From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
Iranian people such as Persians and Sogdians have lived in China throughout various periods in Chinese history.
The Parthian Iranians, An Shigao and An Xuan, introduced Buddhism to China. A village dating back 600 years in Yangzhou in Jiangsu province, China, has inhabitants descended from Iranians. It has 27,000 people and contains Iranian places names like Fars and Parsian.
Sassanian royals like Peroz III and his son Narsieh fled the Arab Islamic invasion of Sassanid Persia for safety in Tang dynasty China where they were granted asylum.
The Chinese pirate Feng Ruofang stored Persian slaves on Hainan whom he captured when raiding ships in the 8th century. Hainan was filled with Persian slaves by Feng from his raids on their shipping. Persians sought a hardwood grown in Guangdong province. In 758 there was a raid on Canton by Persians and Arabs and then there was an attack in 760 in Yangzhou upon Persians and Arabs. On Hainan 100 katis of incense were burned in a single go by Feng.
Five dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period
During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (Wudai) (907–960), there are examples of Chinese emperors marrying Persian women. “In the times of Wudai (907–960) the emperors preferred to marry Persian women, and the Song dynasty official families liked to marry women from Dashi [Arabia]” was written by Chen Yuan.
Former Shu
Many Iranians took the Chinese name Li to use as their last name when they moved to China. One prominent family included Li Xian (pharmacologist) and Li Xun. Sources say that either one of them was responsible for writing the “Hai Yao Ben Cao” (Hai yao pen ts’ao), translating to “Pharmacopoeia of foreign drugs”. Li Xun was interested in foreign drugs and his book, The Haiyao Bencao, was all about foreign drugs. His family sold drugs for a living.
Li Xian had an older sister Li Shunxian, who was known for being beautiful and was a concubine of the Former Shu Chinese Emperor Wang Zongyan, and a brother older than both of them named Li Xun. They lived at the court of the royal family of Former Shu in Chengdu (modern day Sichuan). Li Shunxian also was a poet. Their family had come to China in 880 and were a wealthy merchant family. Li Xian dealt with Daoist alchemy, perfumes and drugs.
The Huang Chao rebellion had earlier made their family flee. Li Su-sha, an Iranian who dealt in the incense trade, is speculated to be the grandfather of the three siblings.
Lo Hsiang- Lin wrote a biography of the three siblings. The family were Nestorian Christians. The two brothers then became Daoist. Li Xun was also a poet who wrote in the manner of Chinese Song poetry. Li Xian used urine to concoct “steroid sex hormones”.
Iranians dominated the drug trade in China. In 824 Li Susha presented to Emperor Jingzong, the Chen xiang ting zi, a type of drug.
Li Xun wrote poems in the tz’u style and was one of its masters. He and his brother Li Xian traded in the drug business. The family lived in Sichuan.
Li Xun was known for his poetry. He was the author of Hai Yao Ben Cao. He and his brother Li Xian were well known perfume merchants who lived in the 900s AD. They lived at the state of Shu’s court.
Li Xun and Li Xian were two brothers from an Iranian family who lived in Shu in Sichuan. the author of the Hai Yao Pen Tshao was Li Xun while the “alchemist” “naturalist” and “chess master” Li Xian wrote poetry like his brother.
Southern Han
From the tenth to twelfth century, Persian women were to be found in Guangzhou (Canton), some of them in the tenth century like Mei Zhu in the harem of the Emperor Liu Chang, and in the twelfth century large numbers of Persian women lived there, noted for wearing multiple earrings and “quarrelsome dispositions”. It was recorded that “The Po- ssu-fu at Kuang-chou make holes all round their ears. There are some who wear more than twenty ear-rings.” Descriptions of the sexual activities between Liu Chang and the Persian woman in the Song dynasty book the “Ch’ing-i-lu” by T’ao Ku were so graphic that the “Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko (the Oriental Library), Issue 2” refused to provide any quotes from it while discussing the subject. Liu had free time with the Persian women by delegating the task of governing to others. Multiple women originating from the Persian Gulf lived in Guangzhou’s foreign quarter, they were all called “Persian women” (Po-ssu-fu or Bosifu).
