My Chinese teacher told the class that the aboriginals in Taiwan are darker than the ethnic Chinese in Taiwan because the aboriginals had intermarried and bred with the Spanish when the Spanish were here a few hundered years ago.
Is this a common belief in Taiwan?
Does anyone know if there was a lot of mixing of the Europeans (Dutch and Spanish) and the Taiwanese aboriginals or early Taiwanese at the time?
I assumed her idea was absurd when I first heard it, but all my classmates have accepted it as gospel truth.
Ridiculous. Good example of the kind of prejudices Taiwan’s indigenous peoples still have to put up with. They are darker because they are Austronesian. By far the most mixing took place between ethnic Chinese and Pingpu or lowlands aborigines in the 17th and 18th centuries. Many ethnic Taiwanese have some Pingpu blood.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_aboriginal is a good general introduction.
The Spanish are light skinned Europeans, only the latin speaking aboriginals from the America’s are dark skinned.
I would have to go with Feirens post.
Agree with Feiren. I just hope your Chinese teacher is good with language. She certainly seems to be a bit of an ignorant bumpkin in some other respects. 
[quote=“Feiren”]Ridiculous. Good example of the kind of prejudices Taiwan’s indigenous peoples still have to put up with. They are darker because they are Austronesian. By far the most mixing took place between ethnic Chinese and Pingpu or lowlands aborigines in the 17th and 18th centuries. Many ethnic Taiwanese have some Pingpu blood.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_aboriginal is a good general introduction.[/quote]
I totally agree. That said, I find the attempted colonization of Taiwan a fascinating subject. The Dutch, especially, spread their blood all along their routes of expansion. Spanish blood in the native Taiwanese must be far and few between, much the same as the French and The Englander…
Chinese people are darker skinned than Taiwanese people, too. And the Japanese have the lightest skins of all Asians.
I know that it’s a common belief in Taiwan that the aboriginals in Taiwan have darker skin. It’s part of the stereotype of the aboriginal Taiwanese people. While genetics are responsible for skin pigment, exposure to the sun is more responsible for dark skin. So for people who work inside buildings nearly every day to go to the mountains where they see dark skinned people, they will naturally assume that the dark skinned people have darker skin, even if it is the sun, not the genetics, that is responsible. Even if you were to conduct a scientific study of skin color, how would you go about such a study to control for the effects of the sun?
[quote=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Taiwanese_aborigines”]I lived with Taiwanese Aborigines for a year, and there were some who were clearly identifiable as Aborigines, but many (most) were not. It is made even more complex by the fact (as is the case between blacks and whites in the US, where most blacks have at least some white ancestors as a result of sexual practices during slavery), most Han Chinese Taiwanese have at least some Aborigine ancestors.
I thus consider it misleading to use a picture in this way, and I feel it diminishes the article to do so. It reduces the complexity of the actual genetic admixture between Taiwanese and Aborigines, presenting “ideal types” of what a stereotypical “Han Chinese” and a stereotypical Aborigine are supposed to look like.
This is made even more complex by the fact that there are various Aborigine ethnic groups and there is considerable variation between them. My Bunun friends were discriminated against by lighter skinned Amis because of the darker color of their skin (even though I’ve met non-Aborigine Taiwanese who are even darker than most Bunun).[/quote]
[quote=“bababa”]My Chinese teacher told the class that the aboriginals in Taiwan are darker than the ethnic Chinese in Taiwan because the aboriginals had intermarried and bred with the Spanish when the Spanish were here a few hundered years ago.
Is this a common belief in Taiwan?
Does anyone know if there was a lot of mixing of the Europeans (Dutch and Spanish) and the Taiwanese aboriginals or early Taiwanese at the time?
I assumed her idea was absurd when I first heard it, but all my classmates have accepted it as gospel truth.[/quote]
Ludicrous! I grew up in Taiwan and never heard of stories like that!
For me, it is more something related to the sun and the exposure to the sun than other strange theories. Chinese/Asian people usually adore to whiten their skin, especially girls and ladies because they feel like more European and Noble… In the Ancien time, people who have whiter skin are those who can afford not working in the rice fields, hence those with education and money.
