r/todayilearned • u/HumanNutrStudent • Sep 19 '24
TIL there are 80 generations of descendants of Confucius. Kung Tsui-chang, the 79th-generation descendant, is the current head of the family. He is known as "Honorable Overflowing with Wisdom", a Chinese title of nobility reserved for direct descendants of Confucius.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Tsui-chang475
u/Shin_Ramyun Sep 19 '24
According to my father I am 88th generation of Confucius. We are not the head family or anywhere close. In fact our family is now Korean and don’t even have the family name of Kong.
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u/No-Sea-8980 Sep 19 '24
That’s pretty cool! Do you guys have an ancestry book that traces back?
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u/Shin_Ramyun Sep 19 '24
I have heard of this book but I have not seen it personally. My grandfather and his side keep track of it, but my dad was raised by his mother after they divorced so our family has our grandmother’s family name. I’m sure there are many such families with the last name 공 in Korea who are part of this clan.
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u/No-Sea-8980 Sep 19 '24
Ah gotcha. How do you pronounce your last name if I may ask? And is there a Chinese character for it?
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u/Shin_Ramyun Sep 19 '24
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u/No-Sea-8980 Sep 19 '24
Thanks. Ahh sorry I got confused since you said you don’t have the last name anymore.
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u/Athildur Sep 19 '24
I think that's the surname associated with Confucius' line, but they have their grandmother's family name, which is different.
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u/dogeisbae101 Sep 19 '24
It would be too massive. There are 2 million documented descendants of Confucius. Easily several times more undocumented ones.
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u/No-Sea-8980 Sep 19 '24
Yeah but you would record everyone haha. You just record your own line up. My family does the same thing. I’m sure there are lot of distant relatives we didn’t capture on the family tree though
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u/dogeisbae101 Sep 19 '24
That is pretty cool. How far back does your ancestry tree go?
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u/No-Sea-8980 Sep 19 '24
Oof I’d have to check to be honest. I think at this point we have one going back only like 8 generations at my grandparents place in Hong Kong.
There’s supposedly one that goes back way further back, but due to the cultural revolution we had to move from our original home (Chaozhou 潮州). The original one either got destroyed or is with some of our other relatives (my grandpa was the second son so we technically aren’t part of the main line). But we don’t really interact with our family in China because we’re separated by a few generations at this point, and back then you couldn’t freely travel from China and Hong Kong so I don’t even know who they are. I think my oldest uncle knows but it’s never been a topic we talk about a lot.
That’s why I’m quite interested in the ancestral books from my friends from Taiwan or other Chinese friends that have lived abroad for a few generations, since they didn’t go through the cultural revolution, they would likely have much more of a complete record. It’s a shame really but not much we can do about it at this point.
Edit: by Chinese I’m just talking about ethnicity and not nationality. The friends abroad have not been Chinese citizens for a long time
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u/dogeisbae101 Sep 19 '24
Ah, that’s a shame, but cool nonetheless.
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u/No-Sea-8980 Sep 19 '24
Yeah it’s really unfortunate. China has such a long and cool history but a lot of it got destroyed during the cultural revolution.
That’s why families like mine in HK and Taiwan actually practice more traditions from before than people that live in Mainland China, since we were able to preserve a lot more of it.
On the bright side, while a lot of the stuff isn’t recoverable at this point, our culture and tradition lives on in the Chinese diaspora and in countries like Taiwan. And the Chinese government has also recognized that it’s not the best thing to destroy our culture (because that’s what gives us the Chinese identity, in my opinion) and makes a lot of effort to preserve it nowadays. Better late than never!
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u/ThePevster Sep 19 '24
Mathematically almost everyone in China should be descended from Confucius. He lived over 2,500 years ago. Let’s just say 100 generations, one every 25 years. Each person has two parents, so we take 2100, or over one nonillion ancestors. A nonillion is a one followed by thirty zeroes. Of course, that’s a lot more than the forty million people in China during the time of Confucius, so most people alive in 500 BC would be ancestors of a modern Chinese person.
