Learning more about Lao culture each day have always put some thoughts into my mind for the past few weeks, it has put me up to the conclusion that though the Lao people. Before where were are now today, we were formerly apart of the nation of China. Long ago we migrated down to Southeast Asia to find out own land. But in our hearts we will never forget that we are still a family of the Chinese ethnic groups.

As we live down in the Southeast Asia pennsula, our culture and traditions started to change, adopting more of Indian cultures into our lives(I hope you guys know what I mean, you know those ancient cloths the ladies wear to Wat and stuff).

Here's my question of the day for you Khon Laoz, what if Lao had maintained their original culture, the Chinese culture as they moved down to where they are today. What do you think Lao would be like today? and how would we be like today?

-Happy postings

Lil Jin, this is a good topic. I have some thoughts on the subject...will write it up later on...

Lao people are family of Chinese Origion

right

tell that to the rest of the Laotians then

Here's a little conclusion and a few ideas I think of what Laos would be like if we had maintained Chinese culture-

Very much like the Vietnamese, for a very long time Annam(Vietnam) was under the countrol of China, starting from the Early Han dynasty when Emperor Wu brought Vietnam into China's influence. Vietnam is deeply influenced by Chinese cultures in the past and it links to the modern-day present. The clothing, the music themes, are so much a like.

If Laos was under the influence of China, we would probably have had the Chinese writing system, with the symbols and our language would probably happen been closer to the Chinese language. As most of you know our current alphabets that you see today are from the Khmer influence and the Khmer influence comes from India. But what we have not lost from the Chinese till this day is the belief of filial piety and Confucist's teachings of devotion and respect to our parents and the elderly. We have never lost this idea for thousands of years.

This is all I can think of so far, I'll have to look deeper into Lao culture and history to find out more.


A family of ethnicity that once dwell in China around the area of Sichuan province. They know it themselves, I don't have to tell them.

As this was about a thousand year ago, we can never be too sure what present-day Laos would've been like today or would it been something else, for that matter. There are a whole lot of variables and factors that makes the world/history the way it is that if you go travel back in time to change or alter just one minot thing, many significant events can occur. As they say, "it only take the passion of one man/woman to change the history of time." Hence, the "butterfly" effect.

There's a lot more we can say about it....

lao people was never chinese to begin with.. where did you get that from.. just because lao came from southern china doesnt mean you have chinese blood origin.. lao was just another one of those 56 plus minorities in china.. what confucian values are you talking about? i think most asian cultures teach their children to respect their parents and elders even in khmer culture.. i dont see anything remotely related to chinese in lao culture.. lao culture is a by-product of indo-khmer culture.. i put "indo-khmer" because obviously not everything came from india.. a lot of loan words that were derived from sanskrit and pali was "khmerized" and adopted by the thais and laotians making the pronunciations similar to one another.. not just loan words but traditional arts and dances also that khmers developed were adopted by thai and lao.. so not everything came from india..

Read here-

The Lao people share their earliest known history with the Thais. They are first recorded in the seventh century on the south-east periphery of the Nanzhao kingdom of present-day Yunnan, China. This new kingdom expanded its power by controlling major trading routes, notably the southern Silk Road. Culturally, this polyethnic, hierarchical, and militarized state was to have a great influence on later societies in Indochina, transmitting the Tantric Buddhism of Bengal to Laos, Thailand, and the Shan state, and possibly Cambodia, and the political ideology of the Dhammaraja (protector of Buddhism). Nanzhao was organized administratively into ten prefectures called kien. This term seems to be the origin of the place-names keng (for example, Kengtung), chiang (Chiang Mai), and xieng (Xieng Khouang). Moreover, the population and army of Nan-chao were organized in units of 100, 1,000, and 10,000, a form later found in Indochina. Also, the title chao (prince), appears to have been of Nanzhao origin. Another branch of this same migration began at the headwaters of the Nam Ou and followed it downstream to Luang Phrabang and continued on through Xaignabouri to Chiang Mai.

