Re: hakka origin.

[sllee <sllee@asiawind.com>]

Max,

Thanks for bringing up the Xiongnu  thread again. Please let me reiterated
my views on this issue.  I believe:

1. Zhong Hua Min Zu is a mix of many traits, including many minorities.
Han as the majority might have been a pure trait 2000 years ago, but not
any more, specially after Jin dynasty. 

2. I believe many Hakkas do bear so called Caucasian traits (wavy dark
brown hair, high nose bridge, double eyelids) because of the intermarriage
of different ethnic groups. However, I am not sure if we can say these
charcteristics were totally absent from the original Han. (Sun Quan of the
Three Kingdom era was said to bear green eyes! Perhaps the "Caucasian"
trait already set foot in Jiangsu at that time. The TV series "Three
Kingdoms" is a well-researched one. You may notice Sun Quan was
portraited with such characteristics.).

3. Hakka should be defined more on a cultural basis than a genetic basis.
A lot of Southeast Asian Chinese call themselves Tang ren (people of Tang)
and not Han ren. I believe this already indicate the identity of "Chinese"
from the Tang dynasty as a more appropriate definition, and Tang was
a dynasty that many minorities (including subsets of Han) are no more
distinguishable. Hakkas are really a group that preserve the tradition of
Han/Tang culture, which we would call "Chinese Culture" (Zhonghua
Wenhua). 

What I don't believe :

1. Xiongnu is the origin of all Hakka.
2. Hakka should be distinguished and separated from other Chinese because
of of this "genetic difference".

I am sure you are aware of the excavation of some ancient tombs in
Xinjiang area that show the golden-blond haired lady warrior and Pazyryks
mummies more than 2000 years old (National Geographic) and much of the
evidence of cultural exchange between the west and the east started much
earlier than the Han dynasty. It will be pointless to trace if we have no
genetic trait at all from the ethnic groups of the Steppes.

The entire purpose of my Hakka homepage is NOT to distinct Hakkas from
other Chinese but to learn how Hakkas preserve and develop the Chinese
culture as a multivalent entity. 

Thanks for sharing your view with us, but you forgot to leave your url for
me to view your hypothesis. Please join us in the disucssion by writing to
the forum and the maillist (Cc address).

Happy New Year!

SL Lee
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On Sat, 31 Jan 1998, Lee Meow Lock wrote:

> Dear Mr. Lee,Thanks for your very interesting rebuttal of Kiang's Hakka
> Odyssy in which he is alleged to have claimed that the HAKKAS were
> descended from Hsiungnu stock.Unaware that there was such a hypothesis,I
> myself have made this assumption and had tried to insinuate this in my
> humble article entitled,' THE STORY OF THE HAKKAS- AND A STARTLING
> DISCOVERY]which is in the net.You will find in this article my eyebrow
> hypothesis[EBH]which in effect asserts that some if not the majority of
> Hakkas[ and quite definitely many people of SHAANXI and SANXI stock]
> have what I described as type A1 or Type A2 eyebrows.Other notable
> features of people descended from this stock[including the Hakkas] are
> :big eyes,double eyelid,high bridge nose,well defined lips[usually
> thin]more beardy,moustachy or hairy and in general more Caucasian or
> more 'handsome'.You have touched on some of these characteristics and so
> these confirm more or less my own observations and findings. Even
> though  mine is not a scholarly research,I believe I have stumbled on
> something interesting and I believe the truth about the origin of the
> Hakkas lies somewhere between your views and those of Mr. Kiang.Max LML.
>