The last of the Manchus

Et tu, Manchu?

One hundred years on, only a few native speakers remain

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To you, Tibetan in China should learn Tibetan. Tibetan outside Tibet can learn English and Hindis, Tibetan is third language if they wish to learn.. LOL


Regardless of the resentment towards the Manchu rulers and/or people, it would probably be a good idea to preserve the Manchu language, or at least record it for historical reference. Historical artifacts may appear later in the future, and without references or any living people to translate it, they will be useless, and that chapter of history will go unlearned. This goes for any other language on the brink of extinction. I think all languages are a form of art and should be preserved somehow for future generations.


If you decide not to teach your kids to speak your language, who are you to blame? Perhaps preventing them from accessing the outside world might preserve those languages, but not everyone share the Dali Lama's understand of "culture".

silent night

CanadianChinaman3 wrote:
silent night wrote:[In fact,many so-called Han also will tell you they are Manchu,Mogolian,Korean etc.My a friend,a tibetan also often mistaken as a Han.]

A Han with any Chinese ethnic minority blood these days will claim to belong to the ethnic minority. Minority peoples are eligible for benefits not available to the majority Han. Benefits such as housing, no one child limit, places in schools, especially admission to tertiary institutions and employment advantages.

-------Right! but many ethnic minority don't mind other people look on them as Han,after all,in most cases,you are difficult to distinguish the differences of Han and most ethnic minority in China.but in some areas,some ethnic minority still keep some old traditions such as unique national costume etc. which are our China's cultural wealth.


silent night wrote:Oct 8th 2011 9:31 GMT



silent night


No one know more and further about China and its history than Chinese! your comments only show that you know little about China except repeating what some book says or understand sometings about China only stay at the surface,word by word,sentence by sentence.


"So it was the Manchu's own choice -- they could preserve their own culture but they chose not to."

Ewakorn, that was only the case for the ruling Manchu elite living in China proper. Manchus in their homeland in the northeast, on the other hand, preserved their language and culture untouched until Han peasants started arriving en masse from the 19th century on, when Qing decadence and weakness made them unable to uphold the law that had prevented Hans from settling outside China proper. That was the death toll for Manchu culture.


We might be able to understand China better if we stand in their shoe. Perhaps Tibet and Taiwan for China just like Hawaii and California for the U.S. You must think that I'm creazy if you didn't hear anything about Hawaiian Independence Movement which happened about 15 years ago. But the differences between the U.S. and China is that even though the U.S. has 50 States, there isn't any big cultural differences, that's because people moves around the nation and now they are well mixed; however in China, there are 56 groups of people, they speak different languages and they have very different cultures. Since China is a developing country, many of their people are not able to move around in their nation, so they and their offsprings live in the same place for thousands of years or even longer. And I think China are not trying to kill their varity of cultures because they do give the minor ethnic group of people many privaligies. For example, if neither a couple are not Han ethnic group, they can have more children instead of one; people from an minor ethnic group have privaligies when picking high school and colleges.


//It is better to let inbred humans to live than aborting them, and then, do horrible things with fetuses that the Chinese traditional medicine doctors recommend! China aborts more than 200 million babies per year including millions of unborn Tibetan, Uighur and Mongolian babies! In my view, this is the ultimate crime against humanity.

The Chinese policy of aborting Tibetan, Uighur and Mongolian children in large numbers really is designed to kill off the minorities like these Manchus!

What a tragedy!//

Chinese classic the "Journey to the West" says eating the flesh of lamas will give you eternal youth and immortality. The Dalai Lama is getting old so you should partake in his flesh after he's gone. I am sure the Tibetans don't mind since they feed their dead to vultures anyway. Since the Lamas reincarnate, their foetuses are practically a renewable resource. Try some it might even cure you of your inbreeding. Oh who am I kidding, you are probably doomed to be an idiot.