Lao people were of the ethnicity of the Chinese race. China has many ethnicty that resides in China. Of course they have Chinese blood? they were from China. Much of their culture and tradtions were that of the Southern Chinese until they migrated down to Southeast Asia and adopted Khmer culture. As time goes by Lao people forgot their original Chinese culture that they had once known.

it doesnt say lao people had chinese ancestry

btw, nanzhao is believed to have been a bai-yi kingdom not a tai kingdom.. the tai race probably held lower status or were tributaries while the bai and yi peoples who are like brothers ruled the kingdom.. they united the 6 kingdoms and formed nanzhao..

http://berclo.net/page00/00en-sea-history.html
http://www.eastasiagroup.net/bai/en/history.html

Li Jin, yes, maybe like a thousand year ago, you would consider yourself to have an ounce of Chinese blood. There's still nothing as pure Lao today. When Ai Lao became Lan-Xang, there were so many mixtures, that Lao become diverse.

the mon-khmer ethnicity also migrated down from southern china.. i think it is more appropriate to say that lao are part of the "sinitic" race not the chinese race.. because you guys have your own language and practice different customs.. southern china was mostly populated by non-chinese people up until the tang dynasty.. when mass chinese migrations from the north started to displaced the natives.. you're not saying lao people were part of the "han chinese" race are you?

Since they were apart of the Nanzhao(That is a Chinese name by the way, Nan means South in Chinese, I forgot what zhao means)Kingdom, doesn't that make them a branch of the Chinese? the Bai and Yi tribes are the tribes that are where modern Southern Chinese are today. The Tai groups were apart of the Chinese Southern Tribes that dwelled in China for many years before coming down to Southeast Asia.

What do you mean they have no Chinese ancestry

Wait a minute, I need to look up for something else like Zelmon said.

Must have been some pretty good reason why the Lao migrated in large numbers away from china.

In any case, they would have been considered "foreign barbarians" by chinese.

There are other theories that Thai/Lao tribes came from Malaya or northern India.

There are quite a few Mon-Khmer and Thai groups in the eastern regions of India.

That's indeedly true, I don't know exactly the dates of the earlier migrations. And no, the Lao people are not of the Han race. I've never heard if they were, were they Han?

@ Lin Jin would u rather have SEA ( Indian, khmer , thai ) influence or
NEA ( Chinese ) influence on ur country ?

Viety, a quick note: The Thais never influenced Lao in terms of culture and religion. Lao culture and religion is Indo-Khmer...

I'm assuming the Chinese that migrated were farmers so there couldn't really be any change to our culture.

What ever happens in history I am content to accept, if you are thinking that I want Chinese influence in Laos then you are incorrect. What ever happens Laos I am happy no matter what. I may seem like it by creating this topic, but it's main purpose was to have an educational discussion and sharing the ideas of what the Lao people here think.

Me being both Chinese and Lao, I'm culturally influence by both cultures. Growing up with Lao and Chinese beliefs is an interesting thing really, and I want to get to know more of these two countries to expand my knowledge.

im sorry to say bro.. but lao people never practiced chinese culture even before the migration period into SEA.. they are part of the tai race who lived nomadic lifestyles similar to the hmongs.. so i dont think chinese culture influenced the lao people that much if any at all before they came in contact with the khmers..

S'all good bro, at least I learn something new about Laos.

And cheers to the rest of you guys for informing me of the information.

Kwab Jai Lai Lai!

Xie Xie Ni!

Culturally.... They are not Sino.

Oh I C ur like me I make post like that all the time

Ur part lao and chinese ! Cool

U must be hot looking





well thai and khmer did influence thier language in terms writing and culture being mon khmer influenced .........

Viety Cent, The Lao language is the original language. The Thais have nothing to do with our language, the only influnce on Lao is Indo-Khmer. If you go to Yuming, Yunnan in Southern China, the people there speak like Lao people, not Thai. You know the Thai language is constanly changing, for example, they borrow some words from the English language and make it a Thai language. You don't know these people. Lao people know them well...

you should pick up this book "The Tai Race Elder Brother of the Chinese," william clifton dodd. you will get a great insight to the past of our people. it is well known to scholars that southern china, south of the yangze(by shanghai) to modern day northern vietnam was predominately tai speaking. the cantonese, wu, and hakka (khek(kejia) are thought to be descended from a tai speaking people that have been sinified. all that is left of these tai people is their tai substrate on these languages. (i have links below.)

tai people is also chinas largest minority numbering close to 30million. one of the oldest ideograph writings found in china is the shuishu writing by the shui people, a tai speaking tribe. the tai people were master rice cultivators like you see now in all tai speaking areas and most likely the originators. it is safe to say that alot of the the southern chinese people we see today are a mixture of tai and northern chinese. the tai's that have adopted the new life(being han) and the tai in se-asia that did not get fully sinified.

here's a clip from a webpage post. the guy is a well respected scholar.

