{"id":92037,"date":"2021-01-16T12:31:42","date_gmt":"2021-01-16T17:31:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=92037"},"modified":"2021-04-30T06:41:45","modified_gmt":"2021-04-30T11:41:45","slug":"auto-draft-439","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2021\/01\/16\/auto-draft-439\/","title":{"rendered":"Iranians in China"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia<\/strong><\/p>\n

Iranian people\u00a0such as\u00a0Persians\u00a0and\u00a0Sogdians\u00a0have lived in China throughout various periods in Chinese history.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Parthian\u00a0Iranians,\u00a0An Shigao\u00a0and\u00a0An Xuan, introduced Buddhism to China. A village dating back 600 years in\u00a0Yangzhou\u00a0in\u00a0Jiangsu\u00a0province, China, has inhabitants descended from Iranians. It has 27,000 people and contains Iranian places names like Fars and Parsian.<\/p>\n

Sassanian\u00a0royals like\u00a0Peroz III\u00a0and his son\u00a0Narsieh\u00a0fled the Arab Islamic invasion of Sassanid Persia for safety in\u00a0Tang dynasty\u00a0China where they were granted asylum.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0In 758 there was\u00a0a raid on Canton\u00a0by Persians and Arabs and then there was an attack in 760\u00a0in Yangzhou\u00a0upon Persians and Arabs.\u00a0On Hainan 100 katis of incense were burned in a single go by Feng.<\/p>\n

Five dynasties and Ten <\/strong>Kingdoms period<\/strong><\/p>\n

During the\u00a0Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period\u00a0(Wudai) (907\u2013960), there are examples of Chinese emperors marrying Persian women. \u201cIn the times of Wudai (907\u2013960) the emperors preferred to marry Persian women, and the Song dynasty official families liked to marry women from Dashi [Arabia]\u201d was written by Chen Yuan.<\/p>\n

Former Shu<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many Iranians took the Chinese name Li to use as their last name when they moved to China. One prominent family included\u00a0Li Xian (pharmacologist)\u00a0and Li Xun. Sources say that either one of them was responsible for writing the \u201cHai Yao Ben Cao\u201d (Hai yao pen ts\u2019ao), translating to \u201cPharmacopoeia of foreign drugs\u201d.\u00a0Li Xun was interested in foreign drugs and his book,\u00a0The Haiyao Bencao, was all about foreign drugs. His family sold drugs for a living.<\/p>\n

Li Xian had an older sister\u00a0Li Shunxian, who was known for being beautiful and was a concubine of the Former Shu Chinese Emperor\u00a0Wang Zongyan, and a brother older than both of them named Li Xun. They lived at the court of the royal family of\u00a0Former Shu\u00a0in\u00a0Chengdu\u00a0(modern day\u00a0Sichuan). 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.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Huang Chao\u00a0rebellion had earlier made their family flee.\u00a0Li Su-sha, an Iranian who dealt in the incense trade, is speculated to be the grandfather of the three siblings.<\/p>\n

Lo Hsiang- Lin wrote a biography of the three siblings. The family were\u00a0Nestorian\u00a0Christians. The two brothers then became\u00a0Daoist. Li Xun was also a poet who wrote in the manner of Chinese\u00a0Song poetry. Li Xian used urine to concoct \u201csteroid sex hormones\u201d.<\/p>\n

Iranians dominated the drug trade in China. In 824\u00a0Li Susha\u00a0presented to\u00a0Emperor Jingzong, the Chen xiang ting zi, a type of drug.<\/p>\n

Li Xun wrote poems in the tz\u2019u style and was one of its masters. He and his brother Li Xian traded in the drug business. The family lived in\u00a0Sichuan.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s court.<\/p>\n

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 \u201calchemist\u201d \u201cnaturalist\u201d and \u201cchess master\u201d Li Xian wrote poetry like his brother.<\/p>\n

Southern Han<\/strong><\/p>\n

From the tenth to twelfth century,\u00a0Persian\u00a0women were to be found in\u00a0Guangzhou\u00a0(Canton), some of them in the tenth century like\u00a0Mei Zhu\u00a0in the harem of the Emperor\u00a0Liu Chang, and in the twelfth century large numbers of Persian women lived there, noted for wearing multiple earrings and \u201cquarrelsome dispositions\u201d.\u00a0It was recorded that \u201cThe Po- ssu-fu at Kuang-chou make holes all round their ears. There are some who wear more than twenty ear-rings.\u201d\u00a0Descriptions of the sexual activities between Liu Chang and the Persian woman in the Song dynasty book the \u201cCh\u2019ing-i-lu\u201d by T\u2019ao Ku were so graphic that the \u201cMemoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko (the Oriental Library), Issue 2\u201d refused to provide any quotes from it while discussing the subject.\u00a0Liu had free time with the Persian women by delegating the task of governing to others.\u00a0Multiple women originating from the\u00a0Persian Gulf\u00a0lived in Guangzhou\u2019s foreign quarter, they were all called \u201cPersian women\u201d (Po-ssu-fu or Bosifu).<\/p>\n