This site says the first Chinese were Black:
trinicenter.com/FirstChinese.htm
or go straight to:
[quote=“Rinkals”]This site says the first Chinese were Black:
trinicenter.com/FirstChinese.htm
or go straight to:
taipeitimes.com/News/feat/ar … /200321281
blackhistoryjohnmoore.braveh … inese.html[/quote]
It doesn’t say that the first Chinese were Black. It says the first people in Taiwan were Black, but it also says that they were all killed or chased off by the Chinese.
There is a widely-accepted theory that all mankind came from Africa. I think that Papua-New Guinea and the Nicobar islands are proof that it’s true:
Papua New Guinea
Andaman and Nicobar Islands
These people are practically Africans but have been living very far away from
Africa for ages. If African could have spread to places as far as these, why not to China?
Africa
Yeah, I’ve noticed. But European nobles like to get a tan, usually.
[quote=“SK”] In the Ancien time, people who have whiter skin are those who can afford not working in the rice fields, hence those with education and money.[/quote] Why say in ancient times? I noticed when I lived in China an awful lot of peasants working in the rice fields.
[quote=“twocs”][quote=“Rinkals”]This site says the first Chinese were Black:
trinicenter.com/FirstChinese.htm
or go straight to:
taipeitimes.com/News/feat/ar … /200321281
blackhistoryjohnmoore.braveh … inese.html[/quote]
It doesn’t say that the first Chinese were Black. It says the first people in Taiwan were Black, but it also says that they were all killed or chased off by the Chinese.[/quote]
One of the links on that FirstChinese site links an article (by a Trinidadian student). The author suggests that early Chinese were African. That the Xia or Shang have forensically found to be African, that all martial arts came from Africa, that the I-Ching came from the Akkadians who were black.
No footnotes, no cites naturally. I’d love to see where those forensic results can be found. FYI, Akkad is generally accepted to be Semitic/Sumerian mix.
Have you seen Natonal Geographic’s documentaries on the origins of man and the genographic project? They claim we are all descendants of Africans? I must say the links I provided aren’t the best, but at least they lead to some discussion.
Did you see the claim that Buddha was African, hence his hair style?
[quote=“Rinkals”]Have you seen Natonal Geographic’s documentaries on the origins of man and the genographic project? They claim we are all descendants of Africans? I must say the links I provided aren’t the best, but at least they lead to some discussion.
Did you see the claim that Buddha was African, hence his hair style?[/quote]
Bhudda’s got a 'fro like Re-Run?
[quote=“Rinkals”]Have you seen Natonal Geographic’s documentaries on the origins of man and the genographic project? They claim we are all descendants of Africans? I must say the links I provided aren’t the best, but at least they lead to some discussion.
Did you see the claim that Buddha was African, hence his hair style?[/quote]
Of course we are all descendants of Africans, the question is who left where and when?
The more we learn about our common ancestry the more entangled it gets.
But… to date it seems the Aborigines of Taiwan are descendants- surprise, surprise- of the original Austronesian people of Southern China who were living in the adjacent areas.
[quote=“Rinkals”]Have you seen Natonal Geographic’s documentaries on the origins of man and the genographic project? They claim we are all descendants of Africans? I must say the links I provided aren’t the best, but at least they lead to some discussion.
Did you see the claim that Buddha was African, hence his hair style?[/quote]
I’m not sure exactly what discussions you intend to provoke?
That the oldest humans are from Africa? old news according to current fossil record discovery.
That modern humans came from one place instead of various regions? currently dominant theory.
Then again, if you really watched the NG story, it says that while ultimately there was a migration out of Africa that gave rise to modern humans, the real cradle of civilization was in Central Asia (where they went to after Africa and really prospered. So really, all humankind is Altaic/Turkic/Mongol
[quote]Does anyone know if there was a lot of mixing of the Europeans (Dutch and Spanish) and the Taiwanese aboriginals or early Taiwanese at the time?
[/quote]
Spainish? Thought they were from Portugal.
Perhaps you’re thinking of the name “Formosa,” which comes from Portuguese. But in terms of a presence on Taiwan, it was the Spanish not the Portuguese. They established forts in Danshui and Jilong but were kicked out by the Dutch, who were already established in the south.
Wouldn’t it be more accurate to just say that we’re all originally Pangaean?
The Portuguese spotted the island, gave it a name, and drove on past.