A Separate Cantonese Republic???

[Sum Won]

Now, because we've been lumping politics with cultural issues, I have now set up this forum, so that any debates over a seperate Cantonese government, should be discussed here. Hopefully, all of the cultural questions about the "proto-Cantonese" (Bach Viet, or whatever you decide to call the aborigines within the LingNam regions before the Chinese took over), will keep away from political talks.
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In response to:
http://www.chineselanguage.org/forum/re ... 6&i=15&t=1

We could stop this by having a separate Cantonese government set up, and making efforts to find the original syntax and language structure of the aborigines (who are also the modern-Cantonese's ancestors). Then, we can set up a committee to set up a written system for it.
(Posted here, so we could stop any incursions of this topic upon the MinNan forum, and this topic pertains more to the subject at hand...)

[ppk]

then you will have another palestinian and israeli issue.

[ppk]

anyway there is no more 'aborigins' in canton area. and the modern cantonese dont come solely from the aborigins. your so called separate cantonese govt will have no population to rule.

[Sum Won]

Yet, the Cantonese people aren't fully Chinese either. The Cantonese don't come soley from the aborigines, but they don't come soley from the Chinese. Now, in 1997, GuangDong's popultion was the fifth largest. GuangXi may be a little sparse in numbers, but we're not taking all of it. Basically, if we were to carve out the territory, we'd exclude the TeoChiu territories and outskirt hakka settlements, the Republic will still have a significant number of people within it. You make it sound as if no one lives there at all...

[ppk]

the reason is simple. unless u have true aborigins like the israelis claiming over their holyland, u dont carve land out from somebody else's land and make it ur home. this is simply unacceptable. even for the israelis, i have doubts in they way they do things. and when u say u wanna leave the cultural thing aside, then wad is the reason for separation? for being a half chinese, or 3/4 chinese, or 90% chinese, therefore u need a separate govt? or did the chinese policies favoured against canton? isnt that ridiculous? and as i told u before, in canton, many moved from other areas of china and there is no way to determind whether the present cantonese population are from other places in the past or strictly locals. so how are u going to choose ur citizens? hijack them from another country?

[Sum Won]

This is not just a matter of blood. This is also a matter of resurrection.

So if the israelis started screwin' around with Palestinean women, and these same women bore their children, you'd actually advocate that?Because that's exactly what the Chinese were doing to the aborigines.

Now, fighting for land sounds ridiculous to you, so why don't we go with the one-world nation proposed by the UN? If we go all the way back to the first humans which propogated our species, we're basically all related to each other. I don't see the world coming together like that now, and obviously, you don't advocate the whole world coming together.
The fact of the matter is, these boundaries are made to make seperations between US and THEM. How about we put this in the context of the Manchus and the Chinese? Sure, the Manchus had some rules that dscriminated, but within five generations of so, they were all taken away. Funny enough, just because they were Manchu, they just HAD to be overthrown, just on the basis of being Manchu, even though these same people intermingled with the Chinese to the South. Now doesn't that sound ridiculous? I guess so, because this is basically the same thing I'm proposing.

Now, did I ever say I want to leave the cultural issue aside? No, I only made this forum to SEPERATE the two issues. On one hand, we can go on debating whether or not a seperate Cantonese Republic should come about; while on the other topic, we would keep the matter purely to discuss issues of culture and history.

[yue]

excuse me, the indigenious people who lived in modern day Kwantung were the Vietnamese, not Cantonese!

[ppk]

who are the indigenious people living in modern day southern vietnam then? what is the defination of a 'vietnamese'? how many minority indigenious races are there in vietnam? the indegenious people who lived in 'modern day guangdong' are the cantonese. they were there for more than 2000yrs. 'ancient day guangdong', thats another story.

[Mark]

There are 5 races in the history here.

In Vietnam, key races are:

Vietnamese (northern Vietnamese)
Khmer
Cham

In Guangdong, key races are:

Vietnamese
Zhuang
Han

From what I know, a very, very, close relative of the modern Zhuang people (the single existing record of the language of the indigenous peoples of the area matches almost exactly the modern Zhuang language) were the first peoples to inhabit Guangdong/Guangxi, and then the Han peoples came exploring the region. After this, the Vietnamese overtook the area, and then the Han overtook it from the Vietnamese.