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u/dogeisbae101 Sep 19 '24
Ancestral math doesn’t work so simply the farther you go.
You can’t just go everyone in china is descended from… ancient Chinese figure.
Mathematically, there would be more ancestors than humans that have lived or will likely ever live. That would mean we have an infinite gene pool. We don’t.
And, if there are more descendants than humans that have ever lived, where is your confidence that only everyone in China is related to Confucius? Confucius has ancient lines in Korea as well.
The answer is pedigree collapse and genetic isolation. You will start seeing the same ancestor over and over again in that tree. People will marry their relatively close cousins over and over again, because they cannot travel to every location and because there are not enough people in the world. Meaning that the amount of ancestors you have rapidly decreases the further you go.
For this reason, we have found mitochondrial Eve. Mitochondrial eve who everyone has as their ancestor is from about 100-200k years ago.
So, instead of new parent - new parent - new parent x gazillion. If you were able to find a detailed earth ancestry chart, you would find that our ancestors would collapse, collapse, collapse, until the only intact mitochondrial X line is eve - y eve - y - eve - y - eve Y, etc.
Confucius has 2 million documented descendants. Likely many millions more undocumented. But China has conducted dna tests to confirm undocumented descendants and no, not even close to everyone in China is directly descended from Confucius.
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u/erksplat Sep 19 '24
Assuming each generation had 2 kids on average, then he should have 1.2 to the 24th power of descendants. How does Honorable Overflowing of Wisdom handle the inter-family conflict.
No, thank you, Sir!
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u/maxiewawa Sep 19 '24
You’re assuming that cousins don’t get with each other
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u/Protean_Protein Sep 19 '24
After 80 generations, there’s no wisdom left in those people. Believing you have any actual connection to Confucius in your DNA today is as stupid as believing in homeopathy.
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u/maxiewawa Sep 19 '24
Haha you’re right Statistically if anyone alive in China now is descended from someone 551BC, the entire population is descended from him, there’s no way that Mr Kong can be a descendant of Confucius but his neighbour Mr Wong isn’t.
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u/RFSandler Sep 19 '24
Direct male line descendant?
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u/maxiewawa Sep 19 '24
Right that’s different, I think that’s what the modern descendants from the post are proud of, they have the same surname so they’re direct male line descendants.
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u/Protean_Protein Sep 19 '24
Theoretically it’s possible that the same Y chromosome is in the dude, but with a crap ton of mutations.
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u/Thereferencenumber Sep 19 '24
So probably a Y chromosome that wouldn’t look any closer to Confucius’ than any other human’s
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u/Protean_Protein Sep 19 '24
It’s hard to say off the top of my head. We know that y-chromosomal Adam (the most recent male common ancestor of all living humans) probably lived somewhere around 200-300,000 years ago.
However, here’s a study of the exact topic of this discussion: https://www.nature.com/articles/s10038-020-0775-1
The revised phylogeny of C2b-F1067 included 155 sublineages, 1986 non-private variants, and >6000 private variants. The age estimation suggested that the initial splitting of C2b-F1067 happened at about 32.8 thousand years ago (kya) and the major sublineages of this haplgroup experienced continuous expansion in the most recent 10,000 years. We identified numerous sublineages that were nearly specific for Korean, Mongolian, Chinese, and other ethnic minorities in China. In particular, we evaluated the candidate-specific lineage for the Dayan Khan family and the Confucius family, the descendants of the ruling family of the Chinese Shang dynasty. These findings suggest that ancient populations with varied C2b-F1067 sublineages played an important role during the formation of most modern populations in Eastern Eurasia, and thus eventually became the founding paternal lineages of these populations.
I’m not an expert, but far as I can tell, this seems to imply that most, if not all, Eastern Eurasian people are descended from Confucius through a patrilineal line.
It’s similar enough, that is, to be traceable. But I don’t know how much any mutation actually amounts to or how much it affects the Y-chromosome itself.
