Ethnic minority players in China

[sinobball]

(L-R) A Uighur, a Mongolian, a Kyrgyz and a Han Chinese listening to the National Anthem. Very harmonious (hexie).

Over 90% of Chinese nationals are Han. As a result, the two terms ("Han" and "Chinese") are pretty much equivalent. However, from a political-correct standpoint, there are tons of other ethnic groups in China. China officially recognizes 55 others but the details are not important. I think a map explains the major groups further. Of course bear in mind it's not very scientific:

As you can see, most of the Han people are on the Eastern/Southern side of China. And minorities are concentrated in the Southwest, West & Northwest. Also as a rule, the ones in the South and Southwest are genetically linked to Southeast Asians and are shorter; Altaic people who originate somewhat in the West and the North are genetically taller.


The Turkic people (Uighurs, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Kyrgyzs): These Muslim people are highly concentrated in Xinjiang Uighur AR (green area in the map). Both genetically and linguistically they are the furthest from Han. What's more they seem to make up a larger percentage of basketball players than their population would suggest. Perhaps the biggest name is the Uighur Adiljan Sulayman, China's top PG in the 1990's and currently the head coach of the Bayi Army team (and one of the first Chinese players I know -- a crafty passer and fancy ball-handler, he was a favorite for commercials in the 90s). Today's Xinjiang club (one of the top teams in CBA) features a couple Uighurs (Mawlan Tursun, Murat Adiljan and Shiralijan Muhtar) and a Kyrgyz (Keranbek Maken). All 4 play significant minutes in Xinjiang's 8-men rotation which also includes a Mongolian and 2 Americans. Bayi also has a Uzbek player named Shokrat Azat. There are a lot more in D2 teams and junior teams. Usually only their "first names" are used because their "last names" are commonly just the "first names" of their fathers.

Already bald Adiljan in 1998 Goodwill Games. He kind of looks European to me.

Tibetans: Red area on the map. No good player I know. There was one in a D2 team that made news for his ethnicity, but not noteworthy from a basketball standpoint.

Mongolians: Purple area on the map is the Inner Mongolian AR, which borders Mongolia. Obviously Mengke Bateer aka Munkhbaatar is the biggest name, but there are also ones like Bayi's Delhii.

Delhii, whose name means "world" in Mongolian, is one of the best young players in China today.

Other so-called minorities that have been more or less assimilated: For historical reasons there are some Mongolians with Chinese names. But all of the Manchus and the Huis (a.k.a. the Muslim Chinese) use Chinese names and speak Chinese. As a matter of fact, I know there are CBA players who are Bai, Xibe etc. but other than trivia, is this information useful? There is nothing to suggest they can speak anything other than Chinese. Muslims would probably be interested to know that long-time NT star Du Feng is Hui though (explaining why he's so skinny in a country where the majority of diet is pork.)

Koreans: See above. Unless you speak Korean and could play in Korea (highly improbable), it's only of passing interest.

Taiwanese aboriginals: Some of the players from Taiwan, for example Lin Chih-Chieh is Amis. Again, it's only trivia-worthy.

BTW, Zhuangs are the biggest minority group in China (still only 1.1%) but they seem to be better at "sports for short people" like gymnastics (e.g. shoe tycoon Li Ning). Not one Zhuang player in CBA right now and I can't seem to find any in history.

[rikhardur]

Thanks for the thread sino, very interesting reading.
Adiljan looks Turkic from that pic, which is what he is. Probably admixture present.

[Phantim3dx]

河蟹 (river crab aka harmonious society) oh sino you crack me up sometimes. i should have that s my image someday.

thanks for the info

[mvblair]

I enjoyed reading this thread, Sino. I hope you add more to it if you can. Normally, when us Americans talk about race, we're supposed to think "who cares?" I think a better attitude is "oh, that's interesting." So, it's interesting to read about these basketball players.

Of course, we've all read about Bateer being a minority player in China, but I didn't know much about the others.

I didn't know about Adiljan, but I recognize the other guy in the picture: Khalid Al-Amin, the great guard for the University of Connecticut team that won the '99 Championship (with Rip Hamilton, Jake Voskul, and Justin Moore).

