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Post by caiyi on Nov 4, 2015 11:42:52 GMT
I don't quite know how/where to place this, so I guess this is as good a place as any. Some of you may be familiar with this poem by Li Bai:- 床前明月光 疑是地上霜 举头望明月 低头思故乡 The long and short of the poem is that: The composer was in bed 床, and before 前 the bed was the bright 明 moon light 月光. He suspected 疑是 /thought the light came from the reflection of the frost 霜 on the ground 地上 Lifting 举 his head 头, he gazed 望 at the bright moon 明月 Lowering 低 his head 头, he thought 思 of his village 故乡 This poem is supposed to reflect the life of one who is away from home, melancholic that he is unable to be with loved ones during mooncake/harvest festival. My quirky interpretation had always been that the author was an alien, because he looked at the celestial body and wanted to go home (I was inspired by ET). This following interpretation was much better than mine. Before the composer was in bed 床前 was a girl, Bright Moon 明月, stripped naked 光. Her skin was so bright, it was like 疑是 the frost 霜 on the ground 地上 Lifting his head 举头, the composer gazed 望 at the Bright Moon 明月 Lowering 低 his head 头, he thought 思 of his wife back home 故乡 The interpretation was that the poem reflected the feelings of the composer, Li Bai, as he sought the company of a prostitute while he was far away from home. And I thought I was the creative one! That teacher shouldn't have given him zero. Who knows, maybe his interpretation is the real thing. LOL. Teacher should think out of the box.
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Post by chefying on Nov 4, 2015 13:18:50 GMT
That teacher shouldn't have given him zero. Who knows, maybe his interpretation is the real thing. LOL. Teacher should think out of the box. I agree with you caiyi, the teacher should think out of the box. And in any case, this interpretation is as good as the originally accepted one, and also my extra terrestrial one.
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Post by chefying on Nov 4, 2015 13:19:32 GMT
well, the ruling family of the tang weren't pure han either. just goes to show how "important" ethnicity is. They weren't? I was not aware of this! Thanks for the info, siuyiu.
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Post by chefying on Nov 4, 2015 13:22:04 GMT
I was like...OMG!!! creative indeed though! Btw, I just returned from my vacation in Sichuan (Chengdu, Jiuzhaigou, and Emei Shan). Then the tour guide mentioned that Li Bai was a not a pure Han. He's originally from Kazhakstan. Interesting fact indeed! Heck, I had always thought Li Bai was pure Han. Well, I always say that a bit of mix blood does wonders to the gene pool. Admin, hope you had a good time in Sichuan. I have never been to JiuZhai Gou. I bet it was pretty at this time of the year. Were there hoards of people when you visited?
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Post by siuyiu on Nov 4, 2015 16:21:26 GMT
well, the ruling family of the tang weren't pure han either. just goes to show how "important" ethnicity is. They weren't? I was not aware of this! Thanks for the info, siuyiu. yes, read it in one of my history textbooks. will need to look it up again for details (if any--i just remember this fact). the family was sinicized for a while, of course--not like they were mongols & manchus who simply took over. wikipedia (yes, we have to take info with a grain of salt when it comes to historical facts) traces li shimin's ancestor to the founder of the western liang dynasty of the sixteen kingdoms. now, we do know that non-han peoples established these short-lived dynasties. and that they all eventually were conquered by the sui dynasty. wiki says the founder of the western liang (surname li) was a han chinese, and if this is correct, then there must've been intermarriage with non-han nobles somewhere along the line. or it could simply be that li shimin's mother or grandmother was non-han. again, i don't remember the details.
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Post by caiyi on Nov 4, 2015 16:26:33 GMT
I read one article that said Li Bai might be the descendant of Li Jiangcheng, the crown prince that Li Shimin killed.
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Post by siuyiu on Nov 4, 2015 16:31:14 GMT
I was like...OMG!!! creative indeed though! Btw, I just returned from my vacation in Sichuan (Chengdu, Jiuzhaigou, and Emei Shan). Then the tour guide mentioned that Li Bai was a not a pure Han. He's originally from Kazhakstan. Interesting fact indeed! Heck, I had always thought Li Bai was pure Han. Well, I always say that a bit of mix blood does wonders to the gene pool. Admin, hope you had a good time in Sichuan. I have never been to JiuZhai Gou. I bet it was pretty at this time of the year. Were there hoards of people when you visited? Admin i'm sooooo jealous you've been to jiuzhai gou! i sooooo want to go! as for the whole ethnicity/genetics thing, china, like egypt, had always emphasized uniformity of culture rather than of ethnicity. if you assimilated and adopted the dominant chinese way of life, then you were chinese, no matter your ethnicity. yes, "han chinese" became the dominant group, but genetically, they weren't all related. think about how many "in-between" periods of disunion there were, how intermarriage with "barbarians" was acceptable/encouraged esp during early han, and how vassal states had people coming and going from the courts. heck, for the longest time, korea was sending "beautiful women" as tribute to china--most of these became minor concubines of the ruling emperor; whose to say none of them bore children that later intermarried among the nobles, thus technically producing half-korean descendants that were considered "chinese"? family name is what matters to chinese families, and plenty of "non-han" adopted chinese surnames. so, who can really tell "non-han" and "han" at the genetic level?