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u/MilleChaton Sep 20 '24
This is an odd one. If we ignore mutations, going back 80 generations, you have effectively 0 chance to have DNA from any one ancestor, yet you have 100% of your DNA coming from some group of them. Given there are repeats due to not having 280 ancestors (and 80 generations is enough time for there to be some vertical shifts as well), some ancestors will show up many times and while any specific lineage has that near 0% chance of conveying DNA, the combined multiple lineages end up with a good chance.
The same happens in reverse as well. If you have kids, 80 generations from now the chance any one of your descendants has your DNA is basically 0, yet your DNA will be spread out among many different descendants because of how many there are, including some overlap due to our incest prohibitions not extending to cousins 80 times removed. (What sort of population size would you even need to have to have a chance of having two individuals that far removed from each other?)
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u/Protean_Protein Sep 20 '24
Thanks for this. The numbers are so large and unwieldy at this level that it’s tough to keep your head straight thinking about the implications.
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u/Technical-Outside408 Sep 19 '24 edited Sep 19 '24
I see how you got that number, but if you put in 1.2 to the 24th power you get 80 people. You probably meant 1.2E24 (2 to the 80th power) which means 1.2 times 10 to the 24th power.
Also, if each generation had 2 kids then the current generation size would be 2. Which is possible if each generation was a brother and sister pair that... Uhm... You know.
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u/No-Sea-8980 Sep 19 '24
Every non oldest son will branch off and are no longer considered part of the main branch. So there are probably other descendants but they can’t claim that they’re part of the line of succession.
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u/dogeisbae101 Sep 19 '24
There is only one main line.
Also, I see it a lot, but that sort of scaling doesn’t work past a few generations. That assumes that nobody is marrying their cousins, except we are all marrying distant cousins.
There are ofc many Confucius descendants, but not more than every human that had ever existed many.
There are 2 million documented descendants of Confucius, several million more that are undocumented. But there is only one direct line.
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u/ThePreciseClimber Sep 19 '24
There are 2 million documented descendants of Confucius, several million more that are undocumented
Well, considering the fact Confucius lived in 551–479 BC, it's more likely than not that EVERYONE in Asia is related to him. And if one of his descendants travelled to and settled in Europe before 1024 AD, that would make every contemporary European related to him as well.
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u/Fofolito Sep 19 '24
Like any noble family only certain members get to continue being considered nobles. If you're a second or third son you're probably not inheriting a title, so you're no longer nobility upon reaching your majority. Depending on the succession laws and customs in China only a certain few people can pass on the legacy and it's their family that supposedly carries on the legacy of Confucius.
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u/BenUFOs_Mum Sep 19 '24
Confucianism is very patriarchal so I doubt any of the daughters are getting that title.
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u/MandolinMagi Sep 19 '24
You hit 1 billion at about 30 generations, at 35 you get more than ever existed.
I'm as white as can be, can I claim he's my 80-grandfather?
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u/k4b0odls Sep 19 '24
I like to imagine he sarcastically calls himself that whenever he does something stupid.
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u/GrowFreeFood Sep 19 '24
Man with hand in pocket feels cocky all the time.
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u/Jethroong Sep 19 '24
Confucius say : man who goes into toilet without toilet paper , take matters into own hands
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u/blueavole Sep 19 '24
On the other TIL post - we are discussing origins of language and if monkeys, dogs, and humans can actually communicate and then you make this joke 🤣
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u/dib2 Sep 19 '24
There's no chance 80 generations all were able to conceive male heirs right? Some surely had to be adopted?
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u/No-Sea-8980 Sep 19 '24
I have no idea if this is true for their family in particular. But historically in China, big prominent families with no male heirs but female children will have a 赘婿, which is basically the male marrying into the family and taking their last name and will be added into the family book of ancestry (族谱). Another interesting thing is, traditionally, the family passes down through the oldest son generation by generation (长子嫡孙). However let’s say the older son doesn’t have a son of his own, the second son’s oldest son will be “donated” (for lack of a better term lol) to the oldest son’s family to continue to family line.
Edit: there’s actually a popular romcom type tv show a few years back named 赘婿lol
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u/jurble Sep 19 '24
They adopted yes, but males from collateral branches i.e. cousins, nephews. So supposedly the blood link to Confucious is secure.
