hello kyrosL, <<Only about 30% or so speak other dialects>>
i think i sense the why of the confusion, causing us to chat at cross-assumption.
the dialect speakers of china, namely mandarin vs shanghainese vs cantonese vs fujianese vs ... are different mainly in the way they pronounce the words, not in writing it or so much in the use of the words. whereas the folks of the various places may be different in aggregate features, they are at the end of everyday of the same tribe and share the same culture, except for the way they prepare food and sing songs. these various dialect speakers do not view themselves at all as separate tribes.
otoh, the ethnic tribes would be han (95%), manchus (and hardly a distinction these days for the almost fully assimilated manchus), koreans (mostly in the northeast), tibetans, uighers, mongolians, miao, ... and maybe or perhaps probably not, hakkas asiawind.com , as they are all over and either was fully assimilated long ago or treated as a landscape feature by all, or was never a truly separate tribe as opposed to a particularly enterprising village.
for the most part the various tribes get along, especially before 911, and (i) especially when the minority tribe members visit the majority geographies as visitors, and (ii) less especially when the majority tribe members migrate to the minority locales as immigrants. in both instances, the feelings are mutual. courtesy to visitors is a tradition
all of the above dynamic is quite different than when a connecticut tribe folk visits miami, a georgia country folk visit maine, a n.californian visit hawaii, a false texan take the wrong turn in los angeles, or when the 'all-volunteer' army gets sent to a false war and starts truly dying, etc etc etc, or, simpler still, just wandering into the 'wrong' bar, or 'right' club.
the divide in china is for the most part economic (and thus the catch phrase 'development of harmonious society' used in econo-socio-politics), for the most part, and very much not about culture in its truest sense, faith by its core practice, education in its complete meaning, tradition by universal measure, or the look and feel, and far less about the most accepted understanding of the way events were, things are, and future should and will be, and how to get there.
the same cannot be said of india or usa.
now we are in the same book even if not on the same page.
cheers, j |
