I'm not too sure about the history of Vietnamese people. The only source I read is that their ancestry can be traced back to the Yue people.

I've been to Ho Chi Minh city (in the South) and Hanoi (in the north). I noticed the southern Vietnamese in Ho Chi Minh city have darker complexion, while the northern vietnamese are much fairer.. and they look alot like cantonese chinese in China.

I wonder if the north Vietnamese have been mixed with han-chinese in the past, which makes them much fair in complexion, as compared to south Vietnamese.

Can anyone tell me if there is a difference between north and south Vietnamese, in terms of looks, genetics or ethnicity?

Perhaps the southerners are darker due to greater mixing with the Chams?

The North were pretty much a mixture of Cantonese or similar to Cantonese (Yue and Han genetically). More than roughly 60% have lighter skin and the physical features of the original Yue can not be traced but can be similar to South Chinese only. The South were a mixture of North Vietnamese, Chinese (from post Ming-preQing dynasty), Cham, and post-Cantonese. For the Chinese population, most came from Guangdong, GuangXi, and ZhaoChou. I don't know % of language close Chinese in the South.

actually the authentic northern town people are likely to be of Fujian merchant descent. Usually Vietnamese did not live in town. Most lived in villages. They only went to town to trade.
Contrast to what you thought there is more Chinese blood in people in the south than people in the North. There wasn't significant immigration and intermarriage between Chinese and people in the North. But based on the surnames which people in the south carry: Lin, Mai (wheat), Wang, Kang, Kong, Hua, Li, Tang, Xu3, Xu2, Zeng, Fang, OuYang...many are actually Chinese descendants. They fact that they look tan and dark because their ancestors were not white to begin with and there is much influence from weather factor.
Customs are also different between North and South. North are conservative, frugal while South are more liberal and care-free. North like eating blank food, plenty of vegetable; South eat tasty food and eat more meat.
North people like to think they really came from China, South people only care that they are Vietnamese and their ancestors came from the North. While northerner tend to think Cantonese and North Vietnamese are the same the southerner think differently.
There is significant propotion of Cham population and Cham descendants in the South population. There are many intermarriages between Cham and Chinese.
I don't know much about genetics stuff but people in the south don't look homogeneous to me while people in the North appear to.
North have many Vietnaminzed Zhuang, Tai ethnics. The current General Secretary of the Party is a Tai (Nong) ethnic minority.
Not all north look fair like you saw. The majority are dark, but still different from southern people. The only people that are fair are people who live along the Hong river delta and around and within Hanoi. It reminds me of Jiangnan where there are lots of lakes and this may be the reason. In fact if a southerner come to live in Hanoi for about 1 year he/she will become as fair as Hanoinese.
There is still another cultural centre that you did not visit. That is the middle Vietnam. People here are even more conservative and they remind me of Cantonese. These people are diligent, industrious but very narrow-minded. People from the same villages tend to help each other (either in business or in government office) and as a result sometimes the majority of a ministry are people from a certain areas.
There is a lot of Cham influence in their culture. The most recent capital of Vietnam was there so there were significant Chinese population there, but most had migrated back to Hongkong or overseas after 1979.

I think it's because of the geographic! The more toward south, the more darker skin one can get. Like in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City, there are bunch of Huaqiao but their skin is also dark as well.

North Vietnamese students

Southern Vietnamese students

One question: If most "true Vietnamese" live in the villages, why are they called "Kinhs"(means citizens)? Are the ones who called "Kinhs" truly Chinese descendants??

Another factor of darkness is the time of working outdoor and food.
Also, mountainous regions tend to make people get dark faster, so average people there are darker than the ones close to beaches.

I think we should put more emphasis in Face/Eye shapes.

There is no way that you could tell Chinese descendents or not unless only recent Chinese immigrants. I guess people with Chinese mixed or Chinese looking would not admit that they are Chinese b/c it does not make sense to claim or to be proud of Chinese descendents while living in Vietnam. Kinh means as Kinh Thanh Jing Sheng). No such thing is truly Chinese descendents.

