Qing Culturalism and Manchu Identity

UC Berkeley's Frederic Wakeman, widely regarded as one of the world's finest China scholars, gave what turned out to be his last public lecture series on the history of China in April, 2006. In Part Three of this series, Wakeman explores the foundation of Qing culturalism and Manchu identity in modern China. The Wakeman series is presented by the Institute for International, Comparative and Area Studies at UC San Diego. [12/2006] [Humanities] [Show ID: 11712]

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Education

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• Frederic
• Wakeman
• China
• Manchu

[tdzheng]

@Shovelheaded666 here's some teochew opera, /watch?v=qoqMyirx31s

if you want to know.

that's what they wear on those days, though opera clothes could be abit exaggerated.

but their clothes also depicts a timeline. and what they wear depicts rank.

tho i understand chinese opera is not suited for western tastes.

[tdzheng]

@Shovelheaded666 ppl mistaken teochew for minnan since some notable ppl like taksin the great, king of thonburi kingdom 1734-1782, were of teochew origin. and yes, some words are similar to thai language.

but we're still chinese though, if that's what you're asking. there is still many teochew on chaoshan today. though slang may differ due to mandarin influences.

if we're chinese why can't manchu's be chinese, they're practically the same ppl if you look at them.

[tdzheng]

@Shovelheaded666 teo chew is an old people dated back from tang dynasty.

we had more claim of old han chinese more than you think, language wise we sill have roughly half of old surviving vocabulary. listed in unesco, so does having the oldest form of chinese opera.

our original homeland were from/around chang'an/xian today. migrated south due to "civil" wars. and called chinese jews sing we don't really have a permanent home.

many old ppl still call them selves t'ng nang, translated tang ppl.

[tdzheng]

@Shovelheaded666 oh really? i'm teo chew btw. my great great grandfather used to be a minister in chaoshan.

my great grandfather died from opium when he was young, and my grandfather ended up in malaysia due to civil wars at that period.

maybe a lot of of chinese in china today say that qing is a foreign is a foreign ruler due to propaganda, but not for migrated chinese in that period, whom also supported sun yat sen financially.

whom stayed in penang before 1911 of qinghai revolution.

[Shovelheaded666]

@tdzheng I appreciate you for giving a some insight, but you must remember, the reason the Qing dynasty was resented by the majority of China was because they were ruled over by a foreign power. You can't deny history. By the way, I do not consider the Theo Chow to be Chinese in anyway

[tdzheng]

@Shovelheaded666 manchus are practically chinese, i don't see why you should hate them, honestly, mongols and manchus were supposed to be one of us, until colonialist came.

i can tell you, under western influences, many chinese were shocked to hear that, manchus were not chinese, even some manchus themselves, when europe came riling up china.

just to let you know that many han chinese also held very high governmental positions at the time. whom also oppose modernization in qing dynasty..

[tdzheng]

@Shovelheaded666 manchus were not being exterminated by chinese, but by Japanese colony manchukuo. where emperor puyi in his desperate situation, just sign any laws forwarded to him.

today, china is helping the manchus to revive the manchu language, sadly most young generation manchus aren't that interested.

ironically many manchu speakers are han chinese professors today.

i remember when manchukuo fall, many colony children from japan was abandoned in china. the biological parents just fled...

[tdzheng]

@Shovelheaded666 before the occupation of beijing, ALL manchurians were forced to wear the same clothes and queu.

and if you dont know, manchurians during ming dynasty was an autonomous allied state of ming. culturally they are also quite similar to chinese, the way they dress used to be the same as chinese tho.

after occupation of china proper, manchu identity, became a military caste system under the 8 banners. by that they can't participate in trade as the normal han chinese do.

[tdzheng]

@Shovelheaded666 erm just to let you know since i'm a chinese, han chinese is not really an ethnicity or race, it was categorized as such because of the same beliefs and similarity in culture.

many han chinese you know today have many origins from the manchus and mongols, some don't even know it themselves. (and i don't mean by rape and massacare, they just blended in)

i know that teochew and hakkas have very distinct chinese culture from typical han, but they are labeled han chinese anyway.

[Thak11]

@Shovelheaded666

That's alright, people do have ups and downs in emotion.