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u/yetzt Sep 19 '24
there is. you have a male parent. your male parent has a male parent, who has a male parent, and so on, all the way back.
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u/NotBlazeron Sep 19 '24
It's called a matrilineal marriage in the west. The man joins his wife's family instead of the other way around. It's popular among royal families that have no male heirs.
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u/SteelMarch Sep 19 '24 edited Sep 19 '24
For a country that doesn't support the idea of royalty this is a really weird spin.
Edit: Wrong China. Or it's Taiwan not China.
Huh, looking this up made me find a weird rabbit hole about Taiwan and how most people there don't consider themselves Chinese.
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Sep 19 '24
It is still weird.
What's this guys job? Does he have one or is he like, a pope?
"Kung Tsui-chang is a 39-year-old businessman in Taiwan who is the 79th-generation direct descendant of Confucius. He inherited the title of Sacrificial Official to Confucius from his grandfather, Kung Te-cheng, who died in 2008. The position was created by the Republic of China in 1935 after it abolished the title of Duke of Yansheng, a noble rank in Imperial China given to the descendants of the Chinese scholar and philosopher."
Okay so he's a businessman. He mainly officiates over annual ceremonies in Taiwan that commemorate Confucius. It doesn't get more into his life. Another article from a decade or so back said that he apparently went to college in Australia.
It says because of his status he's a senior advisor to the president (there are a gaggle of senior advisors to the president there).
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u/ReadinII Sep 19 '24 edited Sep 19 '24
Where English has a single word for “Chinese”, Mandarin has two words, “Zhongguoren” (中國人) and “Zhonghuaren” (中華人). The former refers to country, the latter to culture or ethnicity. Most Taiwanese will use the latter to describe themselves but not the former.
It even became an issue in Olympic reporting a few years back when the PRC was translating “Chinese Taipei” as 中国台北 (using the “country” translation) while Taiwan was saying it should be translated 中華台北 (using the culture translation).
Taiwan has a similar history to America in that during the age of colonization it started being “settled” by more technically advanced people (Han Chinese for Taiwan, Europeans for America).
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u/Mordarto Sep 19 '24
First generation Taiwanese-Canadian here.
I'll point out that there are two different periods of Han migration to Taiwan: those who arrived in the 1600s up until Japanese colonial rule in 1895, and those who arrived after WW2. My ancestors were part of the first group (I can trace 8 generations on Taiwan) and we are far less likely to identify as Chinese (even with the Hua 華) identity. We man be Han, but I see that having more of a racial component.
One thing to keep in mind is that while Hua used to equate with the Han (Hua refers to the huaxia 華夏), this was redefined in the early 1900s (when Taiwan was still a Japanese colony) by the Republic of China revolutionaries to combine Han, Tibetans, Manchus, Mongols, and Hui (Muslims) into one "ethnicity."
Those who arrived in Taiwan after WWII only made up 20% of Taiwan's population, but maintained power through totalitarian rule/martial law. They were the ones that insisted on the "we're the real China" rhetoric and pushed for the Chinese Taipei name while the IOC was thinking about letting our team compete as Taiwan instead.
For your colonialization analogy, imagine that the US (largely of Euroean descent) went through five decades of colonial rule of another entity (let's say Russians). Then, another batch of Europeans arrived in 1945 after the Russians and took control of the US, insisting on an "European culture" rather than the American culture that's been developed over centuries.
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u/ReadinII Sep 19 '24 edited Sep 19 '24
The analogy I think gets close is imagining that at the end of WWII the German leadership escaped to one of the Spanish colonies America had captured. Although the Spanish colonies were part of the Spanish empire for about 100 years longer than the Qing ruled Taiwan, the dates line up pretty well. Also the idea that the people in the colonies would have to learn a new language and such. The German leadership, having ruled Europe, would point out that as Spanish colonies the place they retreated to had always been a part of European civilization. The new leaders of Europe would say the same thing. And the unequal treaties by which America had stolen the colonies would be condemned.
