Re: Moy Yan/Mei Xian/Mei Hsien

["Dylan Sung" <dylanwhs@ukgateway.net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: S. L . Lee <sllee@asiawind.com>
To: Dylan Sung <dylanwhs@ukgateway.net>; mcrinfo@sympatico.ca
<mcrinfo@sympatico.ca>
Cc: Hakka Forum <fhakka@asiawind.com>
Date: Friday, January 05, 2001 10:22 PM
Subject: Re: Moy Yan/Mei Xian/Mei Hsien


:Dylan,
:
:Please see my slides at the Toronto conference (Hakka site frontpage).
:There are ample evidence about the connection of Asian culture and native
:American culture.
:
:SL Lee
:
:----- Original Message -----
:From: "Dylan Sung" <dylanwhs@ukgateway.net>
:To: <mcrinfo@sympatico.ca>; "S. L. Lee" <sllee@asiawind.com>
:Cc: "Hakka Forum" <fhakka@asiawind.com>
:Sent: Friday, January 05, 2001 5:12 PM
:Subject: Re: Moy Yan/Mei Xian/Mei Hsien
:
:
:> Subject: Moy Yan/Mei Xian/Mei Hsien
:>
:> "S. L . Lee" <sllee@asiawind.com> wrote:
:> <SLLee> Jean-Francois Ah-Chow,
:> <SLLee>
:> <SLLee> You posted a lot of questions. The reason for so many Chinese
:> <SLLee> Hakka with "surnames" starting with "A" has been discussed in
:> <SLLee> the Toronto Conference if you were there. These were actually
:> <SLLee> given names and Hakka and Cantonese speaking people have a
:> <SLLee> habit of adding the sound "ah" in front of the given name when
:> <SLLee> calling people. Surprisingly, I heard that some native
:> <SLLee> American tribes also have the same convention! This shows the
:> <SLLee> ancient relationship of the two cultures.
:>
:> I'm afraid I'll have to correct the wrong impression given by the last
:sentence.
:> Supposed surface similarities does not equal any direct relationship
:between the
:> two cultures of Chinese (whether Hakka or other) and those of the various
:> American Indian tribes.
:
:

Dear Siu Leung,

I was unable to view the slideshow, (it took 21 minutes to download on a 33.6
kbps modem, which is fast considering that your site is in America), as I found
out I don't have PowerPoint. However, I will reply to your comments in

http://www.asiawind.com/hakka/hakslide.htm

I have a passing interest in MesoAmerican archeaology, and have been fortunate
enough to have seen television programs of a number of the sites mentioned. I
can visualise most of the items you have written about. I will skip most of it
until section 6, which, as you have already said, is controversial. From the
above link, the items contained within it are indented.

  6.Slides #19-30 depict some of the possible links of Chinese
    culture to the “new world”. Some of these slides are quite
    controversial and involve very bold assumptions. However,
    the evidence seems more than coincidental.
        a.#21 Terraced agriculture is found in Yellow River
    area, Hakka villages and Machu Pichu, Peru.  This type of
    farming is seldom seen in other cultures.

The terracing occurs also in several other societies, such as those in South
East Asia, although much closer to "home". Machu Pichu is constrained by the
geography of the area in which the site is situated. To feed a city of that
size, cultivation forces the inhabitants to exploit the area as best they could.
In this case, terracing is as a result of the geography. Had there been a huge
plain surrounded by mountains in which Machu Pichu were situated on, then they
would naturally have cultivated the flat lowlad instead.

        b.#22 Pyramids are not the monopoly of Egypt. Chinese
    emperors have built quite of few of them, so have the
    native Americans in North America (e.g. Cahokia near St.
    Louis) and Central America (Chitchen Itza,Teotihuacan).

The time difference between the erecting of the pyramids is vast. The step
pyramid of Zoser at Saqqara, built by Imhotep is reputedly the oldest Egyptian
one, built about 4800 years ago. The last built in Egypt was probably around
3000 years ago.

The structures were different in some excavations of MesoAmerican pyramids to
that of the Egyptian ones, and their usage also differs. Whereas the Egyptians
used their as a tomb for the dead kings and nearly entirely solid stone built as
 one monument, those found in MesoAmerica were layered structures where
succesive shells were added over time in some cases. This points to a
fundamental difference in the construction of these massive stone structures.
The use in MesoAmerica is central to their daily ceremonial life, whereas those
in Egypt were monuments and played little if any role in the everyday life of
Ancient Egyptians. The MesoAmericans made their structures the central features
of their cities, and as such they held ceremonies on their monuments. This is
quite unlike the function in Egypt. Note that often, the MesoAmerican pyramids
are atopped by a building or structure. Egyptian pyramids end in a point.
Surrounding the pyramids of the MesoAmerican finds, they are lavishly endowed
with carvings of animals, skulls, their writing and other important features of
their lives. This is in stark contrast to Egyptian pyramids which do not feature
this ostentation.

I do not know enough about Chinese pyramids to make a full comment, though from
what I've seen on TV, they are earthern mounds, rather than stone pyramids.

