中国人的肤色是白色还是黄色?
2022-10-01 IPmod 27020
正文翻译
Is the skin tone of the Chinese people considered fair or yellow?

中国人的肤色是白色还是黄色?

评论翻译
Li Ying(李婴)

I will answer this question in two perspective, the cultural perspective and the scientific perspective.
Cutural perspective
In English context the word yellow skin seems to have some pejorative meaning nowadays since not a single Asian possess truly yellow skin.
In early contact beween western culture and eastern culture, East Asian people are usually described as light-skinned or white, as Marco Polo wrote in his books. But with the rising of racial conception, people around the world are distinguished into different races. And there have to be a word that correctly depicts the complexion of Asian skin but also distinguishes them from white people. So the word yellow is formulated. This process is fully discussed in Machael Keevak’s book Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking. Here’s the lix if you want to read more about this topic: Becoming Yellow.

我将从两个角度来回答这个问题,即文化角度和科学角度。
文化角度
在英语语境中,黄皮肤这个词现在似乎有一些贬义,因为没有一个亚洲人拥有真正的黄色皮肤。
正如马可波罗在书中所写,在西方文化和东方文化的早期接触中,东亚人通常被描述为浅色皮肤或白色皮肤。但随着种族观念的兴起,世界各地的人们被区分为不同的种族,因此必须有一个词能正确描述亚洲人皮肤的肤色,同时也能将他们与白人区分开来。因此,黄色这个词就出现了。这一过程在Machael Keevak的书《变黄:种族思维简史》中得到了充分的讨论。如果你想了解更多关于这个主题的信息,这里有一个链接:变黄。

Since the racial conception is a very western thing, it dosen’t have very pfrofound influence in Chinese culture. In Chinese context, being yellow has very similar meaning as being East Asian. Nearly nobody deems the word as negative. I’m not sure the reason why Chinese tend to accept the word, some say it’s because yellow is a noble color in Chinese culture, which I’m not sure fully explained the thing.

由于种族观念是一个非常西方的东西,所以它在中国文化中没有太大的影响。在中文语境中,黄色与东亚有着非常相似的含义,几乎没有人认为这个词是负面的。我不知道为什么中国人倾向于接受这个词,有人说这是因为黄色在中国文化中是一种高贵的颜色,我不确定这是怎么解释的。

Anyway, you may find a lot Chinese people describe themselves as yellow, which doesn’t necessarily mean they think they are truly yellow. This is just a cutural thing sometimes.

无论如何,你可能会发现很多中国人形容自己是黄色的,但这并不意味着他们认为自己是真正的黄色,有时候这只是一种文化层面的东西。

Scientific perspective
Complexions of East Asian skin vary from oliva to very fair, if it is with out tanning. And some people exposed to sunlight for a long time will get tanned and they may appear kinda brown, which applied to some guys, farmers and also some people live on the plateu.

科学视角
如果不是晒黑的话,东亚人的肤色从橄榄色到非常白皙都有。有些人长时间暴露在阳光下会晒黑,这使得他们可能看起来有点偏棕色,这适用于一些男人、农民和一些生活在高原上的人。

Girls, especially those from urban area avoid sunshine like vampire since light skin is considered desirable in nearly all Asian countries. And here let me clear something, many Chinese girls will declare they want to become white, which doesn’t means they want to become white race but they desire fair skin. White in Chinese context mostly only refers to a color. This is same with the word black, which only means dark skin in Chinese. You’ll also heard some Chinese people say they get black. Just like I mentioned, the race conception doesn’t influence China so much.

女孩,尤其是来自城市地区的女孩,会像吸血鬼一样避开阳光,因为在几乎所有亚洲国家,浅色皮肤都被认为是值得拥有的。这里让我澄清一点,许多中国女孩会声称她想变白,这并不意味着她们想成为白人,而是她们渴望白皙的皮肤。White在中文语境中大多仅指一种颜色,这和在汉语中仅表示深色皮肤的black是一样的。你还会听到一些中国人说他们变黑了,正如我所提到的,种族观念对中国影响不大。

What’s more, I have noticed that some Chinese people do appear slighly yellowish tone under certain kind of light. So yellow may not be totally nonesense from my point of view.
So, scientifically, white, black, yellow, fair, tanned, you will find all of these words are used to describe the complexion of Chinese people, which is ridiculous in English context.