Robert Ramsey's book " The Language of China" can be easily bought in
Book store or found in Library. That book has a lot interesting information
about language and anthropology. His reference came mainly from
China.

" Under the old Nationalist regime, it was now claimed, the Zhuang had
hidden their identity out of fear of government suppression. Their
language had been insulted, ridiculed, and even banned by the
reactionary ruling classes," the new Chinese leader maintained, but now
the dignity of this people would be restored. Accodringly, in their first
survey of the minorities, communist researcher found many more millions
of Zhuang than had ever been known to exist. Zhuang families and
clans were brought protesting out of the Chinese closet. in one study of
152 clans conducted a few years earlier, not a single family admitted to a
Southern origin. Those with the surname Zhao claimed Chinese
ancestry that stemmed from the palace retinue of the Song court. Those
with the surname Wei said that their genealogical lineage went back to
the son of the great general Han Xing; when the father was executed
they explained , the son had fled south and, in order to conceal his
identity, had deleted the left half of the character of his surname Han,
leaving a differnt characteer pronounced Wei. Yet in spite of such
imaginative attempts to conceal their identity, these Southern families
were all registered as Zhuang. " (page 235)

Not only Hakka, Min and Cantonese were also southern origin primarily.
In page 233 of that book " One ethnographer has estimated that at least
60 percent of the Cantonese people must be descened from an aboritinal
Tai-speaking population. "

S. Robert Ramsey, "The Languages of China"]


p. 102: What is unusual about the Cantonese vowels -- at least for a
Chinese dialect -- is that they can be distinctively long (again this
is remarkably like pronunciation in the Tai languages of South China).


p. 233: The Tai have long played a large and shadowy role on the edge
of the Sinitic world. Around the beginning of the first millennium BC
the were ensconced in the rice-growing areas of the Yangtze Valley;
and, according to some authorities, many of the early Southern states
mentioned in Chinese history -- including that of Wu, ... near modern
Shanghai, and Yue, dominating the area on the South China coast --
were actually Tai kindoms. As these kingdoms were Sinified and
gradually swallowed up by expanding Chinese civilization, most of the
local Tai peoples became Chinese themselves through cultural and
linguistic assimilation. One ethnographer has estimated that at least
60 percent of the Cantonese people must be descended from an
aboriginal Tai-speaking population.

www.rauz.net (this is a great site of tai-chinese zhuang and pu-yi) good music. i can only pick up some of it though. me and the tai zhuang webmaster of this site are planning on creating a Tai website that will cover all the tai tribes from china to southeast asia. their culture and customs that they still carry is very ancient and is what the lao and thai have lost.

www.rauz.net
http://spp.pinyin.info/abstracts/spp017_yue.html

http://www.zanhe.com/intro.html
http://http-server.carleton.ca/~bgordon/Ri...rs/youxl99c.htm

i doubt it.. mon-khmers were also thought to be the pioneers in wet-rice cultivation.. its still debatable.. afterall, wet-rice cultivation did not exist in SEasia until the migration of mon-khmer speaking peoples into the region..

tell that to the scholars that specialize in this field. are you a scholar?

well, i got this info from scholars also.. why dont you try to argue that also..

You can't really trust scholars. There's always different theories. Remember how they used to say that Egypt was the oldest civilization in the world and now they switched to Mesopotamia. That's why its always helpful to check out other theories.

the oldest rice found in the world dates back to about 7000 years excavated at hemudu south of shanghai. it is thought that these people are tai.

so who do i trust? you? scholars is what the modern day world of historians and professionals will go with.

Yourself.

evidence is stacking up... the oldest rice found so far is in china, south of shanghai where the tai were inhabitants around the area. rice had to have started in china so far right? shouldn't some mk words for rice growing and cultivating still be floating around today in china then? we dont see any, just some tai words. rice growing areas in southern china were named as naa which means rice field in tai but not mk.


http://http-server.carleton.ca/~bgordon/Ri...rs/youxl99c.htm

^^thanks for posting that link up.. very interesting.. if the tai race did in fact started rice cultivating, thats definitely one of the greatest contribution in the history of humanity..

