed into the greater Han culture rather than the other way around. That's not to say the Han culture itself hasn't changed due to foreign influence over the years though. But just like how when foreigners bring parts of their cultures and add to the American culture, in the end, it's still the American culture. However, I don't really see the same case with Kinh-Vietnamese.

BTW, just to avoid possible flames, I am not trying to invoke anyone, I am merely trying to learn more about the origin of the Kinh-Vietnamese.

Nothing wrong with your questions, Kulong.
First, the Dong Son Culture is named after the site where it was first found. It doesn't just cover North Vietnam but spread to Guangxi and Yunnan as well. Dong Son drums were found in Indonesia, but though there is a people called Dayak that has Dong Son cultural traits still living there as a minority, it was probably just a small colony. So Dong Son covered what is considered the Southern branch of the Bai Yue, and some.
About the seafaring peple as our ancestors, we are talking about a period that precedes or coincides with the Dong Son period, in other words, the founding elements of the Dong Son Culture. So there, also, there isn't any contradiction or conflict in theories.
And these seafaring peoples are not from Malaysia, because they came to mix with an Austroasiatic people from inland to form the Dong Son Culture before they migrated to Indonesia and Malaysia (then to the Phillipines). The Austronesian has its origin in mainland China, then Taiwan, then spreading from it 4000 years ago, according to Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel.
There was interaction between the Dong Son Culture in North Vietnam, and cultures South of it in Central Vietnam, with the Sa Huynh Culture, which used more iron than the Dong Son Culture itself, and in South Vietnam, with the Oc Eo/Dong Nai Culture. These cultures were founded by Austronesian speaking peoples. As grasy mentioned, Funan (Phu` Nam) people was Austronesian speaking, before it was taken by Chenla (Cha^n La.p), its vassal from South Laos, and came to speak Khmer. Peoples in the Central Highlands speak either Austroasiatic languages or Austronesian ones, and do not look different from the Chams. Dai Viet invaded, took land and people from Champa, and added Champa culture to its own. The same is not true with Khmer culture, but that is because South Vietnam was not the core Khmer territory, was underinhabited because of its vast salty swamps, and was populated mostly by Dai Viet immigrants who came in and worked the land.
So in Vietnam, too, there has been cultural evolution to go with ethnic integration; and I think more so. I always laugh when I hear of Western media inventing such sentiment as xenophobia and racial purism (their euphonym for racism) associated with the Vietnamese.

If I want to refer to common ancestor of Thai and Zhuang, would we say it was Thai or Zhuang?
Neither. Just "ancestor of Thai" or "ancestor of Zhuang", not Thai or Zhuang (though Thai and Zhuang both developed from this common ancestor)
With similar argument, I would say that it's not actually Vietnamese who influenced Chinese.

It's quite tricky how to see who loaned from whom, or just natural words (no loaning). Seemingly we must see whether the word also exists in other part of the family. (i.e. compare to Munda and Tibeto-Burman)

Example?

I don't know how strong the basis of this superfamily is.. but somehow it seems not very widely accepted.

Dayak, a tribe in Kalimantan(Borneo) (not small)... I never knew they practise Dong Son culture.


As I thought, the "mainland" seafaring people was not from Pacific Islanders, but the reverse.

People in Indonexia have some DongSon drums, that means that they may share many things
with people in mainland at this time. I do not know whether they practice Dong Son culture or not.
They may share the art and technique in making DongSon drums, or they may create the DongSon
drums first, and people in mainland learnt the DongSon arts and technique from them. Who knows?

Yes. I believe so. Besides, I also think that some Pacific Islanders resettle in mainland later.
There are theories of Pacific Islanders and native Australians being from mainland, as you know.
However, people could sail from mainland to the sea, they could sail from the sea to mainland.

