Man Ethnic Minority

Manchu ethnic minority group has a population of more than 10,000,000, most of whom live in the northeast three provinces, particularly Liaoning has the largest population of the Manchu people. A small proportion of the Manchu people live in a homogenious community in some large and middle cities. Since the founding of the Qing Dynasty, because of the intermarriage between the Han nationality and the Man Ethnic Minority, and people of the two nationalities live in a mixed community, the difference between the Han nationality and the Man nationality has been gradually reduced. The Manchu people believe in Shamanism, later they also believe in the Buddhism.

The broad northeast region is the birthplace of the Manchu ethnic minority group, which plays an important role in the history of the Chinese nation with its long history and spirits of industriousness and dauntlessness. The Manchu people and their ancestors---the Nvzhen tribe have invaded the central plains twice and established the Jin Dynasty and a completely unified Qing Dynasty. The Jin Dynasty has confronted the South Song Dynasty for many years, while the Qing Dynasty had ruled China for 267 years from the founding of the state by Qingtaizu Nuerhachi and Qingtaizong Huangtaiji, and has experienced the one hundred years prosperity during the reign of the emperors Kangxi and Qianlong, the downfall during the reign of the emperors Tongzhi and Guangxu, and the holding of the court behind the screen by the Cixi Queen Mother. In 1911, the Qing Dynasty ended its rule over the Chinese nation.

The Manchu ethnic minority group has its own language and characters, and it belongs to the Altai language family. Originally, Manchu people borrowed characters from Mogolia, in 1599, two courtiers Eerdeni and Zhaerguqiergai created the Man characters without punctuations under the assignment of the emperor Nuerhachi. In 1632, emperor Huangtaiji ordered Dahai to improve the Manchu characters, this new type of Man characters with puctuations has been used up to the present. After the 1640s, most of the Manchu people use Chinese, and now only a small number of old people in Heilongjiang province can speak the Manchu language.

Originally, the family names of the Manchu people is the Manchu language, such as the family names of Aixinjueluo, Nala, ect., some family names have the tribe names in front, such as the Yehe Nala, the Hada Nala, so on and so forth. After the Manchu people invaded and took the control of the Central Plains, they began to use the family names of the Han nationality, for example, they changed Aixinjueluoshi to the surname Jin, Fuchashi to Fu, and the Nala shi to Na.

Customs

People of the Manchu ethnic minority group are good at singing and dancing. Most representative folk dance of the Man Ethnic Minority is the "Zhaoligugu dance", whose libretto clearly reflects the costumes of the Manchu people and their traditional dieting habits and customs. The costumes of the Manchu people are the most characteristic of the northern normadic tribes who do hunting on horsebacks.

Most of the people wear Qi-pao in daily times, and in the Qing Dynasty, Qi-pao has been popularized throughout the whole country as the national costume. It has the following characteristics: It is round-collared with big open front. Besides, there are big openings at either side of the hem ornamented with buttons and buckles. Women wear straight long robes with bag-sleeves, making them appear slender and beautiful, graceful and elegant. While men would wear robes with wide horse-hoof shaped sleeves for the convenience of movements on horseback. The Manchu women pay much attention to the ornamentations on their Qi-pao, they would embroider the robe with several pieces of laceworks or colored buds on the front openings, on the sleeves margins, and on the collars. Sometimes, they would even embroider 18 pieces of lacings in combination with the multicolored broad sleeves, making them appear flamboyant but elegant. Ordinarily, the Manchu women would not bind their feet, their feet are popularly called the "Big Feet".

They would wear a kind of high heeled Qi- shoes with wooden soles, while men of the Manchu ethnic minority group wear boots in most cases. For a long period of time in history, the Manchu people have been engaged in agriculture, at the same time, they would do various other byworks like hunting and gathering industry. Their stable food is millet, and they are fond of sticky food. They are good at raising pigs, so they like to eat white pork, blood sausage and the stewed pork with sour cabbage and vermicelli. They would eat Jiaozi on holidays, and on the New Year's Eve of lunar calendar they must eat grilled pork. The favourite dim sum of the Manchu people is "Saqima", and they are addicted to smoking and drinking.

Ordinarily, the Manch people would leave doors in their houses towards the southeast, and the houses appear very much like pockets, inside them, there are Kangs on three sides, with the West Kang as the altar to hold sacrifice to their ancestors. So their houses are popularly called "the pocket house, Manzi Kang". The Manchu ethnic minority group has a long tradition of honoring the elders and respecting the ancestors. Whenever there are great happy events and festival occasions, such as marriage and child birth, building houses and changing one's dwelling houses, taking up an appointment or the elevation of position, people would always carry out large-scale ancestor worship ceremonies to pray for good fortunes. .

Taboos

People of the Manchu ethnic minority group hold special fondness to dogs, the acts of beating dogs or killing dogs are strictly forbidden, they do not eat meat of dogs, do not wear dogskin hats or wear clothes with dogskin cuffs. Do not chase dogs in the face of the host, and never speak ill of the dogs, or the hosts would think you are insulting him to his eye and would ask you to leave immediately, this is because they put much emphasis on the activity of hunting. The Manchu ethnic minority group takes the West as the superior, so it is a taboo for common people, especially young people to sit on the west Kang, and women are even more strictly forbidden to give birth to her child on the West Kang. Besides, people of the Manchu ethnic minority group are not allowed to hit pied magpies and crows, or to tie livestocks on the Suoluo tree poles.