Ok, I’m no geniticist but I spot many people in Taiwan with seemingly un-Asian traits. The audburn hair, western style nose, freckled face, or green eyes. When I see people like this in my class I often comment about their features and ask if there was any foreign blood in their family… from the dutch or whatever… and they will always deny completely.
Do these features come from intermixing, are the natural occurances in Asians, are these people ashamed having mixed blood, or are they just unaware?
Mmm, genetic mixing can be caused by pure mutation. They could be “100% Taiwanese” and have no mix. Ppl with very white skin tend to get freckles from exposure in the sun. My mom, my grandmom, and my gf all have it. Its pretty natural for ppl with lighter skin to have this. Light colored hair is just light colored hair. Theres bound to be a mutation somewhere just like albinos and whatnot. I wouldn’t doubt there was some mixing a long time ago, however, it really doesn’t come as a surprise that even near 100% pure ethnic group would have distinct traits within.
I’ve found it’s not “western” characteristics that cause the most vehement denials - try asking a guy with round black eyes, a nice smile and body hair from Hualien if he has any Amis in him - it’s like you accused his mother of porking the neighbor’s dog!
While I was growing up here in the 60"s and 70"s, there were a large number of Taiwanese children who were sired by U.S. military personnel. Although some of these children were raised by both parents, most weren’t and were either placed in orphanages or raised by their Taiwanese families. Most children in theses situations were treated quite badly by society in general and as a result many were never acknowledged to be of mixed heritage - even if it was quite obvious in their physical characteristics.
This summer my father and brother were here to visit and commented on the fact that there are a number of Taiwanese who bear those characteristics - the majority in their 30’s and 40’s. This seems to fit in with the time frame. Could explain some of this.
[quote=“Nikeh”]Ok, I’m no geniticist but I spot many people in Taiwan with seemingly un-Asian traits. The audburn hair, western style nose, freckled face, or green eyes.
Western Style noses-- please define that. I’ve seen enough to say that there is a whole range of noses are Asians. Roman, big, small, round, stubby…
Green eyes-- thats like one of those traits that pop up every so often. I’m sure there might have been some mixing with arab blood or even dutch who knows but that is wayyyy long ago.
Auburn hair is actually pretty natural. I mean sure most are jet Black but I’ve seen Asian(Taiwanese included) who have pretty light hair-- even the babies too. Its definitely not that common but I really doubt that it has much to do with Dutch or any other race.
Just think of the chances that would happen and how many Dutch ppl were even on the island at the time. They weren’t even on it for 50 yrs. Theres a much much greater chance Taiwanese ppl have mixed aboriginal blood.
yesh well this is a topic i have often bored people with in the pub or in english classes (or chinese for that matter)…
imho the biggest single reason for the very large range in face types in taiwan is intermarriage with the aborigines here…this was done as a way to pacify and assimilate what were often hostile tribes (and with good reason)…according to my information spare daughters were often married off to aboriginal families and vice versa thus creating a blood link that made violent dispute resolution less likely…of course taiwanese families often will not admit to having shandiren blood since this is seen as low class
plus remember there are a lot of hakka in taiwan who themselves have a slightly different genetic make-up (red rag to a bull that statement since chinese don’t like any mention of ethnic/genetic diversity)
and as already mentioned there is a bit of dutch blood out there…i personally have met two or three people who admit there was a rogue red-fur throwing his genes into their pool several generations back…
The genetic studies scientists have taken of the ‘native Taiwanese’ have revealed that nearly all bear traces of aborigine DNA markers. That’s why you have so many brown-skinned Taiwanese running around on this island.
And you’d be surprised how hardy even a teensy amount of other-racial blood will leave still indentifiable traces generations down the line. I’m as white as it comes, give or take a bit’o Injun blood, but once about 2 1/2 centuries ago one of my indentured servant ancestors married a runaway slave. That’s a very minute amount of African blood in me, but you can spot it right away in my mother’s hair, as well as mine if I let my white-boy Afro puff out too much. And when I grow a beard, I develop a kinky black man’s beard. It’s shocking to realize that those characteristics are still there, based on my connection to such a remote ancestor at least a dozen generations removed. So, yeah - some Dutch guy 400 years ago passed on his green eyes to his great-x15-grandchildren? Doesn’t surprise me.
To me a lot of them look like Filipinas. Fattish derriere and neck at middle age for the ladies, for example. Not at all like North Chinese or Korean women, their alleged co-ethnics. And then there’s the skin complexion range which is considerable. If the aborigines are basically the same people as the indigenous peoples of other Southeast Asian countries, this would make a lot of sense.
in Taiwan, its not exactly homogenous considering more than 15% of the ppl are what we consider “mainlanders” and as far as we know, pure 100% han. Most others are Taiwanese (with mostly Han and a small aborigine mix) and then there are aborigines. I truly think we can disregard the dutch part, because that is the most minute % in Taiwan.
I met a girl a girl (surnamed Sun) in Spring 1987 at the Ploughman’s Inn…she was drinking a Heineken out of the bottle. Tall…beautiful…I mean GORGEOUS! . She had just come back from studying in the US. Family was from Shandong. Great-Grandma was French…Great-Grandpa (Chinese) had met her while studying in France. Great-Grandma couldn’t stand China and returned to France leaving a baby.
You could see the influence even after all those generations.*
I met a girl a girl (surnamed Sun) in Spring 1987 at the Ploughman’s Inn…she was drinking a Heineken out of the bottle. Tall…beautiful…I mean GORGEOUS! . She had just come back from studying in the US. Family was from Shandong. Great-Grandma was French…Great-Grandpa (Chinese) had met her while studying in France. Great-Grandma couldn’t stand China and returned to France leaving a baby.
You could see the influence even after all those generations.*