Generally, I think that instead of a Cantonese Republic, there should be a Yue Autonomous Region, including the Cantonese regions of Guangdong, Guangxi, and the surrounding areas (the surrounding Cantonese-speaking areas, ie parts of Hainan), as there should be a Hakka Autonomous Region, a Wu Autonomous Region, a Min Autonomous Region (divided into the states of Minbei, Minnan, Mindong, and Minzhong), a Xiang Autonomous Region, a Gan Autonomous Region, a PuXian Autonomous Region, Jinyu Autonomous Region, etc., etc.

Generally this won't seem like a good idea, but I certainly think it is neccesary as currently Sinitic languages besides Mandarin (and Cantonese in Hong Kong and Macau) aren't recognised enough by the Chinese government. I mean, Mandarin is supposed to be the official language of instruction in ALL public schools in China except for "national ethnic minorities", and this isn't too good for other Sinitic languages...

[Sum Won]

Nah, "autonomous regions" aren't really autonomous, because they have no control over their natural resources against corporations and SOEs (State-Owned Enterprise) from China. Like I said before, if there isn't a seperate republic, then the only solution is to take this whole "unification" thing one step further and make a world-nation. Everyone knows the only reason why, the one-world nation proposes something similar to a confederacy, is because every country is so bent on keeping their power, rather than promoting world peace. So, in order to promote a real world-nation, would be to take away all sense of country-boundaries, and leave the only boundaries left to cities. Now, for the sake of representation in the legislative that might be made, the most we'd ever group these cities into, would be based on either language/culture, or some other reason.
Hence, there would be no reason for me to advocate a seperate Cantonese government, and none of you would be worried about what goes on in China, because there wouldn't be one.
The only problem is, would any of you be willing to set aside your nationalistic ideals, dismanteling countries and follow such a plan?

[ppk]

sum won,

for one minute u are talking about politics, next moment u are talking about resurrection of an old culture. i think u are contradicting urself, and i.m.o. no politics stand alone without culture. anyway, i am not a chinese nationale so there is no nationalistic ideas or 'dismantelling of china' thingy with me. just that i think its not practical.

[Sum Won]

Actually, I'm not contradicting myself one bit. There is nothing wrong with seperating politics and cultural issues, in this forum. Sure, when looking into the history and culture of a country/people, you'd also have to take into account the political atmosphere. The reason why I tried to seperate the political comments from the cultural ones in this forum, was because most of the comments which make up http://www.chinalanguage.com/forum/read ... 1510&t=400
are political, when the original question was merely cultural.
I want to resurrect a dead culture, because culture's a part of humanity, so to do such a thing, would mean bringing back a part of our humanity.

On the issue of "dismanteling" country boundaries, I'll have to make another one of my many apologies; this time, for making it so sino-centric. What about dismanteling Singapore (and any other country for that matter of fact) as a sovereign nation, and incorporating it's territory into the World-nation? Maybe some of you don't harbor any "nationalistic feelings for China", but what about the countries you live in? Would you mind giving up your citizenship for your country if it means becoming a citizen of the world-nation, or do you have too much pride for that?

[ppk]

to a certain degree yes, based on fair and acceptable grounds, and a genuine need for that, it's possible to merge with another country.

[Sum Won]

Just for a note: It's not just merging one country with another, it's merging all the countries of the world into one nation, and then restructuring districts/provinces. Not necessarily keeping the borders of a country.

[ppk]

only when there is a genuine need, or obvious advantage. if u took up some economics u would probably know 'economies of scale', that is to say, a company will cut down costs as it grows bigger and purchase raw materials in bulk, producing larger volumes etc, and make more money. supermarkets also enjoy larger discount from distributors than small shops cos they get things in bulk. but there will be a saturation point, where growing bigger doesnt make more money, but increased costs instead, due to management problems and other issues. so merging of countries will also have to face the same problem. there will be a optimal size, depends on the various conditions/backgrounds of the country or the region itself. going beyond that limit may give more problems than benefits, and things might as well stay as it is. being global does not necessary meant merging blindly for the sake of merging. the benefits to the ppl concerned is probably still the no.1 priority.