Emphasis on Face/Eye shapes would not work anymore since the genetic mix between Nan Yue and Han Ren had been going on for a long time. The only you could assume Chinese looking is based on the appearance of the dominant genes.

Grasy, I am referring to Vietnamese during 19-20 century. You should know that until 1945, ~98% percent Vietnamese living in villages. That is one feature that differentiates Vietnamese culture and Chinese culture. Until now I guess many Vietnamese are still rural born, though the percentage of urban dwellers have increased to 15%-20%.
When I say Vietnamese look dark I don't care whether the weather factors affect the skin or not. The fact is they look dark, compared to average Chinese anywhere from GuangDong to HeilongJiang.
NguoiViet, you've completely mistaken. Chinese are very proud of themselves and their culture. I've seen 3rd generation immigrants still write in birth certificate that hometown is Zhu jiang (Pearl River, GuangDong). GuangDong people, especially the recent immigrants have very low intermarriage rate with the locals. The ratio is higher among Chaozhounese and Fujianese. I can even cite an example of a well-known writer, of Chinese descent, who wrote that his brother (half-Chinese) were arranged by his father (a full-Cantonese) to marry a Chinese girl so that Chinese blood will not be diluted. His name is Ho Yeng (He Ying in mandarin).
By the way, Jing in Vietnamese is 荆, as Vietnamese believe that their home is in
洞庭湖. Jing Yang Wang (Kinh Duong Vuong) in Vietnamese legends is a combination of the beginning word of Jingzhou +Yangzhou + wang, literally means the king of JingYang region (i.e. Chu land).
Eyes shape can't differentiate Vietnamese from Chinese, but I give you a hint: look at the nose, most Chinese have high nose. Another feature which can't be seen directly is the bone frame. Chinese have bigger bone frame than normal Vietnamese. My maternal grandpa was not very tall (~1,7 something) but his sister stood conspicuously from locals in both height and size and both their hands and legs are quite big, a feature I see in some Cantonese and most Northern Chinese but not people of Zhejiang/JiangSu
Another feature I discover from this forum: Cantonese always claim that their ancestors come from Gansu/Shaanxi/Henan. I don't know why they do that but everybody seems to ignore that Cantonese look more like coastal Chinese (Fujian/Zhejiang/Jiangsu) and a bit like Hunan but no where near Shaanxi/Henanese. If there is any truth in it I think it is the same as nguoiViet claim that Vietnamese originated from Yue in Zhejiang/Jiangsu.

^^ Vietnamese has the same skin tones as Thai and Lao people, but not Cambodian one

Here also. Just pretend this people look exactly that people or this people look totally different from that people, and that they have light or very dark skin, group this, ungroup that, then argue like there are something useful to argue based on pretended facts. Finally, pretend that we all learn a lot of things from the debate.

Oh also, don't forget to pretend that you are shocked when people say something that you don't want to hear.

GZ
I agreed with u when i was there, and amazed by the fact that N.Vietnamese are
deeply influenced by Han culture, many signs are in Hanzi.
I think it has to do with the weather, the south are tropically hot whereas the
north enjoy some sea freeze and cooler temp.
many Chinese who live in Indon or Malaysia are virtually same skin tone as the
local.
Whereas Chinese friend of mine who moved tropical to Northern hemi, his skin tone amazing turn dark to fair complexion after 1 year.

USC

As an Equatorial Chinese, I must say that I look darker than them. But, by the way, the Chinese mountainers look as dark as I am, so when I came to China they thought I lived in mountains.

I thought 京族 was a good translation of the Kinh. Probably the confusion came from the low literacy of them in China.


