Culture Shock! China - A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette, 2nd Edition

The Chinese 31

Name of

Group

Approximate

Population

Native Region

(note: most groups now have

nationwide distribution)

Yi 7,762,286

Sichuan, Yunnan, Guangxi,

Guizhou

Mongolian 5,813,947

Mongolia, and parts of

Xinjiang, Heilongjiang

Tibetan 5,416,021

Tibet, Qinghai, and parts of

Sichuan and Yunnan

Buyi 2,971,460 Guizhou

Source: http://www.china.org.cn/e-groups/shaoshu/

Alternately, is ‘Chineseness’ an ethnicity? If so, is being
Chinese identical to being a member of the Han people
group? The Han is the majority ethnicity in China, named
after the Han dynasty, which united the core of what is now
China starting in about 221 BC. If so, where does this leave
the non-Han minorities; are they Chinese or not?
What about ethnically non-Chinese people who have
immigrated to China (there are increasingly many as China’s
economic opportunities grow)? What about the emigrants, the
‘overseas Chinese’, an estimated 35 million people of mostly
Han ethnicity now living outside China? Many such overseas
families haven’t visited mainland China for generations. Does
it make a difference if they live in what is often called ‘Greater
China’ (which includes Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) as
opposed to in New York, Vancouver or Paris? What about
children of mixed marriages? Or ethnically non-Chinese
children adopted by Chinese couples?
There is even the traditional north-south division within
the Han. Archaeological records show, for instance, that
bronzes, oracle bones and other ancient Chinese technologies
were adopted more widely, earlier on the Yellow River
than along the Yangtze River plains. Does that make the
people of North-central China ‘more Chinese’ than the
rest of the Han?