Some scholars did not differentiate between Persian and Arab, and some say that the Chinese called all women coming from the Persian Gulf \u201cPersian Women\u201d.<\/p>\n

The young Chinese Emperor\u00a0Liu Chang\u00a0of the\u00a0Southern Han\u00a0dynasty had a harem, including one Persian girl he nicknamed\u00a0Mei Zhu, which means \u201cBeautiful Pearl\u201d. Liu liked the Persian girl (Mei Zhu) because of her tan skin color, described in French as \u201cpeau mate\u201d (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.\u00a0and he favored her by \u201cdoting\u201d 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.\u00a0The Persian girl was called a \u201cprincess\u201d.<\/p>\n

Descriptions of the sexual activities between Liu Chang and the Persian woman in the Song dynasty book the \u201cCh\u2019ing-i-lu\u201d by T\u2019ao Ku were so graphic that the \u201cMemoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko (the Oriental Library), Issue 2\u201d refused to provide any quotes from it while discussing the subject.\u00a0Liu had free time with the Persian women by delegating the task of governing to others.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Wu Tai Sh\u00ef\u00a0says that \u2018Liu Ch\u2019ang, Emperor of the Southern\u00a0Han\u00a0dynasty reigning at Canton, about A.D. 970. \u201cwas dallying with his palace girls and Persian women in the inner apartments, and left the government of his state to the ministers.\u201d\u00a0The History of the Five Dynasties (Wu Tai Shih) stated that- \u201cLiu Chang then with his court- ladies and Po-ssu woman, indulged in amorous affiurs in the harem\u201d.<\/p>\n

Song dynasty<\/strong><\/p>\n

Guangzhou (Canton) had a community which included Persian women in the 10th-12th centuries, found in Liu Chang\u2019s harem in the 10th century and in Song dynasty era Guangzhou in the 12th century the Persian women there were observed wearing many earrings.<\/p>\n

The Muslim women in Guangzhou were called either Persian women or Pusaman according to\u00a0Zhu Yu (author)\u2019s book \u201cPingzhou ke tan\u201d which may be from \u201cMussulman\u201d or \u201cBussulman\u201d which means Muslim in Persian.\u00a0Pusaman was also the name of a tune about female dancers sent as tribute to China.<\/p>\n

Ming dynasty<\/strong><\/p>\n

Of the Han Chinese Li family in Quanzhou,\u00a0Lin Nu, the son of Li Lu, visited\u00a0Hormuz\u00a0in\u00a0Persia\u00a0in 1376, married a\u00a0Persian\u00a0or an\u00a0Arab\u00a0girl, and brought her back to\u00a0Quanzhou. Li Nu was the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty reformer\u00a0Li Chih.\u00a0Lin 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\u00a0Ispah Rebellion\u00a0in 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\u2019s descendants with his Persian wife who practiced Islam.<\/p>\n

Tang dynasty<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sogdians\u00a0in China used 9 Chinese surnames after the Chinese name of the states they came from.<\/p>\n

Xizhou had a Han and Sogdian population.\u00a0A record from the\u00a0Astana Cemetery\u00a0dating 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.<\/p>\n

120 coins of silver were paid for the slave girl from Samarkand.\u00a0The contract was written in Sogdian.\u00a0Translated by Yoshida Yutaka.\u00a0The slave girl was from the Chuyakk family and born in Central Asia. Upach was her name and the buyer\u2019s 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\u2019s family forever.\u00a0Zhang Yanxiang, whose name is found in Chinese language documents in Turfan, is believed to be Chan Yansyan.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia Iranian people\u00a0such as\u00a0Persians\u00a0and\u00a0Sogdians\u00a0have lived in China throughout various periods in Chinese history. The\u00a0Parthian\u00a0Iranians,\u00a0An Shigao\u00a0and\u00a0An Xuan, introduced Buddhism to China. A village dating back 600 years in\u00a0Yangzhou\u00a0in\u00a0Jiangsu\u00a0province, China, has inhabitants descended from Iranians. It has 27,000 people and contains Iranian places names like Fars and Parsian. Sassanian\u00a0royals like\u00a0Peroz III\u00a0and his son\u00a0Narsieh\u00a0fled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-phart"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92037"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94790,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92037\/revisions\/94790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}