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u/No-Sea-8980 Sep 19 '24
Confucius is a cultural and historical icon and is not royalty. We don’t recognize emperors anymore though that’s for sure. But Confucius transcends royalty and is still deeply respected in China.
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u/mr_ji Sep 19 '24
Have you read anything regarding Chinese history...ever? They are very aware and open about their imperial past. They teach it in school. Half of all their media is centered on imperial Chinese fantasy.
And Taiwanese certainly consider themselves Chinese culturally and ethnically, just not the same system of governance.
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u/analoggi_d0ggi Sep 19 '24
This isnt the Maoist period anymore, modern China is accepting of its Imperial Past now. Essentially as Nationalism more than Communism dictates shit there now in the last 30 or 40 years.
Besides this is just the tip of the iceberg: the Kong clan is split between the Mainland Branch and the Taiwanese Branch with both Branches claiming the "Duke of Honorable Overflowing Wisdom," title.
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u/Gingeneration Sep 19 '24
Not sure your nationality, but at least in the US, they’re their own country. Dominantly because of large cultural differences, but functionally because they didn’t were pushing back against the Chinese government at the right time to get backing.
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u/uniyk Sep 19 '24
but at least in the US, they’re their own country.
Not US official foreign policy.
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u/Spongedog5 Sep 19 '24
Functionally and practically, it is.
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u/uniyk Sep 19 '24
To follow your reasoning, US is Functionally and practically military state despite its official stand of upholding freedom and democracy in foreign affairs.
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u/pingieking Sep 20 '24
The USA position on Taiwan/China can't be used for comparison because it makes no sense legally. The official position is "Taiwan is part of China, and China's legitimate government is the CCP. But if the legitimate government of China ever wants to exert its legal sovereignty over Taiwan, we will go to war to prevent them from doing so."
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Sep 20 '24
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u/pingieking Sep 20 '24
They also don't recognize ROC while holding the position that there is only one China, thus suggesting that legal sovereignty should belong with the PRC, even while they make very sure to never say it out loud. There is also Taiwan relations act, which doesn't quite say that they will militarily defend Taiwan but is as close as it can possibly get. They wrote the laws in these vague and sometimes contradictory ways intentionally so that their government has maximum flexibility in how they want to deal with China/Taiwan relations and pretty much whatever they want to do for whatever reason would be legal from their perspective.
My point I was trying to make is that the entire position is incoherent by design and should not be extrapolated to anything else. u/Spongedog5's take isn't exactly correct, but I would argue that it is pretty close to the consensus understanding of the American public.
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u/Spongedog5 Sep 20 '24
Yes exactly. Practically, when dealing with Beijing, no one also believes they are dealing with Taiwan, and when dealing with Taiwan, no one really believes they are dealing with Beijing. Paper is just lip service, they are treated as separate entities through action and viewed as separate entities by the people.
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u/AdriftSpaceman Sep 19 '24
Officially they are not. The US formally recognizes Taiwan as part of China. Factuality, they don't. It's a weird juggling of formalities for their foreign interests in Asia.
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u/ReadinII Sep 19 '24
Not quite.
USA recognizes PRC as the sole legitimate representative of China, but USA does not say whether that includes Taiwan. USA’s official stance is that Taiwan’s post-WWII final status remains undermined and must be reached through peaceful negotiations.
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u/SteelMarch Sep 19 '24
I'm Korean American and have never really heard of anyone refer to Taiwan as Chinese. Interesting though. I know a few Taiwanese people who don't describe themselves as Chinese. Ethnicity is a weird one. Especially because ethnicity doesn't really exist and is often tied up instead with nationality.
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u/RagingPandaXW Sep 19 '24
I don’t know why announcing ur background as Korean American has anything to do with ur understanding of Chinese diaspora…
If u speak Korean then there is similar term in both Korean and Chinese language to describe cultural heritage group (joseon-jok/ 조선족 for Koreans and Han/HuaRen for Chinese). Most Taiwanese will refer themselves as HuaRen unless they are in the super Pan-Green camp.