更重要的是,我注意到一些中国人在某种光线下确实会出现微黄色调。所以在我看来,黄色可能不是完全没有意义的。
所以,科学地说,白、黑、黄、浅、棕,你会发现所有这些词都被用来描述中国人的肤色,这在英语语境中是荒谬的。

Jiahong Chen
ICT Man, Malaysianized Cantonese residing in Canton China
I don’t think so. For the white people and Asian people I’ve contacted, they almost look the same in skin.
Sometimes the white people have the darker skin than the Asians. And in fact in the early days, there are no Yellow people, only white, black, and brown.

我不这么认为。对于我接触过的白人和亚洲人来说,他们的皮肤看起来几乎一样。
有时白人的肤色比亚洲人更黑。事实上,在早期,没有黄色人种,只有白人、黑人和棕色人种。

原创翻译:龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


Chinese, Japanese were once considered white people, they belonged to the Mongoloid sub-race under the White race.
So actually Asians don’t consider yellow. From the people I’ve contacted, Asians and white belong to the same race actually maybe quite scientific, at least it’s eyed-scientific (looks like scientific).

中国人、日本人曾被视为白人,他们属于白种人下的蒙古亚种。
所以实际上亚洲人并不被认为是黄色。从我接触过的人来看,亚洲人和白人属于同一种族,事实上这可能很科学,至少看起来很科学。

原创翻译:龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


Ruby Mei Le
Many white people and Vietnamese will shoot me for saying this, but so be it.
Chinese people do NOT look yellow to me. Personally, I think that only people with jaundice look yellow.
There are some white-skinned Chinese people. There are also some Chinese people with more of a tan. There are some Chinese people who cannot tan. However, many Chinese people will acquire a bit of a tan when exposed to the sun for a number of hours. Darker Chinese people are usually mixed.

很多白人和越南人会因为我说了这些话而攻击我,但就这样吧。
中国人在我看来并不黄。就我个人而言,我认为只有得了黄疸的人看起来皮肤是黄色的。
有一些中国人的皮肤很白,也有一些中国人晒得很黑,还有些中国人不会晒黑。然而,许多中国人在阳光下晒上几个小时后会有点黑。肤色较深的中国人通常是混血儿。

Wang ZhiHe, studied Computer Science at Beijing Institute of Technology
It's white, but it tanns very easily.
Different from Chinese constitution , I found that some white people's skin became very red after exposure to the sun.
Ancient Chinese were generally engaged in agricultural production, which meant that their skin was exposed to the hot sun for a long time. So the skin inevitably showed a dark color. But the ancient Chinese nobility didn't need to do so, so they kept their white skin all the time. Over time, white skin and aristocratic class established close relationship, which eventually cause Chinese love for white skin.
Here's an interesting picture showing the different aesthetics of the two countries.

他们的肤色是白色的,但很容易晒黑。
与中国人的体质不同,我发现一些白人在阳光照射下皮肤变得很红。
古代中国人一般从事农业生产,这意味着他们的皮肤会长期暴露在烈日下,所以皮肤不可避免地呈现出深色。但中国古代的贵族不需要这样做,所以他们能够一直保持着白皙的皮肤。随着时间的推移,白皙的皮肤与贵族阶层之间建立了密切的关系,最终引发了中国人对白皙皮肤的热爱。
以下是一张有趣的图片,展示了两国不同的审美观。

Yan Zhu
As a Chinese, my skin color is very light. Gene report tells me that there is a gene mutation (T > C) in rs1800414, which is the main reason for skin whitening in East Asia. In general, the mutation probability of East Asians is 50%, and the frequency of mutation is the highest in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Basin in China, up to 70%

作为一个中国人,我的肤色很浅。基因报告告诉我,在rs1800414中有一个基因突变(T>C),这是东亚人皮肤变得白皙的主要原因。总体而言,东亚人的突变概率为50%,突变概率在长江中下游地区最高(高达70%)。

Alice Twain, lives in İtaly (1971-present)
China has almost 60 different ethnic groups, the Chinese climate range from tropical to desertic to near-arctic, to high mountains, to basically everything in between. Obviously the Chinese have a bunch of skin tones, ranging from fair to olive. Well, probably half the skin tones of all regular Homo sapiens. After all, a skin tone is just the coloration of the skin, underneath we are all just Homo sapiens.

中国有将近60个不同的民族,中国的气候从热带到沙漠,到接近北极,再到高山,基本上什么气候类型都有。很明显,中国人有很多肤色,从白皙到橄榄色都有。嗯,他们的肤色可能是所有普通智人肤色的平均。毕竟,肤色只是皮肤的颜色,在表皮之下我们都是智人。

Fahim Hussain, lived in Bangladesh
In general the Chinese and other East Asians have the same skin tone as on average as Southern Europeans, with some having White skin but most tend to have some light yellow tone. In general though you can consider the Chinese to be light skinned or fair skinned even if their skin is a yellow color.

