Mien (Yao) Buddha Temple in Oakland California (5/5)

[ImSaephan]

The Chinese called us Yao (Barbarian) & now thats our name. :(

[HalfLuck4]

@ImSaephan No, we "Yao" are not the barbarian. The chinese called the mongolia barbarian. Maybe there are some misunderstanding.

[gxbhb]

@ImSaephan Yao in Chinese is "瑶"。But at first, we were called as moyao,"莫徭"。Mo means no, yao means "tax". Moyao means "no need to pay tax". And that was because our ancestor King Phan contributed to the country and that was the adward for his offsprings. Then chinese called as yao "徭" for short. But chinese still looked down upon us. They replaced "徭" with another character "猺" which was pronounced the same.

[gxbhb]

@ImSaephan As you can see, "狗" is dog in Chinese, "猫" is cat, "狼" is wolf , "獾" is badger. "犭" is the symbol to show that the character in Chinese is related to animals. So "猺" is a kind of offensive term for us, which shows that Chinese saw us as animals. After 1949, Chinese government forbad this word and changed it into "瑶"，which pronounce the same and means beautiful. It's a beautiful name. But it has nothing to do with us. And people forgot why we are called as Yao too.

[chaoand09]

Who's the singer pls post her name. Thans

ks so very much.

[Mi3nboitorne]

i know the singer =]

[HalfLuck4]

No, I do not think so. I must say that I am very proud of the Oakland Mien people because of them my people now have Temple in USA. I'm just interested.

[liuyuki]

Mien (Yao) community really proud of your constant support on promoting their tradition & culture.