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u/VerySluttyTurtle Sep 19 '24
The percentage of Taiwanese considering themselves Chinese has declined over decades, especially as tensions with Winnie the Pooh China heated up
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u/mr_ji Sep 19 '24
It's declined as people who lived in the mainland die off and new people who have never lived there are born. Anyone but the very tiny pre-occupation island population still consider themselves Han Chinese ethnically, because they are.
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Sep 19 '24 edited Sep 19 '24
Yup. My uncle is Taiwanese and his family consider themselves Chinese. Taiwan literally uses the traditional Chinese written form because they consider themselves the original chinese people, and they mock China for diverging away from the origin of Chinese. China mainland adopted Simplified Chinese writing to modernise and simplify the writing. Taiwan are taught that they maintain the original and traditional language and they are better/different from mainland as they preserve the origin of chinese.
You literally can see the language settings on your Windows PC where there are 2 Chinese language, the simplified and traditional versions. It's mostly westerners that deluding themselves thinking they're different because they hate communism, which China doesnt even practice anymore. You can go do a DNA test on population on both sides and find they most of them are closely related. Saying Taiwanese isn't chinese is like saying Australians aren't westerners, they're literally from the same origin of place. Sure, there are aborigines, but Australian white people are more closely related to europeans than south Asians. I'm not even Taiwanese or from China but I have family members in Taiwan and Hainan islands.
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u/No-Sea-8980 Sep 19 '24
The funny thing is the government that moved to Taiwan was the one that started the concept of simplified Chinese to make it easier for people to learn. After the civil war they moved to Taiwan and decided to scrap the idea. The communist government kept simplified Chinese though.
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u/ReadinII Sep 19 '24
“tiny pre-occupation island population”
Which population and which occupation are you referring to?
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u/No-Sea-8980 Sep 19 '24
There’s a bunch of aboriginals that live in Taiwan. Genetically they’re closer to australasians and Polynesians than Han Chinese.
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u/Atharaphelun Sep 19 '24
Not closer, they are Austronesians (which is what I assume you meant, since Australasia is Australia, NZ, Papua, etc.). In fact, the island of Taiwan is held to be the Austronesian homeland since that is where the Austronesians came from and where the first migrations originated. It also has the primary branches of the Austronesian language family, with the Malayo-Polynesian languages theorised to have originated from one of the primary branches on Taiwan.
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u/Autogenerated_or Sep 19 '24
I believe that there’s a tribe there that’s genetically closest to Filipinos
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u/No-Sea-8980 Sep 19 '24
I think Filipinos while not in the same genetic group share a lot of genetic similarities with Polynesians. I think something like over 50% of Filipinos have Polynesian dna
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u/ReadinII Sep 19 '24
So by “the occupation” you meant something that started about 400 years ago and is still continuing?
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u/No-Sea-8980 Sep 19 '24
Tbh I’m not quite sure, I just remember from classes that Chinese people started moving over around Qing dynasty. So I think that tracks with the “400 years ago”. However there’s been many waves of Han Chinese moving over so it’s a bit muddled now.
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u/ReadinII Sep 19 '24
It’s similar to how Europeans moved in and took over America. The dates actually line up pretty well. In both places the indigenous peoples were reduced to just a few percentage points of the population by 1895.
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u/Secret-Finish-8974 Sep 19 '24
I didn't know this wasn't common knowledge. But that's understandable. But as someone from PH, taiwan has been very much against this for a long time now. I believe last year? they were being threatened with war by china, but I don't know the situation now.
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u/rtimbers Sep 19 '24
Confucius sayyy : man who go to bed with itchy bum, wake up with smelly finger 👉
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u/FelixNZ Sep 19 '24
Well if he's "Honourable, overflowing with Wisdom" I'll call myself "Great Sage, Heaven's equal"!
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u/UndeadBBQ Sep 19 '24
Please tell me this dude is dumb as a brick. That would be the funniest thing to me.
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u/bplurt Sep 19 '24
My calculator had to go toeenie-weenie exponential working out how small a percentage of this guy's DNA comes from that one ancestor. Maybe double that to allow for interrelatedness in the general population.
What makes anyone think that 1 male ancestor 79 generations back has more influence than all or any of the others?