//This is an interesting point. Once in a while I find scholarly citation of the history of Han Chinese neighbours that have more details in Chinese than the language of the people being written about. In other words, it seems, a significant portion of other peoples' histories were writen in Chinese. Some of the people didn't even bother to write about their own history in their won language.//

This is actually a very interesting point Daveycool. Infact even big civilization like India have lost so much of its own history, that one of the biggest contributor to Indian history is the monk Xuanzang, who provide great accounts of location of historical importance across the Silk Road, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. He's not even the first, but the most famous ones. Others like Faxian and Yijing have also made contribution including the accounts of former Buddhist lands like Srivijaya in Indonesia.

Partially the loss is due to cultural change and invasion due to Islamization. However, the other issue is that many Buddhist kingdoms record 'history' from the kingly perspectives. Chronicles of Kings account their ancestry and deeds, but not much detail into the day to day occurrences. Since kings are practically the avatar of gods, these record can get pretty fantastical. The Kedah Annals for example record their king Merong Mahawangsa as a descendant of Alexander the Great and other rubbish like spending his life in Rome. The Malays even embarrassed themselves further by making a movie about this: The Malay Chronicles: Bloodlines. Watch the trailer on youtube for your personal amusement.

On the other hand historical records can be deliberately distorted due to political issues. (Even for non communist countries). When I visited the national museum in Thailand, they have a section dedicated to the origins of the Thai people. Their 3 hypothesis includes: the Thai people have always been where they are, originating from the Altai mountains (I guess 'al-tai' sounds like 'Thai') and originating from the kingdom of Nanzhao in Southern China. The exhibition conclude that the Thais have always been where they are. In fact historical evidence shows that the Thais have migrated south from South China, where their cousins their Zhuang from Guangxi still lives today, and eventually conquered the land previously settled by Austroasiatic speakers like the Mon and Khmers. They have adopted their alphabet and culture, and Thai history only started as late as 13th century. What is also interesting ofcourse, that the rural Thais infact do not look much like the Zhuang, who look a lot more East Asian, meaning that the current Thai population consist of a blend of many Mon and Khmer people who have assilimilated into Thai culture. Likewise, Burmese are Tibetans who took over the land from the Mon and adopt their Theravada Buddhist culture. You can actually find ethnic Tibetans in Myanmar in the highlands.


Many of the commenters are judging China's actions towards a dominant language. Its not good or bad - its just a fact. One culture and language has dominated the steady march towards modernization. All other languages, Manchu, Tibetan, or one of several 100 others are irrelevant. If you take India - its the opposite; several languages that like the Manchu's had a mere 5-10 million speakers in 1900 now have 50 million today. Its a clear case of one country preserving cultural diversity in an open system and another growing a dominant culture for a nationalist purpose. I have no doubt - if Tibet or Manchu speakers were in India - both area's would retain their dominant cultures and migration of others in would be discouraged. In China its the opposite - Han Migration is part of a policy to control the population. If someone doesn't understand this all one has to do is visit Ladakh or Sikhim in India. Both states are more Tibetan that Tibet is. Internal migration is discouraged so as 1 Billions "Indians" dont swamp a smaller culture of millions. Thats why China seems so much stronger than India in regards to internal conflicts.


Even high school kid in China know that Mongolian-Chinese border was and is one of the most guarded borders in China.

When PRC was at odds with USSR between 1960s and early 1990s, the Sino-Mongolian border was heavily guarded due to Soviet stationing of troops and tanks in Mongolia when the latter was a puppet.

Nowadays it is sparsely patrolled.

If the Mongols live in hell in China as you said, they can easily sneak across the border without any document.

But so far it is the opposite -- the Mongol girls from north of the border enter China illegally to engage in illicit profession!



Please beef up your history.

When the Great Wall of China was built, there was not even a tribe called "Mongols". The Great Wall was built to deter the invasion of XiongNu.

But XiongNu had long gone to wreak havoc to Europe after the pursuit of Han cavalries over the Central Asia steppes. Its descendant Attila the Hun gave the Roman Empire big headache.

How could a boundary (Great Wall) be built when the enemy (Mongols) had not even existed?


It is truly sad when an entire language that used to be the native tongue of thousands and thousands of people is on the brink of extinction. With only 50 native speakers left and many being elderly the language is not far off from being completely gone which means a culture is about to disappear.



