Hua-Yi Distinction
The distinction between Hua (華) and Yi (夷) (Sino-barbarian dichotomy) is an ancient Chinese conception that differentiated a culturally defined "China" (called Hua, Huaxia 華夏, or Xia 夏) from cultural or ethnic outsiders (Yi "barbarians"). Although Yi is often translated as "barbarian", it could also refer to generic "others," to groups perceived as culturally different, to "non-Chinese," or to foreigners in general.
The Hua–Yi distinction was basically cultural, but it could also take ethnic or racist overtones (especially in times of war). In its cultural form, the Hua–Yi distinction assumed Chinese cultural superiority, but also implied that outsiders could become Chinese by adopting Chinese values and customs. When this "cultural universalism" took a more racial guise, however, it could have harmful effects
Read more about Hua-Yi Distinction: Historic Context, China, See Also
Famous quotes containing the word distinction:
“Met face to face, these Indians in their native woods looked like the sinister and slouching fellows whom you meet picking up strings and paper in the streets of a city. There is, in fact, a remarkable and unexpected resemblance between the degraded savage and the lowest classes in a great city. The one is no more a child of nature than the other. In the progress of degradation the distinction of races is soon lost.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)