Download North Vs. South China

Honors World Cultures
Geography of China
Pd:
Mr. Prokopovits
Name:
Date:
North Vs. South China
Directions: Read the following article and answer the questions that follow.
North China (Hanyu pinyin: Běifāng) and South China (Hanyu pinyin: Nāng) are two
approximate regions within China. The exact boundary between these two regions has never
been precisely defined. Nevertheless, the self-perception of Chinese people, especially
regional stereotypes, has often been dominated by these two concepts.
The boundary between North China and South China is usually defined to be the Qinling
Mountains and Huai He River; there is an ambiguous area, the region around Nanyang,
Henan, that lies in the gap where the Qinling has ended and the Huai He does not yet begin.
As such, the boundary between North and South China does not follow provincial
boundaries; it cuts through Shaanxi, Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu, and creates areas such as
Hanzhong (Shaanxi), Xinyang (Henan), and Xuzhou (Jiangsu) that lie on an opposite half of
China from the rest of their respective provinces. This may have been deliberate; the Mongol
Yuan Dynasty and Han Chinese Ming Dynasty established many of these boundaries
intentionally to discourage regionalist separatism.
Areas often thought as being outside "China proper", such as Manchuria, Taiwan, and Inner
Mongolia, are also conceived as belonging to either North China or South China according to
the framework above. Xinjiang and Tibet are, however, not usually conceived of being part of
either north or south.
The concepts of North China and South China originate from differences in climate,
geography, culture, and physical traits; as well as several periods of actual political division
in history. North China is too cold and dry for rice cultivation (though it does happen today
with modern technology) and consists largely of flat plains, grasslands, and desert; while
South China is warm and rainy enough for rice and consists of lush mountains cut by river
valleys. In addition, North Chinese trace some of their ancestry to Altaic peoples such as the
Mongols and Manchus; South Chinese trace some of their ancestry to Tai and Austronesian
peoples related to modern Thais and Taiwanese aborigines; this results in obvious
differences in physical trait. (Internal migration within China, however, has greatly blurred
such differences.) There are also major differences in language, cuisine, and popular
entertainment forms.
Episodes of division into North and South include:




Three Kingdoms (220-280)
Sixteen Kingdoms (317-420) and Southern and Northern Dynasties (420-589)
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (907-960)
Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) and Jin Dynasty (1115-1234)
Honors World Cultures
Geography of China
Pd:
Mr. Prokopovits
Name:
Date:
The Southern and Northern Dynasties showed such a high level of polarization between
North and South that northerners and southerners referred to each other as barbarians; the
Mongol Yuan Dynasty also made use of the concept by dividing Han Chinese into two
castes: a higher caste of northerners and a lower caste of southerners. (These were the
second-lowest and lowest castes of the Yuan Dynasty.)
In modern times, North and South is merely one of the ways that Chinese people identify
themselves, and the divide between North and South China has been overridden by a unified
Chinese nationalism. Few Chinese people (with the notable exception of Taiwanese
politician Lee Teng-hui) would consider the difference between North and South sufficient
reason for political division. During the Deng Xiaoping reforms of the 1980s, South China
initially developed much more quickly than North China leading some scholars to wonder
whether the economic fault line would create political tension between north and south.
Some of this was based on the idea that there would be conflict between the bureaucratic
north and the commercial south. This has not occurred in part because the economic
faultlines eventually created a division between coastal China and the interior which runs in a
different direction than the north-south division, and in part because neither north or south
has any type of obvious advantage within the Chinese central government.
Nevertheless, the concepts of North and South continue to play an important role in regional
stereotypes.
The stereotypical northerner:





Is taller, plumper, has fairer skin
Speaks a northern Mandarin dialect, which is legato
Eats wheat-based food rather than rice-based food
Is loud, boisterous, open, and prone to "thunderbolt" displays of emotion, such as
anger
Might make a good emperor
The stereotypical southerner:





Is shorter, lankier, has darker skin
Speaks a southern dialect, which is staccato
Eats rice-based food rather than wheat-based food
Is clever, calculating, hardworking, and prone to "mincemeat" displays of emotion,
such as melancholy
Might make a good tycoon
Note that these are very rough stereotypes, and are greatly complicated both by further
stereotypes by province (or even county) and by real life.
Questions:
1. How is the South different than the North in China?
2. Is the way people perceive each other in the North and in the South of China the
same as how Americans view those who live in the North or the South?