一般来说,中国人和其他东亚人的肤色与南欧人的平均肤色相同,有些人的肤色是白色的,但大多数人的肤色往往是浅黄色。总的来说,你可以认为中国人的肤色很浅或很白皙(即使他们的皮肤是黄色的)。

Jay Yan, Lived in China, and experienced/studied its history,Works at Facebook (company)2014–present
To call East Asian people “yellow” is not nice.
East Asian people were considered as “white” before the 18th century. As their skin tone is quite fair. Surely people exposed to sunshine all the time would get their skin tanned, just like those tanned South Europeans.

把东亚人叫做“黄种人”并不令人愉快。
东亚人在18世纪以前被认为是“白人”,因为他们的肤色相当白皙。当然,就像那些被晒得黝黑的南欧人一样,一直暴露在阳光下的人的皮肤也会被晒黑。

However, from the mid 18th century, some racist Europeans feel that East Asians do not deserve the same color as themselves, thus they picked the color “yellow” to describe the East Asians. Anyone who is not color blind and can think would understand that “yellow” is not a correct descxtion of the East Asian’s skin tone. Please read something about “yellow peril”, to understand that to describe an East Asian as “yellow” is actually a slur. You can read this: If We Called Ourselves Yellow

然而,从18世纪中叶开始,一些欧洲的种族主义者认为东亚人不应该拥有和他们一样的肤色,于是他们选择用黄色来形容东亚人,但任何一个不是色盲并且能思考的人都很清楚“黄色”并不是对东亚人肤色的正确描述。请阅读一些关于“黄祸”的文章,你就会明白把东亚人描述成“黄色”实际上是一种侮辱。您可以阅读以下内容:如果我们称自己为黄种人(链接)
原创翻译:龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


The skin tune of Chinese people who do not get exposed to sunshine much is quite fair, and those who are tanned develop some light brownish to dark brownish tones, depending gene and how much sun.
Actress Bingbing Fan. This skin tone is common among city girls.
Summer (Jike Junyi), a young singer who is well known to have dark skin. (She is Yi Chinese, not Han Chinese. But you can find this kind of skin tone among Han Chinese also.) This tone is not common in the urban population. Otherwise she would not be known for it.
An old farmer who is well tanned. But I believe nobody would call this color yellow.

不经常暴露在阳光下的中国人的肤色是相当轻的,而那些被晒黑的人会出现一些浅褐色到深褐色的色调,这取决于基因和日照量。



范冰冰,这种肤色在都市女孩中很常见。



Summer(吉克隽逸,一个众所周知的有深色皮肤的年轻歌手,她是彝族人,不是汉族人。但你也可以在汉族人中发现这种肤色)。这种肤色在城市人口中并不常见,否则她就不会出名了。



晒黑的老农夫,但我相信没人会把这种颜色叫做黄色。

Taylor Smith
I teach Chinese students and their skin color tends to be more on the tanned side. Such as these kids.

我在教中国学生,他们的肤色往往更偏于晒黑的颜色,比如这些孩子。



Xavier Liu (刘子筝), Vet Assistant at Shanghai PAW Veterinary Clinic (2019-present)

It's interesting and sometimes amusing to watch the obsession of the West especially the Americans who always tend to observe almost everything through a lense of skin color. Yeah yeah we Chinese classified yellow,native Americans classified red,and I even have read a serious discussion about should Hispanic and Italians be considered white or not unsurprisingly by a Yankee.
Maybe Donald Trump should be classified orange.

观察西方人痴迷的事情是很有趣的,有时也很搞笑,尤其是美国人,他们总是倾向于通过肤色观察几乎所有的事情。是的,是的,我们中国人被归类为黄种人,美国原住民被划分为红种人,我甚至读过一篇关于西班牙裔和意大利人是否应该被美国佬视为白种人的严肃的讨论。
也许唐纳德·特朗普应该被归类为橙种人。

Please forgive me about the little roast above. I'll try my best to show the true skin tone/color of the Chinese people.
Chinese is never a single race although often perceived as one. China is more huge and populous than the whole Europe. There are 56 officially recognized ethnicities in China with dozens of unrecognized.

