Talk:Zhuang people

Trung sisters?

I thought Ma Yuan (Viet: Ma Vien) was responsible for the subduing of the Trung sisters who were of Kinh/Jing (Vietnamese) origin not of Zhuang? Who can verify that he helped set up administration to help build canals for the Zhuang. Because at the time of Zhao Tuo (aka Trieu Da's) Nan Yue kingdom, the main ethnic groups in there area were the combination of the Ou Yue and Luo Yue peoples (Au Viet, Lac Viet) as wella as a small group of Han peoples who came down with Zhao Tuo. Hence, the inclusion of the Trung Sisters is kind of irrelevent seeing as they are not Zhuang.

Zhuang -> Zhuang nationality (anon comment Dec 2003)

Spelling

I see that in one place someone has written Zhuàng. Is this more correct/common? In either case, we should be consistent, the article should be at the commonly used English name, and redirects should be in place. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:43, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

Assimilation

Can anyone write something more detailed and referenced about their assimilation into the Chinese? This article doesn't cite any sources about it and neither does Zhuang language. Thanks in advance. --Amir E. Aharoni 05:48, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Sources especially, about the Zhuang language in English are hard to come by. This webb page http://gb2.chinabroadcast.cn/1015/2003-12-15/98@359396.htm is an example of the type of thing often seen. The song is Zhuang, some of the words are obviously loans from Chinese. The song is entitiled "Rice Planting" (lit plant paddy field) and the first line says "As the sun comes over the hill tops". Many of the books in the bibliography added to Zhuang language clearly state the writing system has been used for over one thousand years. In spoken Zhuang about 30-50% of words have a common origin to Chinese. Johnkn63 00:22, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Put the citation immediately after the material when you add it. There are any number of arcticles you can look to for examples of doing this; almost any featured article provides a good example. - Jmabel | Talk 23:58, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

POV issues

The end of the "Modern Times" section within "History" reads:

In 1958, after centuries of being under Chinese rule, the Zhuang finally achieved the aspiration which had eluded them for so long: autonomy. Since the creation of the Zhuang Autonomous Region of Guangxi, the Zhuang have settled back into the 1st century idealism: remaining unique, remaining Zhuang, but being an integral part of China.

I felt like this read an awful lot like an official PRC line. In other words, it seemed to not conform to NPOV. Granted, I know little about the topic, but I looked in the edit history and found that this section used to read:

In 1958, after centuries of being under Chinese rule, the Zhuang finally achieved the aspiration which had eluded them for so long: autonomy. Since the creation of the Zhuang Autonomous Region of Guangxi, the Zhuang have settled back into the 1st century idealism: remaining unique, remaining Zhuang, but being an integral part of China. Some say this has gone too far, as the Zhuang are being totally assimilated. The elderly Zhuang feel alienated as the language has been reformed, and they no longer can write Zhuang in the new way, and the Zhuang Autonomous Region of Guangxi has been marked by perpetual economic depression since 1970.

The latter half of the paragraph was removed because no source was cited. I'm largely ignorant of the rules concerning citation and removal for lack thereof. All that I do know is that the former part of the paragraph is also uncited. It feels quite unfair to me that the uncited, pro-PRC half of the paragraph remains while the uncited, anti-PRC half is deleted. The article comes across as quite biased.

I am going to delete the entire paragraph. If someone more knowledgeable about Wikipedia citation rules or the Zhuang ethnicity wishes to restore the entire paragraph, or part of the paragraph, that would be much appreciated. Please make sure that you explain your reasoning for any action that you take.

I totally agree with you.

I marked the part about assimilation as unsourced and someone removed it.

Good job on spotting the "official line".

The rule on unsourced statements is simple - any unsourced statement can be removed.

You are welcome to contribute more to Wikipedia (you might want to create an account, although it is not mandatory). --Amir E. Aharoni 07:16, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

As I live in that place,I can tell you something true ."the Zhuang are being totally assimilated" is totally wrong,but sometimes they are reluctant to admit that they Zhuang because they are discriminated by Han people.Things are getting better except that it's very hard for them to get the chance to learn their own language.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Fwenrauz (talk • contribs) 15:16, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Why isn't there anything about the Culture?

I've got some information from this page :http://www.china.org.cn/e-groups/shaoshu/shao-2-zhuang.htm.But it has been deleted all the time.Can anyone write something in detail about the Culture? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fwenrauz (talk • contribs) 14:57, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

The content was deleted because it's copyvio. You are welcome to write about the culture. But please don't cut and paste from copyrighted content. Thank you.--Neo-Jay (talk) 19:08, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

This article may be racist

The article sounds racist as it seems to belittle some cultures. Can someone with the required knowledge review it thoroughly and correct it? David873 (talk) 13:46, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Unsourced for more than two years

I believe that the time for the following text to go has come and have removed it from the article accordingly.

==History==

Prehistory

The Zhuang are of Tai origin, a people who migrated south from central China roughly 5,000 years ago. The Zhuang settled in what is now Guangxi while other Tai peoples moved to Yunnan. It is suggested the Tai peoples migrated for food purposes, as the culture developed a unique irrigation system which was useful for growing rice. As the soil was unsuitable for this purpose in Central China, the Tai sought out more fertile plains. However, it is highly probable that struggles with emerging Chinese states that rapidly gained power with Mesolithic (Bronze Age) weapons had something to do with this. Long struggles with China to avoid destruction (as they were "barbarians") led Tais around 1100 AD to migrate south from Southern China to create the Lao, Thai and Shan peoples of Indochina, and even as far away as Assam, India.

