# Caucasion Chinese Citizens? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 21, 2004, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasion-chinese-citizens/275969 "2004-11-21T18:41:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2004, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasion-chinese-citizens/275969/21 "2004-11-22T05:22:46Z")
Kazakhs and Cossacks are not the same. Kazakhs are a Turkic people of Central Asia. Cossacks are Slavs, mostly Russians and Ukrainians, and they mostly live in southern Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova. Little known fact: part of Kazakhstan is in Europe. There is probably some geographical overlap of Kazakhs and Cossacks, but I seriously doubt anyone in Russia or Kazakhstan could possibly confuse the two. Again, as has been stated, Central Asian Turks look more similar to Mongols, even though they don’t look exactly the same as Mongols. What is the definition of “Caucausian” anyway? To me, “Caucasian” ought to be limited to people of the Caucasus region like Georgians, Abkhazians, and Chechens. The Tajiks, though, are definitely Aryan and they inhabit a remote corner of China. ---
**Author:** ![Mike\_in\_HK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@Mike\_in\_HK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mike_in_HK)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2004, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasion-chinese-citizens/275969/22 "2004-11-22T06:08:00Z")
I’ve heard of Rowse being the only caucasian chinese citizen (there may be more). Ex-pats in HK aren’t chinese citizens, we are either permanent or non-permanent residents of hong kong. Children of mixed race marriages can be chinese citizens. I’m pretty sure the chinese government deems anyone with chinese ancestry as being a chinese citizen from birth, whether or not the person actually considers him/herself as such. There was also a story about some Indian/Pakistani people in HK who were born here and have rarely, if ever, visited their ancestral country. They were claiming to be stateless cos they didn’t qualify for British citizenship and didn’t want to be citizens of a country they had never visited, so they applied to become chinese citizens…not sure the outcome of their application. ---
**Author:** ![Unregistered\_Bull](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3da27b/32.png) [@Unregistered\_Bull](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unregistered_Bull)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2004, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasion-chinese-citizens/275969/23 "2004-11-22T06:48:26Z")
PBS had a show once where they were looking for ancestors via DNA of this OLD large female caucasion warrior that was found entombed in Mongolia. They went around testing Mongolians. And found a group near the Chinese border that had a blonde headed Mongolian girl (kind of looked like Anna Kournikova) with a DNA link. ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2004, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasion-chinese-citizens/275969/24 "2004-11-22T07:05:32Z")
On a similar note, there are some people who claim there are [descendants of roman mercenaries](http://www.network54.com/Forum/thread?forumid=279501&messageid=1097433944&lp=1097715671) in Gansu province. There’s doubt about the validity of the hypothese but one of the arguments is that the locals _look_ vaguely European. ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2004, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasion-chinese-citizens/275969/25 "2004-11-22T07:09:30Z")
> [@jovan](#): > > On a similar note, there are some people who claim there are [descendants of roman mercenaries](http://www.network54.com/Forum/thread?forumid=279501&messageid=1097433944&lp=1097715671) in Gansu province. There’s doubt about the validity of the hypothese but one of the arguments is that the locals _look_ vaguely European. I’d love to see their faces if they found out that these Roman soldiers came from North Africa. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2004, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasion-chinese-citizens/275969/26 "2004-11-22T14:12:12Z")
When I taught English in Beijing, one of my coworkers was a permanent resident who was a white Chicago native. The guy was as loopy as an airplane. He was a very hardcore communist (one student commented to me, in confidence and in amazement, that this man was the only adult in China who still believed what Mao taught), had lived there at least 12 years, had a Chinese wife, and no intention to leave. He told me that he was “on his way” to Chinese citizenship, but it was clearly evident to me at the time that his race was giving him problems in his applications. If this zealot had problems getting Chinese citizenship, I’d imagine that it must be pretty much impossible for any immigrant to the PRC to get citizenship, too. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2004, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasion-chinese-citizens/275969/27 "2004-11-22T15:01:38Z")
There’s also my cousin, [Israel Epstein](http://english.people.com.cn/200304/21/eng20030421_115515.shtml). –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2004, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasion-chinese-citizens/275969/28 "2004-11-22T15:46:38Z")