Linguistic studies based on oldest stone erections with Chinese writings on, was what that grammatical structure was found. (Sofronov, 1977). I do not read his work directly, and cannot quote you an example. but I am sure he has them in his book.
About Austric, it was pronounced dead because of the lack of lexiconological proofs, only morphological ones. This was where L.V. Hayes came in, and resuscitated the theory. It is now, I think, stronger than before, as it possesses both types of proofs.
The Dayak builds houses that has the roof having the horseback shape. This is the shape of Dong Son houses.

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=VN
All Malayo-Polynesians in Viet Nam are Malayic, not of other type.
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=89851
The types which corresponds to Philippines or Polynesians are not found, proving they do not sail back to Vietnam. "Random" migrations do not guarantee the reverse direction will happen.

The seemingly [modified]-[modifier] forms in Chinese are actually sometimes the natural order for Chinese till today; his view could be similar to fcharton's (a French member here researching classical Chinese).
Still everything I read about Old Chinese is dominantly in [modifier]-[modified] order.
I will try to find his book later.

I thought that the morphological form was much weaker than the etymologycal ones(i.e. no clear sound change patterns).

I notice Dayaks and several other minorities in Indonesia builds houses like the people in Vietnam or even Southern China e.g. Zhuang.

Vietnamese speakers (not neccesarily ethnic Vietnamese) are invited to a similar topic discussed in this thread:
http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php...0&#entry4774406

During milleniums before the history time, ancient people sailed from mainland
to the sea, and then back to mainland many times, many people, and there is
no reports about that. This is not weird. Someday in the future, we may find some
articles about that.

I can't guarantee if the ethnologue report covers 100% of ethnics found in Vietnam, but as you can see the Austronesians in Vietnam are speaking Achinese-Chamic, perhaps the people just split after Vietnamese invasions. In Thailand and Myanmar there is another group of Malayic spoken, not just Achinese-Chamic.

As for the Polynesians, I believe they sailed to find new places to stay. I can't prove that the Polynesians never went to mainland, but till now there is still not found any Polynesian-type language in Indochina.

I've read that there is some records of weird countries that can be reached by a very long time of sailing, e.g. Fusang is believed to be in the Americas.

About the Vietnamese language thread(s), my opinion is that Vietnamese speakers, however limited they are, can pitch in. There should not be talk behind anyone's back. To be frank, this is a crowd with all types of people, some of whom we do not care to make friends with. But there are many respectable people as well. And we are not here to make friends, but to understand a bit more about our country/people's past, and other peoples in the region as well. And to understand more about other peoples' standings on issues related to our country/people. Not a reliable place to do so (let's be frank), but could be more fun than academic ones.
Nguye^~n, could you accomodate non-ethnic Vietnamese speakers to participate in the thread mentioned above?
I have a similar post in the thread "Vietnamese are lost Han?" as I think these 2 are the only ones with ethnic Vietnamese forum members and others who are interested in Vietnamese ethnic/history --if that's OK with the administrator.

Though I am taking the opinion that Austronesian languages came out of China, that opinion is challenged by Oppenheimer who wrote Eden in the East --The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia. This book was published in 1998, and from what I heard, remains unchallenged. The reason might be that in order to do so, one also has to resort to interdiciplinary knowledge that the author possesses --deeply, I might add! I have not finished the book, as I am still reading Taylor's The Birth of Vietnam. Just a quick note to say that your position has merit, and I do not necessarily oppose it. According to Oppenheimer, the homeland of the Austronesian family lies in East Indonesia, and spread all over, including to Central Vietnam.

Indonesia?? Good idea with regard to Malay people?

I don't know what, but the most divergent Austronesian languages seem to be in Taiwan, the origin should be close to there. In some classification schemes Malayo-Polynesian are not the same as Austronesian

Hong Kong based Meacham and America based Solheim has the same hypothesis as Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer's argument against Blust, the authority on "Out of Taiwan" hypothesis, was that the hypothesis of the homeland of Austric being where the 3 major rivers in Asia originate, with the family of languages spreading through them to Shanghai and Southeast Asia does not have the proof of languages along the river justifying (1).

