Is interracial dating / marriage good or bad?

[Captain_Amazing]

*Originally posted by Tamerlane *
** Yuan Mongols instituted a three- ( later four, after the conquest of the Southern Sung ) level “racial” ( sort of - it was really based more on date of incorporation into the empire ) caste system in which the Chinese occupied the lowest layers. The Northen Chinese that had been subjects of the Chin, along with the Jurchen, the Khitan, and sinicized Koreans were referred to as Han-jen and were level three and the S. Sung subjects were hsin fu-jen and were level four. **

Who was in level two?

[Tamerlane]

Who was in level two?

Non-sinicized, non-Mongols. The descriptor was se-mu-jen. So the Uighurs, Tuvans, Naimans, Qarluqs, Tibetans, Tanguts, Sartauls ( Sogdian Iranian merchants from western Central Asia ), etc.

By the way I should give credit for all of the above information to one of the better general survey books on Chinese history ( in English, anyway - translated from French ) - Jacques Gernet’s A History of Chinese Civilization ( English edition 1982 by Cambridge University Press, French edition 1972 as Le Monde Chinois by Librairie Armand Collin ). Pgs. 368-370.

• Tamerlane

• Tamerlane

[Eva_Luna]

*Originally posted by Tamerlane *
**Non-sinicized, non-Mongols. The descriptor was se-mu-jen. So the Uighurs, Tuvans, Naimans, Qarluqs, Tibetans, Tanguts, Sartauls ( Sogdian Iranian merchants from western Central Asia ), etc.

**

I thought the Tuvans were essentially Mongols, anyway? If they’re not, then what distinguishes them from the Mongols?

[Chanticleer]

*Originally posted by Feistymongol *
**I’m not apologizing for jack shit. If the mods want to delete this and boot me so be it but i’m not here to coddle your emotions or cater to your whims. I guess you wanted me to say “Ah so! me so solly massah’” instead you’re just going to get a big fuck you from me. **

Three Cheers For Feisty …you don’t need to apologize for your opinion. Is not that the reason for this forum?

[Tamerlane]

I thought the Tuvans were essentially Mongols, anyway? If they’re not, then what distinguishes them from the Mongols?

One could say the same for the Naimans, really. They also were from the general region of Mongolia and shared that herding culture. They were Turkic-speakers ( like the Naiman ), rather than the closely-related Mongol, for one. But that is probably incidental, as Mongolia was incredibly intermixed in this manner at the time. The difference was more geo-political. The Tuvans were initially placed under Chingis’ son Jochi in 1207, but they were somewhat on the fringe of the Mongol polity geographically, right in the transition zone to Siberia, and actually seem to have been subjects of the ‘Golden Horde’ of Russia et al ( ruled by the Jochid branch of Chingisids ), rather than the ‘Great Horde’ Yuan China ( right on the border between the two from the looks of it ). After the Yuan collapse in 1368 and remote from the decaying Golden Horde, they seem to have lapsed into “independance” for roughly two centuries before being brought back under centralized Mongol control by Altan Khan ( r.1543-1582 ), the last great Chingisid conquerer in the East.

• Tamerlane

[Tamerlane]

That is, the Tuvans speak a Turkic language, like the Naimans ( and the Uighurs and Qarluqs ).

Yuan China, just to complete the thought, was ruled by the Toluid branch of Chingisid dynasty. Although the Toluids took power ( over the Ogedeids ) in a political coup engineered by the Jochid Batu, after Batu and Mongke ( the Toluid buddy of Batu, that Batu helped elevate ), hostilities broke out between the Golden Horde under Batu’s brother Berke and the Chagatai Khanate ( temporarily under the control of the Ogedeid, Qaidu ) on the one hand, and the two Toluid-ruled Khanates of Yuan China ( under the famous Qubilai ) and the Il-Khanat ( under Qubilai’s younger brother Hulegu ).

Hence the Tuvans were sort of de facto foreigners ( and technically aligned with the enemy camp ) in China and thus didn’t merit that highest social strata.