Ancient Chinese originally cultivated wheat and other grains, and only learnt rice cultivation from their southward movement some 3000 years ago, most likely from the Bach Viet (100 Viet clans) tribes.

i know that we can't trust scholars all the way and its beneficial to find other sources, but like i said what they say pretty much goes.

the true northern chinese people were millet growing pit dwellers found in the yellow river valley north of the yangtze. south of the yangtze were southern aboriginies. i posted a link on my last post that makes alot of sense.

no problem prahok, and thank you for your post brother...

it seems like lao and thais still think nanzhao was still tai, nanzhao is obviously tibetan-burman, in fact the people of nanzhao today still survives.

leaki, it seems that you have an agenda to demote the tai people of their past history, an obsession that i can see in many of your previous post. who are you to speak about our past unless you are a tai ethnic or chinese historian?

the nan-chao kingdon was part tai and tibetan-burman, it is known and proven. whether the tai people were the original ruling class or creators of nan-chao kingdom it is know that the tai people played a role in it. i dont think that the tai people are solely taking all the credit but to an extent we have valid claims to the kingdom.

the people of nan-chao were a mix of tibetan-burman and tai-kadai.

To my knowledge Nan Chao simply refers the Yunnan area ( meaning southern kingdom ) . In fact Yunnan is still called NanZhao.

The Tais and Burmans were late comers into SE Asia from that region . The Burmans lived slightly more Westerly and the Tais to the east .

Tai migration was slightly later than that of the Tibeto Burmans and the Kingdom of Nan Chao that Thais and Lao refer to was definitely predominently a Tai kingdom. ( 8th -9th definitely and possibly even into the 12th centuries )


It was this southern migration due to first Chinese then Mongol pressure which pressured the original Mon - Khmer peoples of SE Asia. Both the Tai and Tibeto-Burmans absorbed the Indian influenced SE Asian culture as a result. ( the way I see it , back then we were probably like the northern tribes that live in the area now - Lisu , Dai , Hmong , Akha etc - quite Chinese influenced and not as sophisticated as the MOn-Khmers )

Tai movement displaced the Khmers from the Mon ( in presumably an effort to reach the sea and trade routes , and Burman pressure forced the Mons further south and East.


Ultimately does any of this matter . I for one have a strong affinity to Yunnan. I feel that is where my line originated though I have never been .

I have Burmese , Tai and Chinese ( Han but from Yunnan ) ancestory and my name has a position in a family grave near Kunming.

In that I feel thoroughly "Northern" . Nan Chao is therefore the home of all my fore fathers . Do I wish to return ? Probably not. Although I have always longed to visit . The nearest I've been is Myit Kyina in the Kachin state which feels like a southern Chinese town and does not actually feel very SE Asian at all .

the nanzhao people were multi-ethnic, but the main rulers are the bais, a tibetan burmese people still survive today, they founded the kingdom and their art and architecture is distint, they remain a diffrent cultural identity, tai people are bai-yues, a term loosely describing the hundred ethnics of the osuth, go research.





the confusion with thai people and lao is that they think nanchao was founded and ruled by daic people, but in truth it was founded by a people who called themselves bai, a people un-related to the daic speaking a language related to burmese, chinese and tibetan. They are known for their distintive culture, while the confusion could have been caused by people who linked bai-yues and bais. Daic people may have lived their, but they provided no links, as the bai were not the same. Angkor have a large javanese ethnic presence, but they did not rule, they were a diffrent people and that is why nanzhao can not be credited to the daic.

Lao/Thai numbers are actually similar to the Chinese-Cantonese language..

Lao/Thai: neung, song, sahm, si, ha, hok, jet, baet, kao, sip

Cantonese: yat, yi, sahm, say, mm, lok, chat, baht, kao, sap

I know that the Thai way of saying 20 is pretty much Cantonese.

Thai 20: Yi-sip

Cantonese 20: Yi-sap ("Yi-sup")


I mean, Chinese and Lao culture is different but Lao still has some Chinese influence and also Thai.