Some scholars did not differentiate between Persian and Arab, and some say that the Chinese called all women coming from the Persian Gulf “Persian Women”.
The young Chinese Emperor Liu Chang of the Southern Han dynasty had a harem, including one Persian girl he nicknamed Mei Zhu, which means “Beautiful Pearl”. Liu liked the Persian girl (Mei Zhu) because of her tan skin color, described in French as “peau mate” (olive or light brown skinned). He and the Persian girl also liked to forced young couples to go naked and played with them in the palace. and he favored her by “doting” on her. During the first year of his reign, he was not over sixteen years old when he had a taste for intercourse with Persian girls. The Persian girl was called a “princess”.
Descriptions of the sexual activities between Liu Chang and the Persian woman in the Song dynasty book the “Ch’ing-i-lu” by T’ao Ku were so graphic that the “Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko (the Oriental Library), Issue 2” refused to provide any quotes from it while discussing the subject. Liu had free time with the Persian women by delegating the task of governing to others.
The Wu Tai Shï says that ‘Liu Ch’ang, Emperor of the Southern Han dynasty reigning at Canton, about A.D. 970. “was dallying with his palace girls and Persian women in the inner apartments, and left the government of his state to the ministers.” The History of the Five Dynasties (Wu Tai Shih) stated that- “Liu Chang then with his court- ladies and Po-ssu woman, indulged in amorous affiurs in the harem”.
Song dynasty
Guangzhou (Canton) had a community which included Persian women in the 10th-12th centuries, found in Liu Chang’s harem in the 10th century and in Song dynasty era Guangzhou in the 12th century the Persian women there were observed wearing many earrings.
The Muslim women in Guangzhou were called either Persian women or Pusaman according to Zhu Yu (author)’s book “Pingzhou ke tan” which may be from “Mussulman” or “Bussulman” which means Muslim in Persian. Pusaman was also the name of a tune about female dancers sent as tribute to China.
Ming dynasty
Of the Han Chinese Li family in Quanzhou, Lin Nu, the son of Li Lu, visited Hormuz in Persia in 1376, married a Persian or an Arab girl, and brought her back to Quanzhou. Li Nu was the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty reformer Li Chih. Lin Nu and his descendants were erased from the family genealogy by his relatives who were angry at him for converting to Islam and marrying a Persian girl because xenophobic feeling against foreigners was strong at that time due to Persian Semu atrocities in the Ispah Rebellion in which the Yuan defeated the Ispah and the Semu were massacred. The branch of the family who held to their Chinese customs felt ashamed so they changed their surname from Lin to Li to avoid associating with their relatives, Lin Nu’s descendants with his Persian wife who practiced Islam.
Tang dynasty
Sogdians in China used 9 Chinese surnames after the Chinese name of the states they came from.
Xizhou had a Han and Sogdian population. A record from the Astana Cemetery dating to 639 preserves the transaction where a Sogdian slave girl was being sold in Xizhou. The Han Zhang family also owned Chunxiang, a Turk slave woman in Xizhou. He Deli, a Sogdian who knew how to speak Turkic and Chinese and translated.
120 coins of silver were paid for the slave girl from Samarkand. The contract was written in Sogdian. Translated by Yoshida Yutaka. The slave girl was from the Chuyakk family and born in Central Asia. Upach was her name and the buyer’s name was written as Yansyan in Sogdian from the Chan family. The seller of the slave was from Samarqand called Wakhushuvirt and his father was Tudhakk. The contract said they could they anything they wanted to Upach, give her away, sell her, abuse her, beat her and she belonged to Yansyan’s family forever. Zhang Yanxiang, whose name is found in Chinese language documents in Turfan, is believed to be Chan Yansyan.