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Post by siuyiu on Nov 4, 2015 18:59:11 GMT
eureka! couldn't find the reference in my history textbook (in what i thought would be the relevant section), but found this source as proof: "The Tang dynasty, like its predecessors the Sui and Northern Zhou, was ruled by a family of hereditary warriors from the Guanlong aristocracy. Their ancestry was part Chinese, part Xianbei or Turkish." source: Van De Ven, H., Van Derven, H.J., Ven, H. (eds.) Sinica Leidensia, Warfare in Chinese History. Brill Academic Pub. 2000. (dunno if this can be browsed by everyone, but here's the link to the page: books.google.ca/books?id=IXKkCXDvYFYC&pg=PA110&lpg=PA110&dq=li+shimin+was+part+turkish&source=bl&ots=y3-Z-mEtD4&sig=w4DOwnI-hS7Ta25KcqWOI3_6kXI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCwQ6AEwA2oVChMI2tia1LP3yAIVi6YeCh0zrQxU#v=onepage&q=li%20shimin%20was%20part%20turkish&f=false)NB: Guanlong 關隴 is a place in modern Shaanxi province. it was a region in the Sui dynasty that produced influential families, and given that li shimin's family was related to the ruling yangs (his gran was sister to sui wendi's wife), these families continued to have influence in the tang dynasty. incidentally, the surname of sui wendi's empress was dugu 獨孤, which we know is a xianbei surname.
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Post by galvatron prime on Nov 5, 2015 2:10:00 GMT
Heck, I had always thought Li Bai was pure Han. Well, I always say that a bit of mix blood does wonders to the gene pool. Admin, hope you had a good time in Sichuan. I have never been to JiuZhai Gou. I bet it was pretty at this time of the year. Were there hoards of people when you visited? Admin i'm sooooo jealous you've been to jiuzhai gou! i sooooo want to go! as for the whole ethnicity/genetics thing, china, like egypt, had always emphasized uniformity of culture rather than of ethnicity. if you assimilated and adopted the dominant chinese way of life, then you were chinese, no matter your ethnicity. yes, "han chinese" became the dominant group, but genetically, they weren't all related. think about how many "in-between" periods of disunion there were, how intermarriage with "barbarians" was acceptable/encouraged esp during early han, and how vassal states had people coming and going from the courts. heck, for the longest time, korea was sending "beautiful women" as tribute to china--most of these became minor concubines of the ruling emperor; whose to say none of them bore children that later intermarried among the nobles, thus technically producing half-korean descendants that were considered "chinese"? family name is what matters to chinese families, and plenty of "non-han" adopted chinese surnames. so, who can really tell "non-han" and "han" at the genetic level? The Chinese in Malaysia,Singapore,Thailand always refer as Tang Ren/Tong Yan 唐人rather than Han Ren/Hon Yan .Chinatown know as 唐人街 siuyiu Do the place you live refer Chinese as唐人 ? I heard Chinese from South China refer themself as Tang Ren and refer China as Tong San唐山. Do the term Tang Ren come from Tang Dynasty ?
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Post by Lone Crane on Nov 5, 2015 5:13:38 GMT
Li Bai was supposedly a descendant of descendent of Li Gao (founder of Western Liang) and, further back, of Li Guang (Han dynasty general). This is the famous "Longxi" Li clan which would become the ruling house of the Tang dynasty, beginning with Li Yuan (Tang Gaozu). So if this ancestry is correct, then Li Bai would be Han. His family were in the trade business, and that is why they were in Central Asia when Li Bai was born. Subsequently they moved to Sichuan. So his family did business there, but that doesn't mean they were natives of the place. It seems more likely they were of Han blood (whatever that means, honestly. I mean, what counts as Han? If you go back far enough you have two tribes, the Shang and the Zhou, separate cultures. The Zhou conquered the Shang and continued from there. I don't know how you determine what a pure Chinese is).