[Nikoo]

Great article sinobball.
Somewere I red that the Mongols in China are one of the tallest ethnicities in the world, is that true? Also are there people with european roots in China, for example after the revolution in Russia a lot of people(the White Russians) went all over the world, including in China.

BTW: Is that Khalid El-Amin in the picture with Adiljan.

[PRSURF]

Great thread.....Yao Ming is mongol and Yi is Han?

[satria_muda]

well Im very interested in this thread since my mother is chinese muslim ( she said her family majority were muslim since dutch still rulled in Indonesia, and in here we had strong but humble chinese muslim organization, it named Karim Oei foundation, you always can find it in every cities in Indonesia)

though probably my grandparent family from my mother side weren'nt Huis ( her she is lim, is lim common family name of Hui? ) but still this ethnich I found very fascinating,
anyway do you have some pic how Du feng look like?

[sinobball]

is lim common family name of Hui?

Don't believe so, 林/Lin is just a common family name in Fujian/Taiwan and as a result seems to have a high representation in SE Asia (e.g. Samboy Lim, Eng Beng Lim, and the great Graham Lim )

The most common family name for Huis is "Ma" 馬, which is a Chinese simplification of Muhammed. (But not all Ma's are Hui people.)

I suspect your family only converted to Islam after emigrating to Indonesia from China? Typically the word "Hui" is only referred to Chinese who converted to Islam INSIDE China, through interactions with Turkic people or Muslim missionaries (particularly in the Yuan/Mongol Dynasty).

Du Feng is originally from Xinjiang but plays for Guangdong for >10 years. He's been one of the best Chinese forwards this decade. He's pretty skinny though.

when us Americans talk about race, we're supposed to think "who cares?"

Race is different from ethnicity. The former is evident on appearance, the latter is not. As a result, in my original post I wrote "who cares" about ethnic groups whom I felt has lot their importance because the majority have been completely assimilated into the Han Chinese culture. It's kind of like in America, for example a white American would say, "I'm Italian" but in reality can't speak any Italian. These things are as a result meaningless. But if you can use your ethnicity in some way, for example Chris Kaman playing for Germany, then that's another story.

Adiljan possessed streetball-like handles but unfortunately didn't have a reliable jump shot to be considered an All-time great. Still one of the first basketball "stars" in China. (Bald, headband, "different" facial features, mad handles, he was born to be a star in China)


I personally remembered a commercial (back when I didn't know how to play basketball) where he passed the ball behind the back, much like this clip from 1994 World Championship against Dream Team II:

Somewere I red that the Mongols in China are one of the tallest ethnicities in the world, is that true?

I don't believe that a bit. Sure there are some tall Mongolians like Mengke Bateer and Bao Xishun but most are average sized.

About those Russians in China, I think they are extremely rare. According to wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_Russians_in_China
In the years after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, many Russians either emigrated to Australia, Southeast Asia, or were repatriated to the Soviet Union; only a minority remained behind in China.

[Czarkazem13]

Interesting thread. Good read, thanks.

[satria_muda]

Don't believe so, 林/Lin is just a common family name in Fujian/Taiwan and as a result seems to have a high representation in SE Asia (e.g. Samboy Lim, Eng Beng Lim, and the great Graham Lim )

The most common family name for Huis is "Ma" 馬, which is a Chinese simplification of Muhammed. (But not all Ma's are Hui people.)

thanks man..I very much appreciate it

[sinobball]

Xirelijiang (Chinese pinyin) or Shir'elijan (Uyghurche) or Xirelijan / Xiralijan (Uyghur pinyin), currently with the China NT

BTW, the Uyghurs in CBA using Arabic letters (they do use vowels):

Murat Adiljan (Xinjiang)
مۇرات ئادىلجان

Mewlan Tursun (Xinjiang)
مەۋلان تۇرسۇن

Merdan Tursun (Xinjiang)
مەردان تۇرسۇن

Shir’elijan Muxter (Xinjiang)
شىرئەلىجان مۇختەر

Adiljan Sulayman (Bayi coach)
ئادىلجان سۇلايمان

[DarknessFalls]

Adijiang and his son,Aersilan,who was part of the U16 national team.