请原谅我上面的小幽默,我会尽力表现中国人真实的肤色。
虽然中国人常常被视为一个种族,但他们从来就不是一个单一的种族。中国比整个欧洲都大,人口也更多,中国有56个官方承认以及几十个未被归类的民族。

In the southernmost Yunnan there are Wa people related to the Negrito to some degree who inhabit parts of Southeast Asia and the Andaman Islands.
They tend to have dark skin for which they're called the Oriental Black Pearl.
Some of them can definitely pass as African Americans in the West.
Wa people maintain quite a few Animist traditions such as the human head hunting which hadn't been officially banned until the communist regime took power.After that they started to replace human heads with buffalo's as sacrifice.
According to local legend, the practice of cutting a human heads was intended as a ritual sacrifice in order to improve the fertility of the rice fields.

在云南省最南端,生活着在一定程度上与分布在东南亚部分地区和安达曼群岛的尼格利陀人有血缘关系的佤族人。
他们往往有黑色的皮肤,被称为东方黑珍珠。
在西方,他们中的一些人绝对可以被当作非裔美国人。
佤族还保留着不少万物有灵论的传统,比如猎头,直到被共产主义政权正式禁止。之后他们开始用水牛的头代替人类的头作为祭品。
据当地传说,割人头的做法是为了提高稻田的肥力而举行的祭祀仪式。

The northernmost of Heilongjiang and Junggar Basin is home to the Chinese Russ and Tatar people who are of East Slavs or Islamized Slavic ancestry of course with very fair skin.
Most of them are the fourth or fifth generation of Chinese citizens so basically they are all assimilated fully and use Mandarin as their mother tongue with various accents.
In 1926, Petrov's great grandparents took their two sons across the frozen Amur River into China by horse sled and resettled in Xunke County, in Heilongjiang.
Yet Petrov doesn't see himself as Russian -- he said to the journalist, he feels entirely Chinese.
But at least they retain one "tradition" that most Russians have long lost,the red scarf пионерский галстук.
ура!ура!ура!

黑龙江和准噶尔盆地最北端是中国的俄罗斯人和鞑靼人的家园,他们有着东斯拉夫人或伊斯兰化的斯拉夫人血统,他们的皮肤非常白皙。
他们大多是第四代或第五代中国公民,基本上已被完全同化,以普通话为母语,虽然口音各异。
1926年,彼得罗夫的曾祖父母带着两个儿子穿过冰冻的黑龙江,乘着马拉雪橇来到中国,并在黑龙江省逊克县定居下来。
然而彼得罗夫并不认为自己是俄罗斯人——他对记者说,他觉得自己完全是中国人。
但至少他们保留了一个大多数俄罗斯人早已失去的“传统”,红领巾。

The Taiwanese aborigines inhabits the easternmost China(before you argue that Taiwan is not China which is obviously groundless,you should know there's still significant presence of them in the nearby Fujian province of mainland) who're of the ancestral tribes of almost all the Austronesian people.
And like other Austronesian people their skin colors range from brown to medium dark.
They're regarded as savages under the Japanese rule and had been massacred several times for disobedience.
There's a film Seediq Bale about the aborigines people defending Taiwan from the fascist Japanese invasion which gained huge success in both mainland and Taiwan.

台湾省原住民生活在中国的最东端,他们几乎是所有南岛人的祖先。
和其他南岛人一样,他们的肤色从棕色到中等黑色不等。
在日本统治下他们被视为野蛮人,曾因不服从而被屠杀过几次。
有一部电影《赛德克·巴莱》讲述的是在日本法西斯的入侵下保护台湾的原住民,这部电影在大陆和台湾都取得了巨大的成功。

Xinjiang,the westernmost region of China has been a melting pot of different ethnicities from the ancient time. Approximate 20 million Turkic people settle down there who are mixtures of European and East Asian bloodlines or Eurasian people.
The Uyghurs
The Kazakhs
The Kyrgyz
The Uzbeks
The Salar,descendants of the Turkmens
Like other ethnicities with European bloodline those who have red hair tend to have more fair skin.

新疆,中国最西部的地区,自古以来就是不同民族的大熔炉。大约有2000万突厥人后裔定居在那里,他们是欧洲与东亚或欧亚混血的混血。
维吾尔人
哈萨克人
吉尔吉斯人
乌兹别克人
撒拉人,土库曼人的后裔
像其他欧洲血统的种族一样,红头发的人往往皮肤更白。

And in the far west Xinjiang,Taxkorgan here lives the Tajiks of China. But they don't share the same ancestry with the Tajik people in Tajikistan.
Despite the name by which they are known in China, the Tajiks of Xinjiang are not the same as the Tajik people (who speak the Tajik language). The Tajiks in Xinjiang of China, are an extension of the Pamiri people, a different Iranian group who speak the indigenous Eastern Iranian Pamiri languages.
So they basically are a branch of Iranians/Persians who adhere to the Shia Islam unlike most Muslims in China.
A significan proportion of them are the border guards of China which is usually a tradition passes on generation by generation. Truly loyal people.
The Pamir Plateau is one of the toughest environments in the world. This photo has melted many Chinese hearts.