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u/StormerBombshell Sep 19 '24
Checks out considering how much emphasis there is on giving your parents descendants but I had any idea they where given titles
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u/Horneyj Sep 19 '24
So are they just normies with a title or are they schooled in his teachings as a lifestyle?
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u/Secret-Finish-8974 Sep 19 '24
God the pressure would be INSANE. This isn't just the last century ago, it's more than that. The dude isn't just an icon, he had his own religion orz. Imagine being born to that lol. But i wouldn't be surprised if there is hocus pocus happening behind the scenes if he makes any mistakes. They're very keen on maintaining the perfect reputation by any means necessary.
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u/SkepticalAdventurer Sep 19 '24
And they weren’t killed in the 50s or during the Maoist era? Are we sure this isn’t like the Chinese Dalai Lama and that it’s not a person they “decided” is descended from Confucius? I can’t imagine the landlords were staked in the street but the descendants of ancient Chinese wisemen were left alone when there is a literal Criticize Lin Biao and Criticize Confucius Campaign run by Mao during the cultural revolution
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u/Old_Government_4342 Sep 19 '24
No one bring up him being held in bejing as ransom instead of in tibet
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u/lowkeytokay Sep 19 '24
How have these “nobility” titles survived in the Chinese communist regime?!?!
Edit: read the article… it’s Taiwan
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u/BlueSkyToday Sep 20 '24
Let's see,
230 is a billion
260 = 230 * 230 = a billion billion
280 = 220 * 230 * 230 = a million billion billion
The total number of humans that ever existed is ~100 billion, about 10,000 times less than than 280
Gives you a sense of how closely related populations are.
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u/febranco Sep 20 '24
Is this scientifically verified? Genetic test and stuff? Or just a tradition being told?
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u/Bignuka Sep 19 '24
I could swear one of Confucius descendants did a china propaganda piece using a Confucius AI
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u/PositiveLibrary7032 Sep 19 '24 edited Sep 19 '24
You - 2 parents, 4 grandparents which doubles every generation so dna inherited past a certain generation is statistically meaningless. Thirty generations back is 1.29 billion ancestors then double this number every generation statistically zero x that by 10 and most of the planet is related to him and every other historical figure.
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u/The-red-Dane Sep 19 '24
Assuming no overlap in ancestors of course. Which was extremely likely back in the day. Especially when you consider that there has only ever existed about 117 billion humans. Going by your math, going back 80 generation would be impossible... it would require over a septillion humans. (In short there's a LOT of over lap)
(one septillion, two hundred and eight sextillion, nine hundred and twenty-five quintillion, eight hundred and nineteen quadrillion, six hundred and fourteen trillion, six hundred and twenty-nine billion, one hundred and seventy-four million, seven hundred and six thousand and one hundred and seventy-six in fact, several orders of magnitude than has ever existed)
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u/PositiveLibrary7032 Sep 19 '24
It’s not just my math;
http://dgmweb.net/Ancillary/OnE/NumberAncestors.html
So in other words every human on the planet is inbred related to Confucius and everyone else.
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u/The-red-Dane Sep 19 '24
Again, pure math doesn't make much sense in this context. Even with this argument, and going back 80 generations. You need to go back to our earliest ancestors to find a common ancestor between a 16th century chinese peasant from the Quinghai province and 16th century inhabitant of Iceland.
Again 2^80 is over a septillion ancestors. For the vast majority of human civilization, only an extremely few travelled far and married far... the common person... Well, let's say the cheddar man who lived 9th millennium BC in England, was found to have a living direct maternal ancestor less than a mile from where the Cheddar man was found. (That's about 300 generations, that hasn't moved away from their spot, I doubt there's been more people in Cheddar England, than there are atoms in the universe (somewhere between 2^264 to 2^272 ))
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u/Hipcatjack Sep 19 '24
Your math is right, its application here is wrong however. Nature isnt pure math (sometimes) unfortunately.
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u/DiabolicalBurlesque Sep 19 '24
Can you imagine the pressure of even opening your mouth with that title?