Why the Chinese Diaspora is so Unusual #China #Chinese

The Chinese diaspora today is rather unusual when compared to most other ethnic diasporas around the world and there are several reasons why I believe this is the case. Despite being seen as carbon copies of one another by most foreigners, the Han Chinese as a people are actually incredibly culturally, linguistically, religiously and politically diverse. Every single Chinese community around the world has a different story and hence every one is unique in their own rights in many ways, whether you decide to divide them up by their ancestry, religious beliefs or place of birth. Of course in the PRC every effort has been made to stifle this diversity and bring about the maximum level of conformity among the populace, for purposes they describe as “social harmony”, by encouraging the populace to shift from their traditional local dialects to Mandarin, cracking down on religious organizations and naturally heavily censoring and controlling all aspects of media, entertainment and the internet in order to keep the citizens in line politically. Despite this, even in Mainland China you will find a surprising amount of diversity of thought on many of these matters. Thanks for watching

[tianming]

Even within the Chinese diaspora there are stark differences. Toisan people from Guangdong are largely the ones who settled in North America, while Hokkien groups from Fujian were the ones who went to most of Southeast Asia, and Hakka were the ones who settled in small island nations like the Caribbean or Mauritius. And recently the Chinese waves going to European countries like Italy and Spain have largely been Wenzhounese people from Zhejiang. All of these groups are very different from each other and speak different languages that aren't mutually intelligible.

When my grandpa first came to Canada in the 1960s, he said he couldn't communicate with the other people in Chinatown because they all spoke Toisan while he spoke the Hong Kong dialect. Both of these are considered to be Cantonese dialects, and yet my family members who speak one have difficulty understanding the other.

Nowadays when I'm in Chinese spaces here in Canada, Mandarin is the dominant language due to recent immigration from northern China. Fewer and fewer people speak Cantonese and almost no one except the oldest generation of early immigrants still speaks the Toisan dialect.

[AT-rrxw]

Some Chinatowns had separate communities within them.

[chaomingli]

Chinese is a concept on the civilisation level.

[Enzo-bf]

There is a chinese community in Madagascar since the Last century. They mixed with the local People, which created a New culture for instance they became christians but still have their ancestral beliefs
.

[peterhsieh]

There is no such thing as "Pure Chinese". From North to South, East to West and Central China, they have different DNA. To be Han Chinese is purely CULTURAL.
One can say, it is "Melting Pot of Chinese".
Over 5000 years of China's Civilization, lots of people from outside China migrant to China eg Huns, Manchus, Tibetan, Tatars and etc. As years went by, they form their own local dialects.

[crockodileATX]

As a little kid I have very few memories of talking to my mom till we returned to the States and she learned English. I spoke Mandarin and English, and she spoke Cantonese, Vietnamese and French with my parents communicating in Vietnamese.

[twq]

As Malaysian Chinese, most of us are able to switch between different Chinese Dialects (Cantonese, Hokkien, Teochew & etc), Mandarin, Malay language & English.

[nimaguy]

I’m Chinese American. I had a family friend tell me one time that when she was working as a med student in a hospital in Maryland there was this older Chinese gentlemen that came in and they actually had trouble communicating because she only spoke Mandarin and he only spoke Cantonese. Shows you how culturally diverse our diaspora is

[mckendrick]

China is what Europe would look like if Rome had remained in power over all of Europe for the past 2000 years, and not just in the spiritual sense, but in direct political order. Sure Constantinople and the Vatican/Rome existed as sort of counterparts to Nanjing and Beijing, but neither had that sort of continuous level of control over Europe that the Chinese Dynasties did over China.

[jimferry]

I don’t know this for a fact but I think Ireland and Jamaica probably has a larger diaspora than the population of the countries themselves

[zk]

Chinese do tend to be very proud to be Chinese. Not as bad as Japan but they tend to not mix with other races compared to other nations.

[LHITShappy]

Great content as always. Speaking of rivalry and discrimination, just the other day, I was told off by another Chinese for promoting Cantonese, because he thinks Cantonese sounds too much like a South East Asian language, he even suggested that only Mandarin is proper Chinese LMAO!

[thelias]

Thank you it’s so interesting, I’m have Cantonese ancestry from Vietnam, and I live in France 😂

[Radibu]

Ironically enough the same goes for Germany.

[shencheanglow]

Modern society enjoy wide spread communication facilities that made people understand each other better, and mix marriage possible. These conveniences also meant the spread of languages that the majority use, like English, Spanish, Chinese. Dialects appeared because of isolation.

[Vermilion]

Even within the dialects. There are subdialects. For example as a Shanghainese. We distinguish ourselves from the Wu dialect slightly.

[Nachscrach]

It's a civilization, not an ethnicity

[basmaelghyaly]

I need more. Something more than a short. A video in the future about this topic.

[cjshow-zpnh]

Fun fact, the Malaysian Chinese are the ONLY Overseas Chinese outside of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan that still managed to preserve their own unique identities including having Chinese schools which could explain that thay are still able to speak their own mother tongue like Chinese, Hokkien, Hakka and more and we even have our own Chinese langauge media outlets too like Astro AEC, Sin Chew Newspaper and more Chinese language media outlets unlike in other countries in which the Chinese diaspora in those countries like Indonesia, Thailand or even in Australia for example have been assimilated into the local customs and thus, the young generation cannot be able to speak their own Chinese mother tongue or understand Chinese.

[isomarulor]

People from different parts of the of Fujian already don’t speak the same and hate each other let alone the rest of China lol