在遥远的新疆西部,中国的塔吉克人生活在塔什库尔干,但他们与塔吉克斯坦的塔吉克人没有相同的祖先。
尽管新疆的塔吉克人在中国被称为塔吉克人,但他们与说塔吉克语的塔吉克人并不相同。中国新疆的塔吉克人是帕米尔人的分支,而帕米尔人是伊朗东部讲帕米尔语的波斯人。
所以他们基本上是伊朗/波斯人的一个分支,与中国的大多数穆斯林不同,他们信奉的是什叶派伊斯兰教。
他们中相当一部分是中国的边防官兵,这通常是一个世代相传的传统,他们是真正忠诚的人。
帕米尔高原有世界上最恶劣的环境之一,这张照片融化了许多中国人的心。


As for the majority of Chinese population the Han,I guess you can find different skin tones varing from the Wa people to the Uyghurs.After all,Han is a man-made ethnicity consisting of whoever converted to the Confucius ideology.
The followings are all Han Chinese
Edit:Yeah I know 92% of Chinese population is Han Chinese,but 8% of 1.4 billion is still about 130 million people almost accounting for 40% of the whole American population. They shouldn't be neglected in any possible way and as one of the non-Han Chinese I have responsibility to show the world Chinese aren't equal to Han.

至于组成中国的大多数人的汉族,我想你能在他们中间发现从佤族到维吾尔族这样不同的肤色。总之,汉族是一个人造的民族,由皈依孔子思想的人组成。
以下都是汉族人
编辑:是的,我知道中国92%的人口是汉族,但14亿人口中的8%仍然有1.3亿人,几乎占美国总人口的40%。他们无论如何都不应该被忽视,作为一个非汉族的中国人,我有责任向世界表明中国人不等于汉族。

Erwin Lee
The west and Chinese are diverse.
But that's the only similarity.
The west has racism, inherited from slavery. Also has the most racism issue compared to China.
Racial Discrimination Survey
USA rank 13, my country rank 14.
And China far in 32.
The west surely hypocritical churchy people. Even their diplomacy “I can but you cannot” reflect that.

西方和中国都是多样化的。
但这是唯一的相似之处。
西方有从奴隶制度中继承下来的种族主义,与中国相比,他们的种族主义问题也最多。
种族歧视调查(链接)
美国排名13,我的国家排名第14。
而中国排在第32位。
西方人无疑是伪善的宗教徒,甚至他们的外交手段“我能做,但你不能”也反映了这一点。

Derek Gould
Excellently illustrated comprehensive answer.

很全面的答案,图文并茂。

Fahim Hussain
Yes China does have diverse ethnic groups but come on I think you know what the question meant. The questioner is most likely talking about the 92% of the Han Chinese race, not those other ethnic minorities most people ever see.

没错,中国确实有不同的民族,但我猜你知道这个问题的意思。提问者最有可能谈论的是占人口总数92%的汉族人,而不是其他少数民族。
Xavier Liu (刘子筝)

8% of 1.4 billion is about 130 million people almost accounting for 40% of the whole American population. They shouldn't be neglected in any possible way and as one of the non-Han Chinese I have responsibility to show the world Chinese aren't equal to Han.

14亿人口中有8%,也就是有1.3亿人不是汉族,几乎占美国总人口的40%。他们无论如何都不应该被忽视,作为一个非汉族的中国人,我有责任向世界表明中国人不等于汉族人。
Xavier Liu (刘子筝)

Vet Assistant at Shanghai PAW Veterinary Clinic (SPVC) (2019–present)
Why foreigners always lix Chinese to Han Chinese?I'm not Han by birth but I don't love my homeland less than any Han I know. The world needs to admit a simple fact there're 130 million people who are not Han but still willing to identify as Chinese.

为什么外国人总是把中国人和汉族等同起来呢?我生来就不是汉族,但我的爱国热情并不比我认识的任何一个汉族人差。世界需要承认一个简单的事实:在中国有1.3亿人不是汉族,但仍然愿意认同自己是中国人。

原创翻译:龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


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