Also, our languages are tonal--much like Chinese dialects.

We're all basically Indianised sino-tibetans.

Nah, man. I'm Lao.

You're right.


Lao is a Tai Kadai Language and these are no longer thought of as a Sino _Tibetan language by many scholars .

What I meant by that is that the Northern SE Asians ( Tais inc Lao , Burmese etc ) are essentially people from the China Tibet regions who have become Indianised by Mon_Khmer and direct Indian or Ceylonese influence in their move South.

the bai-yue are daic. chinese scholars agree that the bai-yue mainly consisted of many daic ethnics.



Among Chinese linguists zhuang, Bouyei, Tay, Nung, Dai, Thai, Laos, Shan etc. form the Tai branch
within the Kam-Tai phylum, under the Sino-Tibetan family.

if you're in the west, tai-kadai is not sino-tibetan but in a class of its own called tai-kadai.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHINESE LINGUISTS

sino-tibetan-----dong(kam)-tai-----tai-----zhuang------southern zhuang
l l
l l-northern zhuang
l
l--bouyei
l--tay-nung
l--dai
l--thai
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ETHNOLOGUE 2004

tai-kadai-----dong(kam)-tai-----tai-----central-----southern zhuang
l l
l l --tay-nung
l
l-northern----northern zhuang
l l
l l--bouyei
l
l-swestern----thai
l
l--lu
l
l--tai nua

Thanks for the explanation, brother Chao.

Once again, your contribution to these threads are invaluable.

The Tai people, as most scholars recognized, are an indigenous group in the Lingnan region (Huang Xianfan et al. 1988:1-34; Zhang Shengzhen ed. 1997b: 19-20). The Lingnan region is a geographical concept, referring to the drainage basin of the West, North and East Rivers in present Southern China (Kaup 2000:47). “Lingnan 嶺南” literally means “south of passes” in Han Chinese, as the basin is surrounded by mountains that broad the region from the vast Yangzi River basin in the north (Chen Naigang 1990:20). The Lingnan region roughly covers Guangdong, Guangxi, and Wenshan Zhuang-Miao Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan (Kaup 2000:47).

In 218 B.C., the Lingnan region was conquered by the Qin Dynasty, and was merged into the territory of the China Empire since then (Huang Xianfan et al. 1988:172). After that, Han people underwent a long and complex process of interaction and transformation with the Baiyue people. Roughly speaking, from the 2nd century B.C. to the 9th century A.D., owing to the social unrest in the north, the Han continued to immigrate into the Lingnan region, and merged with the indigenous habitants. This process resulted in the formation of new branches of Han, such as Yue (Cantonese) which shared part of the name of Baiyue. A large part of Baiyue people was assimilated, but part of them kept their own characteristics, and they were the embryo of various Tai-speaking ethnic groups. The general name of Baiyue gradually disappeared before the 5th century A.D., and was replaced by some more specific names in Chinese chronicles like “Zhong 仲”, “Zhuang 僮”, “Li 俚”, “Liao(lao) 僚”, “Lang 俍”, “Tu 土”, “Sha 沙” or “Nong 儂”.

there are many other words in Lao that is same/similar to Canto/Chinese...
in Lao=kahm (gold)
in Canto=kum (gold also)

the word chicken and horse are also exactly the same in Lao/and Canto
there are many others....if i remember

you guys cant deny the chinese influence

*sigh* all asians have this infinite pride that wont let them submit any relation to another asian
but in actuality we all look similar and share similarities....to the white mans eye we are all g@@ks, quit fighting each other and step up the real enemy or the white man is just to powerful to

all these asian forums is about pride, culture, which asian is better, representing there poor @$$ country
if i was white and reading your guys post....ill be laughing my @$$ off

*sigh* all asians have this infinite pride that wont let them submit any relation to another asian
but in actuality we all look similar and share similarities....to the white mans eye we are all g@@ks, quit fighting each other and step up the real enemy or the white man is just to powerful to

all these asian forums is about pride, culture, which asian is better, representing there poor @$$ country
if i was white and reading your guys post....ill be laughing my @$$ off
[/quote]



^^^ I'm with you on that .

Burmese and proud


.... and first to admit that we've made a dog's doo doo of our homeland.


Karma ...