Before the Cultural Revolution, and to a greater extent, before the Boxer Rebellion, there was a sizeable number of Russians in northern China, especially Manchuria. There is an elderly lady at the local Russian Orthodox church who grew up in Manchuria, and worked in Shanghai for several years. After the Russian revolution, there were hundreds of thousands of emigres living in China, who formed a thriving community and produced at least two saints: St. John of Shanghai and St. Jonah of Hankow. When Mao came to power, most of them foresaw what was coming (as they had lived through it once in Russia) and took the opportunity to get the hell out of there. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2004, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasion-chinese-citizens/275969/29 "2004-11-22T15:53:36Z")
A little tangential, but there is a book about isolated pockets of white folks called [Lost White Tribes](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0743211979/qid=1101138020/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-6404471-1361416?v=glance&s=books). Kind of interesting… ---
**Author:** ![awldune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@awldune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/awldune)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2004, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasion-chinese-citizens/275969/30 "2004-11-22T19:01:12Z")
> [@Jomo Mojo](#): > > **Qadgop** , why would you make this offensive comment? I don’t think there was anything mean spirited about his comment, he was just noting the phonetic similarity between “Uighur” and “weaker”. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2004, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasion-chinese-citizens/275969/31 "2004-11-22T19:24:10Z")
> [@awldune](#): > > I don’t think there was anything mean spirited about his comment, he was just noting the phonetic similarity between “Uighur” and “weaker”. I was kind of curious, too, but I’m not sure that’s it. I think there’s another reference. I seem to dimly recall a bit of dialog from one of fantasy writer Glen Cook’s “Garrett” novels. Garrett, commenting on the fact that he’s being followed by several people says he has “more tails than an Ughuir”. I can’t recall the exact spelling used, and I didn’t get the gag. Maybe **Qadgop** can enlighten us a bit? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2004, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasion-chinese-citizens/275969/32 "2004-11-23T00:12:32Z")
> [@awldune](#): > > I don’t think there was anything mean spirited about his comment, he was just noting the phonetic similarity between “Uighur” and “weaker”. Yeah, they’ll tell you that Uyghur is supposedly pronounced “WEE-gur” – but this is misinformation. Don’t believe it. The actual pronunciation of the name sounds _nothing at all_ like that. The first syllable is a diphthong beginning with the “oo” vowel sound, followed by the -y offglide. We don’t have any such diphthong in English. Imagine the “oy” sound of “Oy vey!” – but instead of starting with an o, sound, substitute an “oo” sound. OO-y. Like in gooey or chewy, but without a -w- glide in between. The second syllable starts with the voiced velar fricative gh-, another sound we don’t have in English. It’s like the kh- sound in _chutzpah_, but with the vocal cords gurgling. Or sort of like the sound of r as the French pronounce it. The ending of Uyghur rhymes with “poor” or “tour.” Also, the stress accent is on the last syllable. So, hard as it is to convey the pronunciation in conventional English phonetic spelling, it’s oo-y-GHOOR. Can you understand my explanation? ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2004, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasion-chinese-citizens/275969/33 "2004-11-23T02:10:30Z")
> [@yBeayf](#): > > Before the Cultural Revolution, and to a greater extent, before the Boxer Rebellion, there was a sizeable number of Russians in northern China, especially Manchuria. [snip] When Mao came to power, most of them foresaw what was coming (as they had lived through it once in Russia) and took the opportunity to get the hell out of there. One of my grad school Russian professors, the immortal and surreal Galina McLaws, was one of these - born in Harbin after the Revolution, and had actually never set foot in Russia. She spoke a very bizarre upper-class, stilted, obsolete literary sort of Russian. If you see photos of Harbin from right after the Russian Revolution, many of the street signs and such are in Russian. There must be a few ethnic Slavs and other pre-Soviet leftovers somewhere in China - even if most of them left voluntarily or didn’t make it through the Cultural Revolution, there were quite a sizeable number of them. Methinks it’s time to poke around a little… ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2004, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasion-chinese-citizens/275969/34 "2004-11-23T02:13:40Z")
> [@awldune](#): > > I don’t think there was anything mean spirited about his comment, he was just noting the phonetic similarity between “Uighur” and “weaker”. I had been told the name was pronounced “wigger” which to me seemed all too lamentably liable to be equated with another common and reprehensible slur. But I would hope the true pronunciation “oo-y-GHOOR” would happily preclude such an association. Glad to be enlightened on the matter. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2004, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasion-chinese-citizens/275969/35 "2004-11-23T02:17:16Z")
