Chinese Diversity

[Miqilin7]

China is a nation that is proud of her history and people's identities. Since the nation's demography is broken down to hundreds of ethnic group composition.

Do you reckon the Chinese badminton team practiced the same cultural and racial diversity as well?

We can roughly guess the players' origin and ethnic identity based on their region and name.

Without a doubt, the largest ethnic group is Han Chinese but there are a few that could be of different ancestry.

Here are my wild guess:

Notable Han Chinese:

Lin Dan
Cai Yun
Fu Haifeng (partially Indonesian Chinese)
Wang Xiaoli
Chen Jin
Chen Long
Wang Shixian
Tian Qing
Zhang Nan
Zhao Yunlei


Notable Manchus:

Zhang Ning
Wang Xin
Yu Yang
Li Yongbo (has some Manchu roots)

Hui Chinese:

Ma Jin (very big possibility she could be a Muslim. Ma is a very common surname for Mainland Chinese Muslims) - I remember during Wembley, it was a Ramadan fasting period, she didn't touch her drink during intervals..throughout the tournament

Others:

Wang Yihan (a Shanghai-nese native, she could be anything lol!)
Wang Lin (could have Miao/Zhuang Origin, she has quite a dark complexion)
Bao Chunlai (not sure :P)

[jamesd20]

Whilst. Much is made of the ethnic groups in china and they are each celebrated to some degree or other, with time mamy people will be mixed in anycase and therfore telling purely on looks is difficult or impossible.

It is an interesting subject though if anyone has any info!

[Miqilin7]

Whilst. Much is made of the ethnic groups in china and they are each celebrated to some degree or other, with time mamy people will be mixed in anycase and therfore telling purely on looks is difficult or impossible.

It is an interesting subject though if anyone has any info!

Zhang Ning, Wang Xin and Yu Yang are pure Manchurians with a sinicized Han Chinese name

Look at Zhang Ning, her features are so different and WX plus YY shared something in common too in terms of their looks that are not typical Han.

Three of them originated from Liaoning province that has quite a large percentage of Manchurians residing in that region.

Chances are high for them to belong to that ethnic group that once conquered China before the Xinhai Revolution.

Whereas, Lin Dan is a proud Hakka person from Fujian province, which makes him a pure Han Chinese. Well most of the southerners are 90 percent Han Chinese, unless you have Miao/Tujia/Zhuang/Yi or commonly Hui heritage like Ma Jin (most probably!!)

[jamesd20]

Dont get me wrong, i am not questioning your assessment, i just think it is hard to categorise as 90% of all chinese are han anyway andnothers are mixed.

And within the ethnic groups you have many different looks as well. Zhang ning looks similar to YY for example, bu WX doesnt.

[Miqilin7]

Dont get me wrong, i am not questioning your assessment, i just think it is hard to categorise as 90% of all chinese are han anyway andnothers are mixed.

And within the ethnic groups you have many different looks as well. Zhang ning looks similar to YY for example, bu WX doesnt.

Non-Han Chinese people usually assimilate into the majority's culture and society by adopting a Han-sounding Chinese surnames.

That is one way of evaluating/guessing their ethnicity. Wang Xin is a good example for surname adoption.

Her Wang surname is not a common character. Unlike Wang Shixian and Wang Yihan's character of 王 which stands for King, hers is quite strange as 汪 which is used as adverb for noise in Chinese sentence...although it could be potentially used as a surname but some ethnic minorites tend to stick to the funny sounding names with a different underlying meaning to highlight their difference subtly.

Like Ma Jin's surname, it is conventionally known as Horse but in a Muslim context, hers could be Muhammad or anything related to Hui/Uyghur culture. Just a guess.

That's one way of looking at it from my perspective.

[Cheung]

Hmm, my cousin is a "Ma" but no way is he a muslim!

[Qidong]

IMHO. Because of the Japanese invasion and Civil war, many Chineses were migrating from time to time. It is very difficult to tell which races they are just simply based on their last names or where they were born especially these younger generations.

[chibe_K]

Wow! I completely understand China is made up of different minotiries and ethnicities but it amazes me that one is able to tell by the last name what the ethnicity is!! Or even by the physical appearance! To me LYB is no different than any other chinese players. This is raising my goosebumps.

[Miqilin7]

Wow! I completely understand China is made up of different minotiries and ethnicities but it amazes me that one is able to tell by the last name what the ethnicity is!! Or even by the physical appearance! To me LYB is no different than any other chinese players. This is raising my goosebumps.

Some players are quite obvious...like Yu Yang/Zhang Ning. You tell straight they do not look like a Han Chinese. They look let's say very "different"

[jamesd20]

Wow! I completely understand China is made up of different minotiries and ethnicities but it amazes me that one is able to tell by the last name what the ethnicity is!! Or even by the physical appearance! To me LYB is no different than any other chinese players. This is raising my goosebumps.

Really? Names are usually quite diagnostic of where people come from? Eg. Bjorn scandanavian, o'connor irish etc...

[Licin]

How about Qing Tian? In my opinion, she does not like Han ethnic... She is more into Manchu or Hui/Uyghur

For FHF, Does he have any ancestor from INA?

[laonong]

does Sony and Taufik have any ancestor from east Asia? They do not look like Indonesians to me.

[laonong]

How about Qing Tian? In my opinion, she does not like Han ethnic... She is more into Manchu or Hui/Uyghur

For FHF, Does he have any ancestor from INA?

Han Chinese itself is not genetically defined. You can easily see the difference by comparing Han people from Shangdong and Guangdong.

[Miqilin7]

does Sony and Taufik have any ancestor from east Asia? They do not look like Indonesians to me.

This is a thread for Mainland Chinese ethnicity. Create a new thread for the subject above.

And no, both look like Malay/Javanese to me.

[Miqilin7]

Han Chinese itself is not genetically defined. You can easily see the difference by comparing Han people from Shangdong and Guangdong.

Han Chinese and Manchu are completely different people. Han Chinese descended from the mythical Yellow Emperor where Manchu people are desert people/barbarians originated from Changbai Mountain with the same roots as the Koreans/Jurchens.

Lin Dan is definitely a Han Chinese from south China similarly to Fu Haifeng but the latter does look very weird in the way he has that South East Asian resemblance maybe because his father was Indonesia Chinese so the looks are messed up genetically alittle but hey that's where he got his good looks from

[Licin]

Han Chinese and Manchu are completely different people. Han Chinese descended from the mythical Yellow Emperor where Manchu people are desert people/barbarians originated from Changbai Mountain with the same roots as the Koreans/Jurchens.

Lin Dan is definitely a Han Chinese from south China similarly to Fu Haifeng but the latter does look very weird in the way he has that South East Asian resemblance maybe because his father was Indonesia Chinese so the looks are messed up genetically alittle but hey that's where he got his good looks from

Wow.. are you sure that his father is Indonesia Chinese?

[Miqilin7]

Wow.. are you sure that his father is Indonesia Chinese?

His father was wearing a Malay/Indon batik during an interview with Fu Haifeng...how often do you come across a Mainland chinese dude wearing a traditional custom from another country. I felt strange at first about Fu Haifeng's heritage because he does look very different in sense that he didnt strike me as someone who was born and raised in China.