# Why do the Chinese call themselves "the black-haired people"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 4, 2005, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-chinese-call-themselves-the-black-haired-people/320066 "2005-09-04T17:50:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-chinese-call-themselves-the-black-haired-people/320066/1 "2005-09-04T17:50:37Z")
I’ve read in various places that from ancient times, the Chinese have referred to themselves as “the black-haired people.” Why? I would assume that if a people adopt an epithet for themselves, the point would be to distinguish themselves from others. But until Europeans started visiting China, **all** the peoples of whom they had any knowledge – the Mongols, Huns, Manchus, Koreans, Japanese, Thai, Burmese, Vietnamese, Tibetans, Indians, Malaysians, Indonesians – all of the “Four Barbarians” of North, South, East and West – would have been black-haired. ---
**Author:** ![inkubo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@inkubo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/inkubo)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-chinese-call-themselves-the-black-haired-people/320066/2 "2005-09-04T17:52:55Z")
Because they paid Rick Santorum to lobby for their copyright on black hair. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-chinese-call-themselves-the-black-haired-people/320066/3 "2005-09-04T18:23:40Z")
The ancient Mesopotamians used this term too, but AFAIK it was not meant as a distinguishing identification for one particular tribe or culture, but rather a designation for all of humanity. Human beings in general were “the black-headed ones”, just as some English writers have used phrases like “we bipeds” (without implying that non-English-speaking humans are **not** bipeds). I don’t know whether the Chinese used the term in the same way, or whether they meant it as a distinguishing characteristic for their own people in particular. As you point out, the latter wouldn’t make much sense. ---
**Author:** ![Mangosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2005, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-chinese-call-themselves-the-black-haired-people/320066/4 "2005-09-05T03:30:06Z")
Actually, they call themselves "Hey Fa (Black Hair), “Hwang Fu” (Yellow Skin), not just “Black Hair People”. It became popular during the Ching Dynasty when Europeans first came on the scene in China. Some Chinese started to side with the foreigners and were scolded for it. “Don`t you know you are a “Hey Fa Hwang Fu” and not one of these foreigners!”, people would say. Its still used today when Chinese want to differentiate themselves from Americans and Europeans. ---
**Author:** ![yerba\_buena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/7ea924/32.png) [@yerba\_buena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yerba_buena)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-chinese-call-themselves-the-black-haired-people/320066/5 "2005-09-06T17:56:18Z")
> [@Mangosteen](#): > > Its still used today when Chinese want to differentiate themselves from Americans and Europeans. I’m Chinese, and I’ve never heard any of those phrases used. Typically names are used to describe the white people, not the “normal-looking” people. ---
**Author:** ![Mangosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-chinese-call-themselves-the-black-haired-people/320066/6 "2005-09-06T22:49:42Z")
My wife, who is Taiwanese, said she heard the expression in Taiwan on occasion. Yerba, Are you an ABC? Maybe it isn`t used much in the States. ---
**Author:** ![shi\_mao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@shi\_mao](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shi_mao)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-chinese-call-themselves-the-black-haired-people/320066/7 "2014-12-10T21:35:32Z")
around 3,500 to 5,000 years ago, red heads and blonds with chariots and wearing plaids (see mummies from the desert of Mongolia) came out of the mongolian steppes and conquered ancient china. They also swept westward and conquered the Hittites (who thereafter conquered the mideast and Egypt), the greek peninsula (grey eyed Athene), the italian peninsula, all the way west to Ireland (who remember that they followed the female horse god). Somehow these red heads were either assimilated or repelled by the indigenous people who thereafter referred to themselves as the “black haired people” at least through the Zhou, Chin, and Han dynasties. ---
**Author:** ![Lukeinva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lukeinva/32/17872_2.png) [@Lukeinva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lukeinva)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-chinese-call-themselves-the-black-haired-people/320066/8 "2014-12-10T22:02:01Z")
> [@Mangosteen](#): > > Actually, they call themselves "Hey Fa (Black Hair), “Hwang Fu” (Yellow Skin), not just “Black Hair People”. > > It became popular during the Ching Dynasty when Europeans first came on the scene in China. Some Chinese started to side with the foreigners and were scolded for it. “Don`t you know you are a “Hey Fa Hwang Fu” and not one of these foreigners!”, people would say. > > Its still used today when Chinese want to differentiate themselves from Americans and Europeans. There’s a really good joke in here somewhere… ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-chinese-call-themselves-the-black-haired-people/320066/9 "2014-12-10T22:18:15Z")