[sinobball]

Technically this OT, because China doesn't naturalize (or at least don't naturalize those without Chinese blood), the only chance to see a black athlete in China uniform would be if he's mixed (see this thread). Still, I don't feel like creating a new thread, but China has a lot of black people, in particular, one Chinese city Guangzhou has 200,000 Africans. This is one of them:

Lofulo Giresse Randy, Chinese named "Duo Le" meaning "Lots of Happiness", Christian Eyenga's cousin (or so he claims), 180cm, 18 years old. Family moved to China from Congo 7 years ago. Learned basketball in China. Speaks fluent Mandarin + Cantonese. Wants to play in NCAA. Has US citizenship from mother.

His facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lofulo...56022214451654


Training at the facilities of CBA Guangdong team with other amateurs


Photos from a junior streetball tournament in Guangzhou which they won


With Yi Jianlian at Yi's Camp last month

At 180cm his odds are against him for a future career in basketball. Still makes an interesting case.

[thespywhozaggedme]

There are many half black half Asian people in the States and Canada, the slang term is blasian; interesting that it's now occurring in China, Negus Webster Chan, who plays for the Canadian national junior team is one. I had no idea that there were now African immigrants to China, interesting. I also can't believe how ignorant some of the comments towards the volleyball player were, embarrassing actually.

[Frosties]

Great thread! Thanks Sinoball!

[turk-jugoslav]

Great job and I really liked to read this thread!! Thanx...
It is interesting to read something about Turkic players who play in CBA or national team of China.Altough I am not ethnic Turkish, I grew up in here and I wonder to see things related Turkic speaking people... Adiljan looks like some Southern European like some Turks in Turkey... I think Turks have the most complicated genetic map in the world and you can see many physichal types in Turkic areas...
Turks are further from Chinese than other ethnic groups as linguisticaly and ethincaly in China.I want to hear more from sinoball in next times

[sinobball]

There are many half black half Asian people in the States and Canada, the slang term is blasian; interesting that it's now occurring in China, Negus Webster Chan, who plays for the Canadian national junior team is one.

Kyle Anderson, an incoming freshman at UCLA and one of the best American players of his age, is 1/4 Chinese. If we are talking half-white half-Chinese players, Nathan Yu (British Columbia, one of the best Canadian players of his age) and Sabatino Chen (Univ. Colorado) come to mind. Whether they can use their Chinese lineage is another story. As mentioned in the other CBA thread, Yu will play in HK this season as a jumping board to play in CBA in 2 years. Taiwan's SBL just announced they will allow "oversea ethnic Chinese" (there was a debate about this on whether Mainlanders could qualify, the answer is probably no due to political reasons) this season in order to attract the next Jeremy Lin, so we will see how that ends up.



To add to the thread, there's a Uyghur girl, Dilnara Dilshat (in official competitions, spelled Dilana Dilixiati according to Chinese pinyin, 1997, 192cm), one of China's best prospects in women's basketball. She could be the first Uyghur player in WCBA (not sure about this) or the China women's NT (pretty sure about this one).

[Mojado]

Kyle Anderson, an incoming freshman at UCLA and one of the best American players of his age, is 1/4 Chinese. If we are talking half-white half-Chinese players, Nathan Yu (British Columbia, one of the best Canadian players of his age) and Sabatino Chen (Univ. Colorado) come to mind. Whether they can use their Chinese lineage is another story. As mentioned in the other CBA thread, Yu will play in HK this season as a jumping board to play in CBA in 2 years. Taiwan's SBL just announced they will allow "oversea ethnic Chinese" (there was a debate about this on whether Mainlanders could qualify, the answer is probably no due to political reasons) this season in order to attract the next Jeremy Lin, so we will see how that ends up.



To add to the thread, there's a Uyghur girl, Dilnara Dilshat (in official competitions, spelled Dilana Dilixiati according to Chinese pinyin, 1997, 192cm), one of China's best prospects in women's basketball. She could be the first Uyghur player in WCBA (not sure about this) or the China women's NT (pretty sure about this one).

I once helped a half German/Taiwanese player to contact the Taiwanese teams and he played in the pre-season there but he was considered an import and the team went with Mario Boggan who sucked big-time. The player went back to Germany and the team's coach has been let go later in the season.