Introduction to blog

Introduction

This is an educational, non-profit blog intended to educate people on the true ethnic origin of various East Asian tribes as to where they came from, who they are related to and how they became what they are today. 

Almost all modern articles focus on the nation but this blog focus on the ethnic groups. New research will also be conducted to explore the ethnic origin, history and language of East Asian tribes whose origins were lost in the mists of time. 

It is important to stress that these articles are non-political; this blog only serves to provide unbiased and non-nationalistic truth about the origins of various East Asian tribes. In the past, some ethnic origins were distorted due to nationalistic sentiments. 

Content of articles

The articles in this blog serve to highlight important facts and essence (but not a detailed history) about each major ethnicity inside and bordering China as per map below.

There are some rare topics and difficult to understand topics that are made more organized and easier to understand in this blog. Unnecessary details are removed so as not to confuse readers.

Sources of articles are from professional history books in English, historical records written in Chinese and also from my own knowledge of many languages. The most comprehensive historical records in East Asia were written by the Chinese historians before the Europeans came.

In the past, the origins of some ethnic groups were incorrect due to wild speculations and/or insufficient research. The main problem is that most of the researchers from one discipline (genetics, linguistics etc) work independently and not collaboratively with other disciplines. It needs to be a multi-disciplinary research akin to fine detective work to get a more accurate picture of their origin. 

While the origin of some ethnic groups are straightforward like the Indonesians and Filipinos, there are common misconceptions about the complex origin of some other ethnic groups especially Vietnamese and this blog will throw some light onto the matter. This usually happens when several ethnic groups migrate to the same region.

Rude comments 

We received rude comments from some readers who don't agree with the evidence and research here. These rude comments will not be published for obvious reasons. Unless you have better evidence and links to professional research articles, your arguments are invalid. Not everything written in Wikipedia is correct as it can be edited by anyone.

The truths here may not be acceptable to some people who are prejudiced or harbor hatred against certain tribes and also people who are nationalistic and don't want to be associated with certain tribes. If the research here don't agree with you, you can create your own blog and do your own research instead of resorting to insults.

Please note that we do years of research reading thousands of professional books and research papers with not a single cent paid to us so we do not welcome any insults after such painstaking work to find out the truth for each ethnic group.

For those who are more open-minded, this blog provides alternative theories and the reasons behind them for you to ponder. However, for those who are close-minded, this blog's contents might not be suitable for you.

Misconceptions

Common misconceptions that most people have are

• Ethnicity is the same as nationality

Nationality means that person is a citizen of that country but ethnicity is genetically, linguistically and culturally linked e.g. Han Chinese (ethnicity) in Singapore (nationality) and Malay (ethnicity) in Singapore (nationality).

• Political boundary is the same as ethnic boundary

Political boundary is not the same as ethnic boundary. The same ethnicity can span many countries which is just a political boundary e.g. ethnic Tai spans China, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar and Northeast India.

• Each Asian country has only one ethnic group

Most countries in Asia are actually multi-ethnic e.g. not every citizen in China is Han Chinese.

• The ethnic composition nowadays remains the same as it was several thousand years ago 

The ethnic percentage or demographics of most Asian countries have changed dramatically due to migration e.g. ethnic composition of Nepal, USA, southern China are completely different nowadays than it was many thousand years ago. 

• Different ethnic groups living together means they must marry each other to form a mixed race

Whether two different ethnic groups would intermarry with each other on a large scale depends on several factors like religious, linguistic, physical appearance and cultural similarities between the two.

A good modern example is Singapore where interracial marriage is very minimal although the different races there live together in a very small island.

• The national language of a country determines the ethnicity of the majority

In some cases, the national language is actually the language of the rulers/kings who belong to a different ethnic minority rather than the ethnic majority group e.g. national language of Vietnam is a language of a previous ethnic Muong king which is different from the ethnic Kinh majority.

• People staying in a location today have always been there since ancient times

Due to constant wars in East Asia over the past thousands of years, there were massive migration of many ethnic groups over many places. The people that you see at their current location are not the ancient tribes that were living in the past. 

In some cases, the immigrants wrongly think they are the natives there after many generations living in their new place. A good example is Vietnamese Kinh. 

• The ethnicity of the majority in a country must be the natives of that country

In a lot of cases, it is the ethnicity of the invaders/colonizers who makes up the majority in that country due to mass migration; whereas, the natives become the minority in that country e.g. USA, Canada, Australia, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Myanmar.

• People of the same ethnicity embrace the same religion

People of the same ethnicity can embrace different religions. For example, the Han Chinese can be Buddhists, Christians, Taoists or Muslims. Although in China, Muslim Chinese are called Hui Chinese.

• Ethnicity genes

Some DNA reports are unreliable as they could be politically distorted, too small a sample size or inaccurate identification of ethnic groups (as listed above) so it cannot be taken as the overwhelming evidence. 

Some nationalist trolls are trying to mislead people by showing DNA of mixed children of more than one ethnicity. A detailed article about the imperfection of DNA reports will be published on this blog in the future.

Summary

A few controversial topics here are different from the commonly accepted (so-called mainstream) theories in Wikipedia and other internet forums.

To determine the true origin of an ethnic group, all the elements of their folklore, written history, mother tongue language classification, cultural elements, physical looks possibly fortified by genetics have to be taken into consideration.

Just looking at 'paper' genetics or any one factor alone is too simplistic and could be misleading if the genetic reports are incorrect.

Contact

To contact us for any type of suggestions or questions, please email eastasiaorigin@gmail.com or leave a comment below.

Last updated: 21 August 2022
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