The dynasties

The Zhuang did not record their history until the Eastern Zhou dynasty (475-221 BC) of China. The Chinese referred to the area as Bai-Yue 百越/百粵 (the Hundred Yue - referring to the aborigines of southern China). Eastern Guangxi was conquered by the Han people under the Qin Dynasty in 214 BC. The Hans, to bring the area firmly in their control, built the Ling Canal to link the Xiang and Lijiang rivers and form a North-South waterway.

An independent state known as Nan Yue (Southern Yue, or Vietnam) around Canton was created by General Zhao Tuo when the Qin Dynasty collapsed. This Kingdom was supported by the Zhuang until its collapse in 111 BC. The Han Dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD) thought the Zhuang culture unproductive, so they reduced local authority and consolidated their authority with Military posts at Guilin, Wuzhou, and Yulin.

In 42 AD, the Trung Sisters uprising was quelled by an army under General Ma Yuan, who sought not only victory on the battlefield but felt true concern for the Zhuang people. He reorganized the Zhuang Local Authority, improved public works, dug canals and reclaimed land to increase production. His work brought the Zhuang into a more modern condition, and temples in his honor can still be seen to this day.

An influx of immigrant Yao people from Hunan after the collapse of the Han Dynasty caused the region to become unstable as the Yao showed hostility to assimilation. The Guiping area of Guangxi, where the Yao settled, would become a hotbed of revolution against Han rule, causing the Zhuang people to suffer terribly, despite their passive stance on assimilation.

Under the Tang Dynasty Guangxi became part of Ling-nan Tao (large province) with present day Hainan and Guangdong. The noted scholar Liu Zongyuan was prefectural administrator at Liuzhou. Irked by Chinese expansion, however, the Zhuang moved to support the Tai kingdom of Nanchao in Yunnan. Guangxi was then divided into an area of Zhuang ascendancy west of Nanning and an area of Han ascendancy east of Nanning.

After the collapse of the Tang a new Chinese kingdom known as Nan Han (Southern Han), based in Guangdong, gained minimal control over the Zhuang, but the Nan Han Kingdom was plagued by instability and it was annexed by the Song Dynasty of China in 971. The Nan Han rule of the Zhuang was marked by minimal interference in Zhuang affairs by the Chinese rulers.

The Song developed a new way of dealing with the Zhuang that was a combination of force and appeasement, a policy that neither satisfied the aspirations of the Zhuang nor ended the savage warfare brought to the region by the Yao against the Chinese. In 1052 a Zhuang leader, Nong Zhigao, led a revolt and set up an independent kingdom in the Southwest. The revolt was crushed, and the Song rule became more brutal, causing the region to spasm in revolt against the Chinese. The Song era is a turning point in Zhuang history. From then on the Zhuang would be considered as a coherent ethnic group with a distinctive culture and history. But Barlow also points: "the Song era also marks the last time at which the Zhuang might have remained an independent ethnic group organized under their own leadership."

After the Yuan Dynasty liquidated the Song, they spent several years deciding what to do with the Zhuang. Weary of the bad relationship previous Chinese rulers had with the region, they decided to make it a full province of China rather than let it remain an occupied territory. This only caused greater stress as the Zhuang and Yao felt alienated, and hated direct rule from the Chinese government. Further complicating Zhuang aspirations, another aboriginal people, the Miao, left Guizhou and Hunan for the Zhuang lands.

The area continued to be unruly, forcing the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) to impose an underhanded way of dealing with it: the Ming would give tribal leaders of the Zhuang an army to attack the Yao. Once the Yao were devastated, the Ming used the armies they had given the Zhuang leaders to kill the Zhuang leaders, and force a leaderless Zhuang society under their heavy handed rule. This resulted in perhaps the bloodiest period of history in a relatively calm region. At the Battle of Rattan Gorge, in 1465, 20,000 deaths were reported. The Ming policy failed, but the larger cities in the region did prosper under Ming economic reform.

The Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) let the region remain in chaos until 1726 when they imposed direct rule as the Yuan had. This was also a failed venture as a Yao revolution took place in 1831. Twenty years later, in 1850, the same area witnessed the Taiping Rebellion break out. The execution of a French missionary led to the Second Opium war in 1858. The Franco-Chinese War of 1885 put Vietnam under French supremacy and opened up the area to foreign encroachment. All of this caused a constant economic depression through the nineteenth century.

Modern times

Together with neighboring Guangdong, Guangxi became an area of Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙)'s Nationalist (國民黨) revolution. With the fall of the Qing, the Zhuang sent representatives to the central government to campaign for Guangxi autonomy, but when years of protocol failed, the "Guangxi Clique" turned to open revolt in 1927. Maintaining a defiant self-rule stance for two years, the Zhuang leaders of Li Tsung-jen and Li Chi-shen modernized Guangxi, but Chiang Kai-shek ruthlessly crushed their revolt in 1929. Despite the Clique's failure, Chiang could not put Guangxi under direct provincial rule, and it remained unruly until 1950. The Kuomintang's suppression of Guangxi led to widespread support of Communism.

During World War II Guangxi was a major target of Japanese attacks, as they invaded the coast in 1939. The famous patriotic newspaper National Salvation Daily was printed at Guilin. In 1944, the Japanese launched a major offensive to take the western half of Guangxi, but with relentless Zhuang guerrillas and a Chinese counterattack, the Japanese were routed.

Obviously, a large chunk of the above text is either blatant propaganda or has been written with a particular agenda in mind. 219.149.102.34 (talk) 02:49, 2 February 2009 (UTC) I don't think so, please point them out