From Wikipedia ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians)): “Russians are one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People’s Republic of China (as the Russ), and there are approximately 10,000 Russian Chinese living mostly in northern Xinjiang, and also in Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang.” ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2004, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasion-chinese-citizens/275969/36 "2004-11-23T04:00:17Z")
> [@Cliffy](#): > > There’s also my cousin, [Israel Epstein](http://english.people.com.cn/200304/21/eng20030421_115515.shtml). > > –Cliffy Wow, is this for real? Have you met your cousin? He must have some stories… ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2004, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasion-chinese-citizens/275969/37 "2004-11-23T04:04:49Z")
> [@Jomo Mojo](#): > > Kazakhs and Cossacks are not the same. Kazakhs are a Turkic people of Central Asia. Cossacks are Slavs, mostly Russians and Ukrainians, and they mostly live in southern Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova. > > Little known fact: part of Kazakhstan is in Europe. There is probably some geographical overlap of Kazakhs and Cossacks, but I seriously doubt anyone in Russia or Kazakhstan could possibly confuse the two. > > Again, as has been stated, Central Asian Turks look more similar to Mongols, even though they don’t look exactly the same as Mongols. What is the definition of “Caucausian” anyway? To me, “Caucasian” ought to be limited to people of the Caucasus region like Georgians, Abkhazians, and Chechens. > > The Tajiks, though, are definitely Aryan and they inhabit a remote corner of China. Wikpedia had spotty information on Kazakhs in both China and Russia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakh](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakh) So Kazakhs and Cossacks are seperate groups? I knew one ethnic Russian lady from America teaching english in China that was planning a visit to Xinjiang just to meet with the Kazakhs. IIRC according to her, they spoke Russian and were related to Cossacks. Curious if you have more information. Thanks ---
**Author:** ![Caffeine.addict](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f475e1/32.png) [@Caffeine.addict](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caffeine.addict)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2004, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasion-chinese-citizens/275969/38 "2004-11-23T12:44:08Z")
I know someone who is Kazakh who spent a few months in Xinjiang. From what she told me, most of those Kazakhs are people who fled the Russian revolution. She said that they don’t speak Russian unlike most city Kazakhs from Kazakhstan. She said that she had no troube understanding them when they spoke although some words differed. Also, they use a different alphabet which is based on Persian script, while Kazakhs from Kazakhstan use an alphabet which is based on Cyrillic. And the Kazakhs are not related to the Cossacks. They are definitely Turkic. The language is distantly related to Turkish. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2004, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasion-chinese-citizens/275969/39 "2004-11-23T13:04:49Z")
> [@China Guy](#): > > Wikpedia had spotty information on Kazakhs in both China and Russia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakh](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakh) > > So Kazakhs and Cossacks are seperate groups? I knew one ethnic Russian lady from America teaching english in China that was planning a visit to Xinjiang just to meet with the Kazakhs. IIRC according to her, they spoke Russian and were related to Cossacks. Curious if you have more information. Thanks According to the article on Kazakh in a recent book, _The Turkic Languages_. the use of Russian in Kazakhstan continues to grow, despite the ethnic shifts. Since the independence of Kazakhstan in 1991, Russians have been moving out of Kazakhstan into Russia, while Kazakhs have been moving out of Xinjiang and Mongolia into Kazakhstan. But paradoxically, the use of Russian in Kazakhstan is still on the rise. Lots of ethnic Kazakhs there use Russian. They are not related to the Cossacks. Both words are, however, derived from the same Turkic root meaning ‘free man’. The actual spelling in Kazakh is _Qazaq_, which is a cool spelling we should adopt because it’s the only word you can type entirely using the leftmost keys on the keyboard. Down and back up the left edge of the keyboard. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2004, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasion-chinese-citizens/275969/40 "2004-11-23T15:11:03Z")
I always thought “cossack” was strictly a military designation, not an ethnic one – much like the French word “legionnaire” (sp?). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasion-chinese-citizens/275969.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasion-chinese-citizens/275969.md?page=3)