The Tang ruling house was half Han, half Xianbei. The Xianbei part was from Gaozu's mother, who was Xianbei.
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Post by siuyiu on Nov 5, 2015 5:57:41 GMT
The Chinese in Malaysia,Singapore,Thailand always refer as Tang Ren/Tong Yan 唐人rather than Han Ren/Hon Yan .Chinatown know as 唐人街 siuyiu Do the place you live refer Chinese as唐人 ? I heard Chinese from South China refer themself as Tang Ren and refer China as Tong San唐山. Do the term Tang Ren come from Tang Dynasty ? i can only speak for the cantonese, who do refer to themselves as tang-ren rather than han-ren. i haven't come across the term tong san, though. and yes, the "tang" is from the tang dynasty--they refer to themselves as descendants of the golden age of china, which was the tang. and a majority of the early chinese immigrants to south and southeast asia would be from the southern provinces like guangdong and fujian, so the term tang-ren would be more popular than han-ren, consequently.
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Post by siuyiu on Nov 5, 2015 6:04:51 GMT
Li Bai was supposedly a descendant of descendent of Li Gao (founder of Western Liang) and, further back, of Li Guang (Han dynasty general). This is the famous "Longxi" Li clan which would become the ruling house of the Tang dynasty, beginning with Li Yuan (Tang Gaozu). So if this ancestry is correct, then Li Bai would be Han. His family were in the trade business, and that is why they were in Central Asia when Li Bai was born. Subsequently they moved to Sichuan. So his family did business there, but that doesn't mean they were natives of the place. It seems more likely they were of Han blood (whatever that means, honestly. I mean, what counts as Han? If you go back far enough you have two tribes, the Shang and the Zhou, separate cultures. The Zhou conquered the Shang and continued from there. I don't know how you determine what a pure Chinese is). The Tang ruling house was half Han, half Xianbei. The Xianbei part was from Gaozu's mother, who was Xianbei. and indeed, the earliest chinese would've been different tribes of people who eventually settled together under a common ruler/government, so where do you draw the line between "us" and "them"? according to another reference i looked up, the population of western liang was so genetically intermixed with xianbei and other neighbouring non-hans that it would've been difficult to distinguish between them, so even though the Li family considered themselves han, they were part xianbei for generations before they came to rule as the Tang. and by extension, li bai would've been part xianbei if he shares an ancestry with the ruling Li family of the tang. but this is only of consequence now with our ideas of ethnicity and genetic lineages. the tradition was that if your father was han, you were han (or in the case of non-hans, if you assimilated into the dominant culture, you were chinese and, after a while, a han).
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Post by galvatron prime on Nov 5, 2015 6:40:25 GMT
This is my country, I’ll not balik Tong San By Chua Jui Meng After 55 years of greed, plundering and emptying the national coffer, the Barisan Nasional (BN)-Umno government is now living off borrowings. According to Deputy International Trade and Industry Minister Mukhriz Mahathir, the federal debt is at about RM800 billion. That is why our economy is in tatters with the value of the ringgit shrinking fast (now at RM2.50 to S$1), cost of essentials and living rising and the people living in misery having to struggle to make ends meet daily. That is why the rakyat (people) is at a political crossroad and have no choice but to change the corrupt BN-Umno before economic disaster befalls us as a bankrupt country. Sabah’s RM40 million Musagate involving the state’s timber revenue and Sarawak’s multi-billionaire Taib Mahmud are two clear cases of super rich BN-Umno chief ministers who need not be accountable to their current wealth. Malaysia is a blessed country with rich natural resources, including oil and gas, and the 26 million citizens should be reasonably comfortable financially. But they are not, especially the rural and urban poor. In 1992, when I was in China, there were no cars on the roads, only bicycles and motorcycles. Not even Proton cars, don’t talk about Mercedes Benz. After two decades, China has overtaken Japan as the biggest economy in the world. BN-Umno leaders and their cronies can continue to tell us, the Chinese, to Balik Tong San (Go back to China), but I will not. www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/2012/10/18/this-is-my-country-ill-not-balik-tong-san/siuyiuChina sometimes refer as Tong San in Malaysia . Bruce Lee movie The Big Boss 唐山大兄,In Cantonese it also mean Big Boss from China. It also have a song
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Post by siuyiu on Nov 5, 2015 8:09:41 GMT
@galvatron thanks for the info about tong san!
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Post by reinafu on Nov 5, 2015 18:54:41 GMT
Very interesting discussion about people with Han origins or not. I would never have imagine that some Chinese people could have part of their ancestry being Turkish !
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