Quote:
Originally Posted by
Chelubey
I found a description of look of Kypchaks and Uigurs in the 15th (!) century in Chinese sources.
It found in comments to the law governing marriage unions (including with foreigners)
Ming Dynasty Laws:
http://www.vostlit.info/Texts/Dokume...frametext5.htm
Comments:
http://www.vostlit.info/Texts/Dokume...rimtext5.phtml
google translate:
Quote:
123 . Uighurs and Kipchaks are the most ugly among the Samuzhen ... Uigurs have curly hair and a big nose, Kipchaks have yellow hair and blue eyes. Their appearance is ugly and different [from ours], so ... it happens that the Chinese do not want to marry them.
Chinese racists!!!
Also from the comments: "120. Сэмужэнь - букв. «люди с цветными глазами» - в период Юань общее название для представителей западных, немонгольских народностей, которыми чаще всего были выходцы из Центральной и Средней Азии."
Translation: "120. Semuzhen - letters. "People with colored eyes" - during the Yuan period, the common name for representatives of Western, non-Mongolian peoples, who most often came from Central Asia."
However according to Wikipedia, the name is not actually derived from "colored eyes" but from "assorted categories" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semu):
Semu (Chinese: 色目; pinyin: sèmù) is the name of a caste established by the Yuan dynasty. The Semu categories refers to people who come from Central and West Asia, it is told that there are 31 categories among them. They had come to serve the Yuan dynasty by enfranchising under the dominant Mongol caste. The Semu were not a self-defined and homogeneous ethnic group per se, but one of the four castes of the Yuan dynasty: the Mongols, Semu (or Semuren), the "Han" (Hanren in Chinese, or all subjects of the former Jin dynasty, Dali Kingdom and Koreans) and the Southerners (Nanren in Chinese, or all subjects of the former Southern Song dynasty; sometimes called Manzi). Among the Semu were Buddhist Turpan Uyghurs, Tanguts and Tibetans; Nestorian Christian tribes like the Ongud; Alans; Muslim Central Asian Persian and Turkic peoples including the Khwarazmians and Karakhanids; West Asian Arab, Jewish and other minor groups who are from even further west.
[...]
Contrary to popular belief among both non-Chinese and Chinese, the term "Semu" (interpreted literally as "color-eye") did not imply that caste members had "colored eyes" and it was not a physical description of the people it labelled. It in fact meant "assorted categories" (各色名目, gè sè míng mù), emphasizing the ethnic diversity of Semu people.[1]