Meso American pyramids were bound up in the sophistication of the solar year.
Some pyramids have four sets of staircases, each having 91 steps, together with
the top platform, this makes 365, which points to the length of the year. Their
calendar, the Haab has 365 days, and does not have leap days, though they knew
the length of the solar calendar to a high precision. This is known from what
astronomical codices are preserved, and the carved lintels recording ages of
kings, their deeds and so forth.

Egyptian pyramids are said only to point to constellations in the sky.


        c.#23 A very intriguing discovery of a 9000-year old
    flute found in Henan province sheds some light on how
    advanced the Chinese culture was. Henan is called
    Zhongzhou (the midland) and Hakkas are often called
    Zhongzhou people. [...]

I have never heard this refered to any Hakka person. I can not find this phrase
in MacIver's Hakka Dictionary in respect to Hakka people.

        d.Slide #24 shows another intriguing fact that
    visualizing a “rabbit” in the moon is shared by Chinese
    legend and Mayan legend. Out of the thousands of natural
    objects of our imagination, this can hardly be coincidental
    unless there was a link between the two cultures.

If I recall correctly, the rabbit used in Mayan was a scribe, in anthropomorphic
(man-like with head of the animal) form. The moon is a goddess, but the
Mid-Autumn Festival for Chinese associates a woman eating a mooncake (which had
the magical property of giving its comsumer the power of immortality) who flew
to live on the moon with the rabbit. Since in Chinese culture the rabbit is
never in anthropomorphic form, there may be a contradiction rather than a
coincidental use of the animal.

        e.Slide #25 The worship of serpents among Ohio
    Hopewells and Mayans, and worship of dragon among Chinese
    is strikingly similar. Note the Mayan ‘serpents’ have lion
    manes just like the Chinese dragon, and the Hopewell
    serpent has a pearl in front of the mouth, the same way
    presented in Chinese designs.

In Norse mythology, the serpent Iörmungandr lies beneath Miðgarðr (the Earth)
and on the day of Ragnorak, it awakens to destroy the inhabitants of all
creation.

Whilst the feathered serpent of MesoAmerica in the form of Quetzalcoatl or
Feathered Serpent was primarily a god of soil fertility, Chinese dragons are
supposed to live in the sea, or are of the sea.

        f.Slide #26-27 are the most fascinating and puzzling
    ones. In La Venta, Mexico, where Olmec relics are located,
    a group of jade figurines wearing tall hats are found to
    gather around a number of steles. There are inscriptions
    on the steles that look awfully similar to the oracle
    writing of Shang dynasty. What is more intriguing is if
    the interpretation is correct for the inscription, it
    makes sense in the Chinese language!

I believe the writing in the Shang Dynasty bones are universally accepted as
inscribed oracles, or divinations. Of the several thousand characters known from
this source, quite a number of these are known or have been shown to be
ancestors of modern Chinese characters. As far as I know, none of the
hieroglyphs attributed to the Olmecs have been translated.

        g.Slide 28-29. Mayans and Chinese cultures share the
    love of jade. The custom of placing a jade mask on the
    deceased king and nobleman is shared by both cultures.
    Carving and drilling jade requires tools of high precision
    and extra strength since jade is a mineral second in
    hardness to diamond.

Gold has a wide appreciation in the old world and new, but that does not
indicate that there is a relationship between the two worlds. Jade was said to
have preserving properties, if I recall the an article on the funeral suite of
some princess unearthed in China some time ago. The jade pieces were held
together by gold wire. The death masks found in MesoAmerica weren't bound in
gold.

        h.Slide #30 there are native American words reminiscent
    of the Chinese language. “Ho” is a river in the Olympic
    peninsula of Washington state. “Hopi” is the name of an
    Arizona tribe which name their after the meaning “peace”.

This is quite coincidental. Note English mama, papa, which has false coincidence
in Mandarin mama, and baba. Some time ago on news:sci.lang there was such a
discussion on words which just happen to look similar to totally unrelated words
of another language. One cannot base a whole case on a limited number of items.

    The Haida word “totem” for a monstrous animal carved on a
    pole sounds the same as “totim”, the animal on most bronze
    vessels in Shang and Zhou dynasties.

I thought they were tigers and birds on those Shang and Zhou bronzes/vessels.


I resolutely stick to my original statement. Surface similarities prove nothing.

I'm sorry I can't go into much more detail on some of the points because I do
not have sufficient sources to hand. However, the following are some books and
references I've used in this reply.

D. MacIver, A Chinese-English Dictionary Hakka Dialect as spoken in Kwangtung
Province. ISBN 957-638-077-4. (1991)
Jerry Norman, Chinese, ISBN 0-521-29653. (1997)
Robert J. Sharer, The Ancient Maya, Fifth Ed. ISBN 0-8047-2310-9. (1996)
Cluade Baudez and Sydney Picasso, Lost City of the Maya, ISBN 0-500-30009-7.
(1992)
Stefán Einarsson, Icelandic - Grammar Text Glossary. ISBN 0-8018-0187-7. (1994)
Snorri Sturlusson, Edda, ISBN 0-460-67616-3. (1995)
H.A. Guerber, The Norsemen, ISBN 1-85958-014-9. (1994)
Rodney Castleden, World History a chronological dictionary of dates. ISBN
0-75252-405-4. (1998)
Microsoft Encarta 96 Encyclopedia

Dylan.