Just exactly when all these categories were all hashed out in precise detail ( we know there were at least two stages, since Sung China was added last ) I don’t think is entirely certain, as the source material for this was written in 1366.

So the above is mostly my speculation ;).

• Tamerlane

[Tamerlane]

…after Batu and Mongke died…

Qubilai and Hulegu were younger brothers of Mongke, by the way. A fourth and youngest brother, Arigh-Boke who initially controlled Mongolia proper, briefly contested with Qubilai in the east.

• Tamerlane

[Eva_Luna]

Thanks, **Tamerlane ** (and what an apt username for this discussion, no?) I’m rather fuzzy on this stuff; in my one grad school class, I clocked the prof in lecture one day, and he was embarrassed to be informed that we’d covered an average of one dynasty every 15 minutes.

So basically, it sounds like Central Asians are pretty much mutts just like almost everyone else on the planet.

[Mighty_Girl]

*Originally posted by EasyPhil *
It was determined for political reasons that Black people in this country were 3/5ths of a person. I’d give you a cite on this, but I really think you need to do your own research and discovery on this matter.

What does this have to do with anything?

Let me see if I make it clearer, if only to make it easier on myself. I believe that bellaluna’s first post suggested that these two women, one white, one black, had different tastes, attitudes and skill as a direct result of the colour of their skin. Clear so far? I don’t believe that the fact that someone wrote in a piece of paper (be it the US constitution, the Bible or a package of toilet paper) that some race was 3/4 (or whatever proportion) or another race does not instantly causes such race to be inherently less capable of anything. Did I make myself understood?

The politics may have caused changes in the enviroment that both women grew in, not to their capacities. I wish I could say it clearer, but alas, I can’t.

It has to do with your point of reference. What do you know about race relations in this country, in the time and place that bellaluna was raised? It seems to me that you’re that your ignorant of racial history in the US.

What in the name of whatever is dear to you does growing/not growing up in the US have to do with the fact that I believe all humans to be equal. The only thing I am an expert of is irrelevant right now, about as irrelevant to this discussion is being an expert in the racial history of the US. But if it make it feel better I do know about the racial struggle in the US, probably more than I now about my own country (we never had a racial struggle, only social and political struggles).

[EasyPhil]

Mighty_Girl, upon closer inspection it seems that we’re saying the same thing, I apologize for my confusion about what you were saying.

[WittyBassman]

*Originally posted by medstar *
**I’ve read this entire thread and most of the participants have made erudite, thoughtful contributions. My shallow observation is that children born of interracial marriages, tend to be much more attractive than either of their parents. I’ve noticed this over the years and so I think intermingling of genes is a very good thing, based on my observation. **

I completely agree. A friend of mine puts it about right, if not PC. “Halfies are, on average, more beautiful than most women I’ve seen” Truth be told that they usually are more resilient to genetic defects, better immune systems, so on so forth, that’s already been visited.

On to the meat of it. I’m in the Navy, stationed in Japan. A good portion of my buddies are married to foreign women, whether Filipina, Japanese, Korean, Thai… For the most part, they are very happy men.

I grew up in an area where the local population was almost heterogenous. The entire time I was in school, There were 4 black kids, all good friends of mine, and about 10 Hmong. Long story short, I had little interaction outside my race but for about 6 people. Until I joined the Navy.

I can speak directly to the Asian references this particular thread has made. Pardon the sterotypes, but I’ve found many type, 3 of which I’ll describe here.

In the Yokosuka Naval Base vicinity, there’s a district known as the Honch. At night, this place is crawling with sailors who’ve had a hard days work, and just want to drink the memory of the day. Also in the vicinity are the “Honch Ho’s” (Sorry, not my term) who hang around and either a: try to get a lay for the night, or b: are looking for somebody ANYBODY to take them in as wife and get them out of Japan.

There are also the kind of Japanese girls who are looking to rope an American guy, but try to do it in a less conspicuous way. Online dating, language exchange groups

Then there are the type who are traditional, and like some of those here are opposed to the whole inter-racial/cultural relationships thing.

