Mixed Borders

People of mixed ethnicities have always fascinated me. In America it's fairly common, in fact it's uncommon to be a purebred native born citizen on this land.

As much pride as I do have for my country and culture, I felt pretty boring as just Chinese. I have to admit I felt some deep jealousy and envy for people with a mixture of ethnicities. They have so many different doors to open and explore into their ethnic backgrounds, so many stories to discover about their ancestors, and yet belong to so many more families.
I was just one simple pea out of the biggest pod in the world.
Statistically, if you're going to be born into this world, the most likely chance is to be born a female in China. That's me.

A couple of years ago, while visiting my Grandma in Beijing, she offhandly told me her mother was a Manchurian, and that set off a spark of interest in me. I started flaunting that fact to everyone. Most Americans don't really have a clue where Manchuria is or who they are, so that only made that fact seem more exotic.
However:
Manchuria is the second biggest minority population in China
Located in the Northeast corner surrounded by Russia + Mongolia + Korea
I am only 1/8 Manchurian, since my great-grandmother was a Manchu

and all this still makes me 100% Chinese and not that special.

.

I am currently reading a book called The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.
By the 2nd chapter the main character is describing his childhood friend, Hassan, in 1975 Afghanistan.
What really peaked my interest was his description of Hassan as a Hazara and the way he was treated by the bigger society in Afghanistan, who were the Pashtuns.
Personally, I've never heard about this before, and damn sure most people around the world haven't either. I know every country in the world have their own quirks and ethnicities. Almost no country is free from an intermixture of ethnicities.
In the book, Hassan was teased and mocked for his ethnicity, which were obvious from his physical features.
"his perfectly round face, a face like a Chinese doll chiseled from hardwood: his flat, broad nose and slanting, narrow eyes like bamboo leaves, eyes that looked, depending on the light, gold, green, even sapphire".
While passing by a group of soldiers, one soldier also instantly picked out Hassan by yelling "you! Hazara! Look at me when I'm talking to you" and went on to ridicule his mother.
The actions themselves and tone of voice from the descriptions gave the sense that Hazaras were an ethnicity in Afghanistan that were treated with lesser respect as a whole than the larger ethnicites inhabiting the country. This is not uncommon, since most descendants of mixed cultures have been mocked and looked down upon as polluted blood in different cultures for thousands of years.

By chapter 3, the main character starts to explain the history and standing of this interesting ethnicity in the country.
"They call him 'flat-nosed' ... because of characteristic Hazara Mongoloid features", "they were Mongol descendants, and that they looked a little like Chinese people".
I was a little offended by that sentence not because of the description but because of the ignorance on geographical history. Mongolians and Chinese are two separate ethnicites, as well as separate cultures and countries. Stating a Hazara would look like a Chinese person is also hazy since China is a mixture of people as well, through thousands of years of immigration and trade with other cultures and ethnicities a Chinese look is hard to decipher.

I did a little research after reading about Hazaras and found out
Afghanistan is made up of 3 major ethnicities
Pashtun
- main ethnic group
- eastern Iranian lineage
- religion - Sunni Islam
Tajik
-eastern Iranian - non-Turk
- religion - Sunni Islam
Hazara
- 9% of the population
- religion - Shi'a Islam
- ambiguous origins - main theory is descendants of Genghis Khan during the Mongolian invasion and rule in the 12th century with an admixture of Caucasoid blood.
- could also be descendants of aboriginals of central Afghanistan of Uyghar Turkic blood, whose ancestors build colossal Bamyan buddha statues that now stand as giant ruins.

I knew the Mongolians did pretty well for themselves during the Yuan dynasty in China, but had no idea they ruled over Afghanistan during the 11th century too.

The Hazaras as a culture with their mixture of ethnic blood, language, and customs is small but interesting as this almost fragile evidence of a union between cultures.
Which reminds of the Uyghars minority in China. Ever since I was little I've known about them when I saw them. All ethnic minorities are Chinese and part of the Chinese culture, but this particular minority, like the Kazak and Tajik minorities are particularly interesting ones in China.
In kindergarten, we had to do a uyghar dance in their costumes and it seemed fairly common to me. Though at that point in time I never questioned why those people looked so different physically and why they wore such pretty and elaborate dresses walking down the streets. I didn't know anything about any cultures within the "middle east" at that point or think to see the similarities between their costumes and dances.
Uyghar
-Turkish + Chinese mixture in blood inhabiting western China.
-Sunni Islam
-Chinese in nationality
-taught to speak Mandarin in school like all other people born to speak their district dialect first
-5th biggest ethnic minority
Kazak
-Turkish + Chinese mixture in blood
-Sunni Islam
-17th largest ethnic minority
-famous for a love of freedom, skillful horseriding/hunting
Tajik
-Iranian + Chinese mixture in blood
-37th largest ethnic minority
-Shi'a Islam

I plan to invade their villages sometime in the future to see their lives first hand.

Along other borders, there was a culture spawn on the borders of Russia and China
Ewenki
-Paleo-Siberian descent
-inhabits inner mongolia province of China
I had a close friend who was Russian that told me of her childhood friends in Russia. She talked about a beautiful Ewenki girl who was a mix of Russian and Chinese features with a splash of freckles across her nose with hazel eyes and jet black hair.