> [@shi\_mao](#): > > around 3,500 to 5,000 years ago, red heads and blonds with chariots and wearing plaids (see mummies from the desert of Mongolia) came out of the mongolian steppes and conquered ancient china. They also swept westward and conquered the Hittites (who thereafter conquered the mideast and Egypt), the greek peninsula (grey eyed Athene), the italian peninsula, all the way west to Ireland (who remember that they followed the female horse god). Somehow these red heads were either assimilated or repelled by the indigenous people who thereafter referred to themselves as the “black haired people” at least through the Zhou, Chin, and Han dynasties. Very interesting legend. What dynasties would that have been during? ---
**Author:** ![shi\_mao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@shi\_mao](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shi_mao)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2015, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-chinese-call-themselves-the-black-haired-people/320066/10 "2015-11-27T18:56:57Z")
this would have been before the Shang dynasty, which likely repelled the invaders. The artwork in China changed dramatically around 3,000 BC from very large figures with bug eyes to what is clearly Chinese people with small slanted eyes. Also, around 5,000-3500 BC, a lot of neanderthal DNA was added to the Chinese population. Neaderthals were not travelers, and did not live in Africa of east Asia. Their habitat was from Europe to the Altai mountains and north of the Gobi desert. In the desert are the mummified remains of red and blond haired people with chariots and wearing plaid from around 3500 BC. All these things are on the internet under neanderthal dNA, mummies, and not sure if you can find the abrupt transition in artwork on line. This “black haired people” was an ancient usage, which was dropped after everyone was black haired for a thousand years, and revived for the benefit of Europeans coming back to China around Ming dynasty. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2015, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-chinese-call-themselves-the-black-haired-people/320066/11 "2015-11-27T19:16:09Z")
Wow. I’ve never heard of this before. They are called the “Tarim Mummies.” > **[Tarim mummies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarim_mummies)** > > The Tarim mummies are a series of mummies discovered in the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang, China, which date from 1800 BCE to the first centuries BCE, with a new group of individuals recently dated to between c. 2100 and 1700 BCE. The Tarim population to which the earliest mummies belonged was agropastoral, and they lived c. 2000 BCE in what was formerly a freshwater environment, which has now become desertified. > A genomic study published in 2021 found that these early mummies (dating from... And from [this one](http://newobserveronline.com/thousands-blond-red-haired-mummies-found-egypt/): \* > [@](#): > > Originally founded by a majority European (Mediterranean with a Nordic ruling class) element, Semites and Nubians were present in Egypt from the earliest dynasties which were started around 3,000 BC. > > The numbers of Semites and Nubians gradually increased through the centuries, until the time of the 24th Dynasty of around 800 BC, when the majority of Egyptian society was of mixed race. > > The very next Dynasty—the 25th—was created by African (Nubian) invaders of Egypt from the Kingdom of Kush, which easily overran their now mixed-race neighbors to the north. The 25th dynasty lasted from 760 BC to 656 BC, where after they also fell before Assyrian and other foreign invaders. > > The original founders of what is popularly called “ancient Egypt” vanished hundreds of years before the invasion by Alexander the Great, and nearly 1,000 years before the burials at the Fag el-Gamous graveyard. > > As a result, the blond and red-haired mummies now being unearthed in the Fag el-Gamous graveyard are likely to be from the Macedonian element of society and will be representative of the Egyptian population long after the fall of the original Egyptians. - That’s from something called “The New Observer.” Anybody know how reliable it is? This seriously begins to smack of some racist attempt to re-write history and give caucasians credit for the ancient Egyptian accomplishments. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2015, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-chinese-call-themselves-the-black-haired-people/320066/12 "2015-11-27T19:23:08Z")
[Another one:](http://s8int.com/page26.html) > [@](#): > > . . . They were investigating the mummies of the Takla Makan Desert, corpses so well preserved under the arid sands that the trace of a tear still can be seen streaking the face of a child buried 4,000 years ago. > > The condition of the mummies, excavated at various sites since the early 1900s, surprised the scientists who first found them. But far more startling was the realization that these bodies, buried millennia ago in western China, are Caucasian. > > They have blond, brown and red hair, prominent noses and deep- set eyes. Some are nearly six feet tall. Buried along with them were textiles woven in plaid patterns strikingly similar to those of ancient European fabrics. Tests on one mummy linked it to a European genetic group . . . ---