1. Eden in the East, Oppenheimer, p.130

Was the "hypothesis of the homeland of Austric being where the 3 major rivers in Asia originate" made by Blust or Oppenheimer? (actually I don't know which are the 3 major rivers in Asia; are they Mekong, Yangtze and Yellow River?)

If I assume there was no "Austric" then does it not become a useless argument?

It was Blust's hypothesis. This is consistent with the "Out of Taiwan" claim, for the direction is indicated by the order of progression, though both hypothesis have the same route. Blust's was in the progression Sichuan-Zhejiang-Taiwan-Central Vietnam-Indonesia-Phillipines-outer Pacific-Madagascar.

There's been a lot of argument between Vietnamese members recently about whether the term Bai Yue is worth anything to the Vietnamese themselves, and whether it is historically accurate. I find this strange because Bai Yue, 'Hundred Yue' was a term loosely and vaguely applied by the Qin and Han dynasties to all the ethnic groups south of the Yangzi River. It may never have been used by the Yue peoples themselves, because they had their own tribal and regional groupings. This may be similar to how the European colonists called all Native Americans 'Indians', whereas they had their own disparate identities as Lakota, Apache, Iroquois, and so on.

When scholars these days reject the term 'Indians' for referring to Native Americans, it's not because it was never used and not because it's no longer used by ordinary people ('Cowboys and Indians' is still heard quite often). But because it is not a term that the subjects themselves used. Then again, they never knew themselves as 'Native Americans' either.

So if Bai Yue was a blanket generic term that was imposed on various groups out of ignorance, what should be used to replace it if we are to even continue referring to them as a collective at all?

I agree. The term Bai Yue is no less specific than say "European", "African" or even "Southeast Asia". Fact is, the term was used to refer to a group of people in a specific region. The name itself (百 bai = hundreds) implies that there is more than one "group" within this region. I personally don't believe the term Bai Yue was born out of "ignorance" though, at least no more than terms like European, African, Asian... etc. It's just a different level of label.

If Nan Man was not considered Bai Yue, but only the Southeastern peoples of China, then racially it was admixtures of Southern Mongoloid and Australoid. Since there is no cut-off proportion was mentioned, the term can be as broad as technically possible, rendering it an ineffective and indescriptive term.
Having said that, historical discussions are still possible involving the term, for it did indicate by Huaxia people to cover a defined geographical area with distinct peoples residing.

The term Bai Yue is no more "ineffective" and "indescriptive" as the term Asia. To Europeans, Asia is everything "east" of Europe, which is why it started off as a term referring to the Middle East and eventually covered everything from Turkey to Japan. Just like Asia, Bai Yue refers to peoples "south" of China proper without any end to the other end of the border, not that China at the time have explored that far anyway. Obviously the term Bai Yue would be outdated today as part of Bai Yue, if not all of it, are part of China now.

It meant for the Yue. I like your map of showing the Yue people. I am not sure if it was racially the same throughout the Bai Yue. At least the Yue was once popular in South China.

I am not sure what you mean.

The map I made was obviously a mockery... during the time of Qin/Han, China wasn't even aware of lands as far as Madagascar... and as far as I know, Bai Yue never included Northeastern India and any Pacific islands...

I don't even know what you mean by "at least the Yue was once popular in South China"...

Quote from Yun Apr 22 2005, 01:22 PM
It seems strange for Vietnamese to be claiming common ancestry with the
Malays and Indonesians when the Cham would have a much better claim to that.

Response by TrueViet:
I do not think the Jing (Vietnamese majority) has the common ancestry with
the Malays and Indonesians. I have said that, some Pacific Islanders might
have landed in Vietnam, and intermerried with ancient Viet. This is totally
different from common ancestry. The same sense in the case with the Han Chinese.
The Han Chinese have been intermerried with the Viet in Vietnam for centuries.
That does not make the Han Chinese the common ancestry with the Viet.

