East Asia: Center of the World - Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia - page 276

reach velocities of 150 miles (242 km) per hour, causing
severe damage.
Seasons are highly differentiated between both hot
and cold and wet and dry . T Temperatures contrast greatly
with latitude, averaging 21.38

to the known world. This notion has its roots in antiquity .
T To appreciate it we must venture back in time 4,000 years.
An ancient creation myth has the confusion of
heaven and earth divided into light and bright, and heavy
and dark segments, with a primeval being called Pan-gu
(Pan-ku) growing between them. Pan-gu' s body parts
transmuted into various parts of the cosmos. Pan-gu' s
function prepares us for the important role of humans in
the transformation of chaos into order and explains the
Chinese view of apparently opposing forces as comple-
mentary in an organic harmony . These ideas are seeded
into the philosophy of Daoism (Taoism) discussed later.
One seminal work regarding the origins of human
society is the Yi jing(I-ching) , a work in which hexagrams
depict the subtle harmonies of complementary opposites
(Figure 10-6). According to the Yi jing, humankind was
ruled by a succession of sage kings such as Fu-xi, who
invented nets and baskets for fishing. His wife invented
feminine arts and patched a rip in the fabric of heaven.
Shen-nong, the Divine Farmer, invented agriculture and
herbal medicine, and taught people how to hold periodic
markets.

F ( 5.9 C) in northern

Manchuria in January and 68.8 C) in Hainan in

the south. July temperatures average 70.8

F (20.4

F (21.6 C)

and 84.8 C), respectively . Summers are oppres-

sively hot and humid, in Taiwan, Korea, and Japan as
well, except in the dry west.

F (29.3

Peoples of East Asia

It is a common but erroneous perception that all East
Asians are of Mongoloid stock. Although this is true of
Chinese, Koreans, Mongols, and Tibetans, it is not true of
all groups. The Japanese, for example, are thought to be a
Mongol-Malay mixture. Also, in China Frontier, there are
several T Turkic populations, such as the Uyghur. As we will
discuss in the next chapter, China has many minorities,
and Sinicizing (making Chinese) minority groups is a ma-
jor policy issue for the Chinese government.
A brief look at language patterns reveals the dissimi-
larities of the peoples of East Asia. Mandarin and Can-
tonese are Chinese languages belonging to the
Sino-Tibetan language family . Tibetan is included in this
family but belongs to the Tibeto-Burmese group. Some of
the minority people in southwestern China speak Mon-
Khmer (of the Austro-Asiatic language family), which is
related to languages in Southeast Asia. The Uyghur,
Kazak, and other T Turkic people speak Altaic languages of
the T Turkish group. Mongolian belongs to a different group
of Altaic languages. Neither Korean nor Japanese are re-
lated to any of these!
The Chinese see themselves as Han Chinese, de-
scendants of the glorious Han Dynasty (202 BC -220 AD ).
All others are non-Han people. China' s historic percep-
tion of its own non-Han people mirrors its perception of
other non-Chinese, Asian people. Furthermore, China' s
perception of itself relative to outsiders has been a major
force in shaping its relationships with the world.

LI (firmness)
Fire
T Toad/Crab/Snail
T Tortoise
Lightening
Summer
Weapons/Drought/
Brightness

KAN (pit)
Water
Pig
Moon & Water
Mid-winter
Curved things
Wheels
Mental Abnormality
Danger

China's World View

Figure 10-6
This diagram expresses harmony and interrelationships among
all things. Understanding these relationships is important in
interpreting East Asian landscapes. This diagram is part of the
Korean flag attesting to its importance in East Asian culture.

The written characters for China translate as Zhong Guo
(Chung Kuo ), meaning central or middle kingdom. For
much of China' s history , China perceived itself as central