**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 27, 2015, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-chinese-call-themselves-the-black-haired-people/320066/13 "2015-11-27T19:49:47Z")
> [@shi\_mao](#): > > this would have been before the Shang dynasty, which likely repelled the invaders. The artwork in China changed dramatically around 3,000 BC from very large figures with bug eyes to what is clearly Chinese people with small slanted eyes. Also, around 5,000-3500 BC, a lot of neanderthal DNA was added to the Chinese population. Neaderthals were not travelers, and did not live in Africa of east Asia. Their habitat was from Europe to the Altai mountains and north of the Gobi desert. In the desert are the mummified remains of red and blond haired people with chariots and wearing plaid from around 3500 BC. All these things are on the internet under neanderthal dNA, mummies, and not sure if you can find the abrupt transition in artwork on line. This “black haired people” was an ancient usage, which was dropped after everyone was black haired for a thousand years, and revived for the benefit of Europeans coming back to China around Ming dynasty. Shi Mao, I haven’t looked at this for years but pre-Shang dynasty (and non Han) wasn’t very well recognized. Not sure if that’s changed in the past couple of decades or not. To the OP, FWIW “black hair” was not a term I ever heard living in China, HK and Taiwan for 20+ years. Most common was “white person” 白人, “black person” 黑人 and “yellow type person” 黄种人 for Asian. Chinese are always “Chinese” 中国人 or “Han” 汉族. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2015, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-chinese-call-themselves-the-black-haired-people/320066/14 "2015-11-27T20:18:38Z")
I recommend Elizabeth Barber’s book, _The Mummies of Ürümchi_. Quite a good read. Linguistically, we know that the Tocharians (who may not be the mummies, but probably are) are Indo-European. But then, so are Nepalis. Phenotypically, we know that they were lighter, but there’s no reason to assume that they wouldn’t have looked Asian to a modern European time-traveller. They just wouldn’t have looked Chinese, but then, the modern Uighurs don’t either. The existence of these people, which is real, has spawned a lot of weird racist claptrap, which is annoying. There’s no reason to think of them as European, because they are in Asia, or White, because that notion is a modern construct postdating the Tocharians by many centuries. Genetically, they’re still there, intermixed with other peoples, though culturally they are extinct. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2015, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-chinese-call-themselves-the-black-haired-people/320066/15 "2015-11-27T20:46:45Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > And from [this one](http://newobserveronline.com/thousands-blond-red-haired-mummies-found-egypt/): \* > > > [@](#): > > > > Originally founded by a majority European (Mediterranean with a Nordic ruling class) element > > - That’s from something called “The New Observer.” Anybody know how reliable it is? This seriously begins to smack of some racist attempt to re-write history and give caucasians credit for the ancient Egyptian accomplishments. It’s bullshit. There’s clear evidence for the origins of Predynastic Egyptian society, and it’s got fuck-all Nordic influence. There are three clear lines of influence - from the Western Desert , from Nubia and from the Levant. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2015, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-chinese-call-themselves-the-black-haired-people/320066/16 "2015-11-28T20:28:28Z")
> [@shi\_mao](#): > > around 3,500 to 5,000 years ago, red heads and blonds with chariots and wearing plaids (see mummies from the desert of Mongolia) came out of the mongolian steppes and conquered ancient china. They also swept westward and conquered the Hittites (who thereafter conquered the mideast and Egypt), the greek peninsula (grey eyed Athene), the italian peninsula, all the way west to Ireland (who remember that they followed the female horse god). Somehow these red heads were either assimilated or repelled by the indigenous people who thereafter referred to themselves as the “black haired people” at least through the Zhou, Chin, and Han dynasties. I think this is overstated. Indo-European speakers from Russia swept both westward and eastward beginning about 3500 BC, but never conquered China. (The Ordos eventually reached Inner Mongolia, but were from a different Indo-European branch than the Tocharian/Tarim people.) > [@TruCelt](#): > > Wow. I’ve never heard of this before. > > They are called the “Tarim Mummies.” With that username, maybe you should learn about them. 😉 Am informative Nova documentary “Mysterious Mummies of China (1998)” can be found on Youtube in which an archaeologist claims the mummies’ woven clothing and facial features both resemble those of ancient Celts! ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2015, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-chinese-call-themselves-the-black-haired-people/320066/17 "2015-11-29T02:16:24Z")
before I re-read, I thought the claim was “inference from DNA that…people wearing plaid conquered China.” But I see now the plaid-wearing doesn’t come from DNA analysis. 😛