Quote from AhMan
I dunno if there is any reason for Vietnamese and Chinese both use the term tongbao
(同胞 -same egg sac), but it could well be Vietnamese historians who copied this term
from Chinese and made up a story for their own. See how HuangDi was made up in Zhou
period (not remember quite well here) the story of Luo Long Jun and Au Ji could have
been well made up by historians who were concious about their country and their people.

Response by TrueViet:
Let's avoid the topic of who copied whom, but the story of LuoLongJun and OuJi was
actually made up by Vietnamese historians. The legend had been centuries or milleniums
older in the area from India to South China and to at least as Malayxia.

Quote from nguoiVietchanhtong Apr 23 2005, 10:05 AM
From these children, there came out to be Bách Việt.
The historical a Hundred Yue took place around the Yangtze River agriculture people
and passed down to the south of it to Hai Nam, currently South China.

Response by TrueViet:
It is what you said. I doubt that these statements are from any books, let alone facts.

Translation by TrueViet:
Sông Dương Tử is the YangZi River. Động Đình Hồ is the DongTing Lake.

Quote from Kulong Today, 02:04 PM
I don't even know what you mean by "at least the Yue was once popular in South China"...

Response by TruViet:
BaiYue was the term given by Han-Chinese officials thousands of years ago.


Statement by TrueViet:
BaiYue or Yue is not a modern word. We can use it to search the historical materials.
However, writing historical works, we have better choices of words than the term AnyYue.

OK. Let I just say I've never heard of any Chinese records distinguishing Bai Yue racially.
(I do have heard of people with much hair, people who look slightly like Maccacca, people with white eye and black body etc.)

Yeah, I know you just made that a joke.
After the term died out of common use, some Indonesians migrated to Madagaskar, and several more unrelated migrations, and that was what made some people thought that the map was like that.


If both 同 and 胞 have proper native Viet cognate, then I don't know the answer.
Made up by historians to state they were very different from Chinese? And I've never heard of any Malay who has that legend. Nagas in India? Perhaps.
Okay, and they could have made anything related to flood-brother-sister legend illegal. (while Muong has it)

Yeah, more like that. Now BaiYue is just an obsolete term, but you may use that name to name your company .

Austronesian, Austroasiatic, Tai-Kadai, and even Hmong-Mien I think, are classified as part of either Austric or Austro-Tai.
Taiwanese aboriginal peoples are related to the Austronesian, and by extension, the Bai Yue.
Some Austronesian words survived in Chinese, and some words of dialects spoken by peoples living in former Bai Yue territory are Austronesian.

grasy wrote on this thread, http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php...0&#entry4780240

QUOTE(Nguyen-Trong Cam @ Dec 31 2005, 03:41 AM)

"I think you misunderstood me. I mean only the peoples in South China has Bai Yue element, not people in the Central Plain. This thread's term Han Chinese covers a greater area. Therefore it should not be merged with one that does not."
Okay, depends on whether you consider Dong-Yi (of Shang age) and Chi-you as a part of "Yue". They were certainly in North.


QUOTE
"As to whether North Vietnam was part of Bai Yue, Northern Vietnamese called themselves Luo. Han Dynasty literature added the term Yue to it, as it deemed all admixtures of Southern Mongoloid and Australoid South of Huaxia as Yue (the same admixture East of it was called Yi). So in the eye of Huaxia, North Vietnamese were part of Bai Yue."
Can you show me what racial distinction did Huaxia record? (this is my same comment as the "Bai Yue" thread)


QUOTE
"We consider ourselves native inhabitants of an admixture (among other admixtures) of Southern Mongoloid and Australoid, such as peoples of South China, Northeastern India, political Southeast Asia, Pacific Islanders, Madagascar. This wide area includes the area known by Huaxia 2000 years ago, which it called Bai Yue."
Madagaskar language is quite close to Indonesian compared to Polynesian, quite a "recent" migration, and they seem had mixed with native Africans. And actually you yourself has said that even in North Asia there were Australoid element.
(okay, how do you think about DongYi of Shang age? South Mongoloid?)