Please read the autobiography of the last Emperor Henry Puyi.

The abdicated Qing Court hired a Briton -- Mr. Johnston -- to teach him English. They also hired a Han scholar to teach him Chinese. But the only teacher he didn't have was a Manchu language instructor.




If the Mongols live like hell in various parts of China as you depict and they despise Chinese culture to the core, then why do much more Mongols (5.8 million) live in China than the Mongols (2.8 million) live in the Mongolia Republic?

Since Mongolia Republic has vaste expanse of land with one of the lowest peopulation density in the world, it also enjoys thriving democracy and increasing prosperity, then why don't the Mongols in China flee across one of the longest unguarded border in the world to enjoy such goodies?

What I can see is that only hordes of Mongol girls from Mongolia Republic work in the Sanlitun Bar district in Beijing, do you ever see any Mongol girls from China work in the brothel in Ulan Bator?


This is so sad! If only more people wanted to learn the Manchu language. Within a few years this language will be extinct and unfortunately a piece of Manchu history will disappear with the language.


@ Deepak. Before you shoot from your mouth you gotta get Chinese history right. China is a multi-cultural, multi-dialect country comprising 56 minorities. The Manchu language was the primary language of the Qing Imperial court not necessarily the Chinese subjects. By the 18th century the Manchu language was already on its decline. Towards the 19th century, the Imperial court lost its fluency in the language too. Although China was ruled by the Manchus during the Qing dynasty, Mandarin was still the widely spoken language nationwide. The demise of the Manchu language resulted because many Manchus married into Hans. Today you hardly see a 100% full blooded Manchu unless you are looking at an older generation. Also most Manchus have moved out of Manchuria which is what today's Liaoning, Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces are. And that is the good part of China because Mandarin, the common language has always been above every other language. It has to be because Han Chinese takes up 92% of China's population. Unlike India where the Aryan language Hindi was adopted as national language much to the chagrin of the predominant Dravidians in the south. The decision to choose Hindi as the official language was seen by many other language speakers as an attempt to erase their cultures. All these confusions led to English being declared the official language under the Indian Constitution. The differences in languages in India has really impeded India's progress which is why you see China progressing faster than India today. Indians will never understand each other unless they use English. So, do you still think Han Chinese is oppressive? Or they had the foresight to go with one common language called "putonghua?"

east wind


@ Nordichorseman

>> YOU ARE NO NORDIC---you are Indian out to insult Chinese

>>> From what you have written---I suspect that you could even be an INDIAN who pretend to be a Mongol in order to write insulting things to demonize the Chinese

>>> THEREFORE... I will play your game & let me insult you Indians in return for your insults

(1) UNDP== India have more poor people than Africa

(2) UNDP== Half of all Indians go to bed hungry every night---

(3) UNICEF== 50% of all Indian children suffers from severe mal-nutrition and will suffer severe brain damage in adulthood

ie 400 million Indians suffer from brain-damage

(4)INDIANS HATE THEIR own black-skin

Everyday ---10000s of daily adverts in India newspapers saying "Wanted Hindu girl for marriage---- must be fair-skin,---black-skinned Hindu girls dont apply"

This has to do with the Hindu Caste System--- the blacker the skin---the lower the caste

RESULTING in 100s of millions of BLACK-skinned low caste Indian girls suffering from severe mental illness

>>>>> ANOTHER PROOF that Indians hate black-skin Indians---can be seen on BBC TV News during the Commonwealth Games in India where;

(1) The BBC TV News footage on the use of India child-labor to build the Stadiums ---clearly showed little India Children of 5-6 years working as laborers on construction-sites---AND they are all BLACK-BLACK really charcoal black skin---they are the "pariah" caste

(2) The BBC TV NEWS footage showing the India police brutally beating the India slum-dwellers to chase them out of DELHI ----again clearly show that these were all BLACK-BLACK in skin-color

>>> the BRAHMIN girls shown on the BBC TV NEWS watching the games were clearly dark-brown skin---Dark-Brown Indians hates black-skin Indians and will discriminates against them

>>> Hope you enjoy our little game of exchanging insults-- you started it by insulting Chinese





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