OK, I think I must be care about the bone frame and nose.
My attention toward it is very low that figure no4 looks Chinese.
By the way, I saw some South Chinese with considerably high nose. My nose is flat compared to them (I will be classified as Vietnamese??). But their number is not very high. Average South Chinese is not like them. So Vietnamese have even flatter nose?? (Imagining...). Even native Indonesians do not have the nose that flat.

So you think your maternal grandpa is Cantonese?
The hands, legs, height and size can change shortly.
Average Japanese males were shorter than average Indonesian when they invaded Indonesia, but nowadays they are taller.
It was a change of style, culture, food etc. that is considerable.


nishishei's comment on my figures says that they may be found Shanxi/Henan.
3 proud groups of South Chinese believe in the legend that they migrated from North. Hokkien (I think includes Tio Chiu), Hakka and Cantonese respectively (never heard about Jiangsu people since they are not found in most overseas Chinese community here). The proudest of them is Hakka. It is said that Hakka almost never mix with non-Chinese. It's shown in family pedigree, but She-Zu and Zhuang-Zu have the same kind of name as Chinese, and also Hokkien may be mixed with non-Chinese.
Also many people say that Hakka etc. look southern minority? If they were purely from Qin then those people that migrated were all descendants of the past JiuLi 九黎, who might have severe discrimination that time.


Some of Thai and Lao look darker than what I think I look.


Just ignore this bad post.


Its a wrong point to say that we are as dark as native Indons . Native Indons say I am white even though I think that I am very dark.
Native Indons are born with darker skins. Don't confuse with mixed Chinese-Indon, sometimes they look local but with white skin. Very few of my Malay friends are white (means: as white as I am) but the rest of them are much darker.

There are still millions of ethnic Khmer living in the south, perhaps contributing to the overall impression of South Vietnamese people having darker complexion (after all, until the 18th century, what is now Southern Vietnam had been traditional part of Khmer Cambodia)

And I don't think the Cham play a big part. I am no specialist on Vietnamese history, but the historic way the Vietnamese encroachment at the Cham went points to a slow, but steady displacement of the Cham population by the Vietnamese rather than much intermixing. Also, intermixing on a large scale is unlikely for religious reasons as the Cham were Hindu (later largely Muslim) and the Vietnamese Buddhist. Heck, even nowadays, intermarriages between Muslim and Hindu Cham are taboo, so I guess they largely stuck to themselves for most parts of their history.

sorry grasy my generalization hehee, don't get mad
you shud move to northern hemi then you'll turn not white but fairer for sure!!

Mixing of Hindu and Buddhist dopes not seem a very serious problem (compared to other mixing between different religion). Since past, and even now Buddhist and Hindu seem to coexist very peacefully.
Mostly problem arises from either Muslim or Christian.

Khmers are millions in number? Are you sure? The largest population of ethnic minority in Vietnam is now either Hoa or Tay, close to 1 million. Khmer is fewer than them, about 700.000 refer to this site:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/vietnam/vn_appen.html


Indonesia is on the equator, so you can't tell whether I'm in North or South without knowing what city I live in.
By the way, moving to South hemisphere can also make you whiter, as long as you go away from the equator.

All u wrong, frist vietnamese different Chinese, but when Han invaded vietnam , vietnamese also mixed with Han, then Vietnamese people went to South to find new land and they mixed with Cham (Champa King dom)

Haven't you heard the issue that South Chinese is more Viet than Han??
And do you know what's the result of mixing Indonesian with South Chinese?

As far as I know, most Chinese came to Vietnam through the North then later migrated into the Southern part of the country where crop and farming were more favorable. Also, Chinese living in Vietnam tend to married their own ethnic inside the country.

I think 90% or more of overseas Chinese only likes to marry their own ethnic. It's also due to 'ancient modernization' which laws preventing intermarriage started. (which is being abandoned again)

Indonesian gene is stronger than south Chinese, 1:1 mix, although they do bring South Chinese gene, looks precisely Indonesian.

I think Cambodian ~ Indonesian, so a little Cambodian gene will have quite much impact on a Vietnamese look.