To answer, Dong Yi was similar to Yue. Chi You was possibly the leader of JiuLi, which comprised of San Miao, San Jin, Li and 2 more tribes. Some of these tribes took over the Central Plain and founded the Shang Dynasty.

The Huaxia people, represented by the Zhou Dynasty, called peoples Southeast of them Bai Yue, without specifying phenotypes. But there is a Vietnamese saying, "Ta^`n phi`, Vie^.t sa^'u," meaning "Chin people are fat, and Yue people are bony." This may partly be due to diet, as there is another saying, "Nem Ta^`n, go?i So+?," meaning " Chin meat paste, Chu fish salad."

All peoples of China proper, and Southeast Asians are Southern Mongoloid.

Chi-You of Jiu-Li was in the legend of Huangdi.
Li-zu now is the most direct descendant of Chi You's tribes.
I see that there's also no phenotype specification for Xiongnu/Huns. Seems that ancient Chinese might consider most Mongoloids as "normal". (if I recall correctly, there was "racism" toward Funan recorded in Liang Shu).
By the way "Tần Phì, Việt Sấu" look a lot like Sino-Vietnamese phrase for me.
EDIT:OK. I found an idiom called 越瘦秦肥 "Việt Sấu Tần Phì". A Tang-age text:
唐·韓愈《爭臣論》：“視政之得失，若越人之視秦人之肥瘠，忽焉不加喜戚於其心。”
(well, quite hard to understand for me)
In Modern Chinese meaning it means "比喻痛癢與己無關。" ( being ill and itchy of someones unrelated?)
How about Mongolian and Native American? (ok. by the way if you consider Native American then there would be "Western/Eastern Mongoloid" )

Mongolians, Manchurians, most Koreans are Northern Mongoloid. Americanoids are possibly Southern Mongoloid.

Hm... I just searched for some Inuit Indians pictures and no conclusion :-/
(well, the term should be revised because there exist East-West difference??)

i think it is actually used to describe the indifference one feels towards another.
in your 'modern chinese reading' a better translation would be "[As in] other's pain and itching have nothing to do with you."

with one's self.

唐·韓愈《爭臣論》：“視政之得失，若越人之視秦人之肥瘠，忽焉不加喜戚於其心。”

Han Yu's statement: "They see the successes and failings of the government just like the Yue people see the fatness or thinness of the Qin people - it makes their hearts no happier or sadder."

In one word, apathy.

In other words, the Yue did not like the Qin.

On the contrary. If the Yue disliked the Qin, they would have felt happy if the Qin got thinner or sad if the Qin got fatter. But because Qin was too far away from them (this is referring to before the Qin unification), they couldn't care less one way or the other.

In the anciet context, it did not mean like that. If the Yue hated the Qin, the expression could have been clearer. The Yue did not want to unify with the Qin and part of the Qin. The distance was not in that picture.

I seriously doubt that Han Yu would have been sympathetic to the ancient Yue of the Warring States. He was a Han xenophobe in the later Tang dynasty.

Like I said, he was talking about two random states that were far away from each other. It had nothing to with the Qin conquest.

I disagree. Yue was exterminated long before Qin began swallowing up the other states. Thus, they could not have 'not want to unify with the Qin and part of the Qin.' The statement described a situation when Yue was on the southeastern fringe of China, with enough problems of its own, that it could really care less what was happening on the extreme west of China, miles and miles away. They, naturally, would only concern themselves with the bordering states of Chu and Wu.

It's like Silla or something during the Tang period. Do you think Silla would be really concerned about the Arabs when they have a big buffer state like Tang between them? Just doesn't make sense, especially in 'the ancient context' that you are describing.

Another proof of thread hijacking.

Some Vietnamese nowaday still believe that they are from that Yue people.
They do not bother to think about the process this Yue becoming mordern Viet.