Again, I apologize for the stereotyping, but after 2+ years here, it’s what I’ve seen, and it is pretty apparant throughout a LOT of the asian cultures I’ve seen in the 12 or so countries I’ve been to.

[China_Guy]

Dang, Tamerlane, do you whip these snippets out from memory or do you have to refresh your memory? Either way, I am always impressed and things Mongolian don’t seem to be your primary study either.

[Tamerlane]

China Guy: Well the detail on the Yuan social castes came out of the cited book. I remembered they had such a system, but that’s about it.

Sadly, perhaps, the dynastic squabbles et al I was able to do from memory ;). That’s the nice thing about the SDMB - I never get the chance to regurgitate all this minutia anywhere else. For some reason it just never seems to come up at parties :p.

• Tamerlane

[Kagan]

*Originally posted by Tamerlane *
**Indeed it is. I’ve deliberately avoided getting into history arguments in any of these related threads ( though I’ve been sorely tempted ) for that reason. But since you asked… :

Nice compliment but probably overbroad and likely inaccurate :).

However as to Kagan’s claims, my answer would be - I doubt it.

I’ll admit to not having a full list of Yuan emperors’ wives ( though I know that Quibilai’s at leat, were all Mongol, and one, Chabi, was very important indeed ), but it is a fact that the Yuan Mongols instituted a three- ( later four, after the conquest of the Southern Sung ) level “racial” ( sort of - it was really based more on date of incorporation into the empire ) caste system in which the Chinese occupied the lowest layers. The Northen Chinese that had been subjects of the Chin, along with the Jurchen, the Khitan, and sinicized Koreans were referred to as Han-jen and were level three and the S. Sung subjects were hsin fu-jen and were level four. These categories had all sorts of social, political, and legal ramifications and intermarriage between these defined groups ( the Mongols obviously occupied level one ) was strictly forbidden. Since Mongols had all the highest government posts reserved to themselves, such intermixture could conceivably create some real difficulties.

Now rules are meant to be broken and I don’t doubt that some Chinese women might have been taken as wives ( but probably far more commonly as concubines ). But I rather doubt it was common given the above. Regardless, I do not think the Mongols had their warlike spirits tamed and their loyalties seriously compromised and that was the cause of their downfall. Some ephemeral and limited sinicization definitely took place among the administrative class ( but the Mongols, far more than the Manchus, put in all sorts of blocks to prevent this happening lower down the ladder ), but the primary cause for the Yuan collapse was a string of incompetent rulers, constant infighting and civil strife between contenders for the throne, highly decentralized rule ( despite some previous thought to the contrary, Yuan adminstrative control seems to have been quite loose outside the general environs of Peking ) and rampant mismanagement exacerbated near the end by severe natural disasters. The Mongols certainly continued to remain a viable and pretty warlike threat to the Ming, as such later notables as Esen Khan and Altan Khan were to prove.

So, I’m sceptical and would like to see better documentation before I bought that theory :).

• Tamerlane **

I checked up after reading this and it looks as though you are correct. I originally assumed that the Mongols behaved similarly to the Qing emperors, but it seems that they put a little more effort into maintaining a distinction between themselves and the Chinese. Either way, the Mongols couldn’t have held out forever, and the fact that they feared mixing with the Chinese demonstrates that Chinese culture was (and continues to be) strong enough to absorb those who intermarry with Chinese.

However, I also discovered that Yuan harems were stocked with Chinese (and other non-Mongol) women, and in the later Yuan dynasty the imperial concubines took to fooling around with other men, leading to the spread of STDs in the harem. Perhaps this was a form of protest against the Yuan?

History blames the fall of the Yuan dynasty on the unpopular policy of affirmative action implemented by the Mongols, natural disasters, and religious movements that denied that the Mongols had the “mandate of heaven.”

It is interesting to note that the Yuan fell apart fairly quickly. As soon as Mongol military might lapsed just a bit, the Chinese people rose up and threw out the Mongols. Goes to show that the Chinese people would not tolerate being treated like third-class citizens in their own country. Good for them.

-Kagan