(TIL) Why Some Chinese Are Redheaded

[Mergie Master]

I just thought this was interesting. ~ Mergie

(TIL) Why Some Chinese Are Redheaded

Occasionally you'll see a redheaded Asian, like this little Chinese girl.



I've often wondered about these kinds of things. Today I found this explanation online.
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Central Asia used to be filled with redheads (until Asians pushed up from the south about 3,000 years ago). When they arrived, they found Caucasoid peoples, and essentially bred them out. So you'll see Caucasoid traits cropping up every so often.

Quote: "Persian historian Rashid-al-Din recorded in his 'Chronicles' that the legendary 'glittering' ancestor of Genghis Khan was tall, long-bearded, red-haired, and green-eyed. Rashid al-Din also described the first meeting of Genghis and Kublai Khan, when Genghis Khan was surprised to find that Kublai had not inherited his red hair."

Caucasoid tribes in Central Asia stretched as far as Siberia. Sub-groups like Scythians, Khazars and Tocharians all were known for their red hair.

You can still see the older substratum of Caucasoids in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Take for instance these Caucasoids from the foot of the Himalayas (from the Hunza tribe):





According to archaeological digs, the ancestors of these Caucasoids pre-date the Mongoloids by millennia. You can see the demographic changes still going on as Mongoloids breed out Caucasoids (whom they outnumber), leading to hybrids like this from Afghanistan:



So it's not very surprising (from a paleogenetic perspective) for you to find a Mongoloid girl in Nepal (in this very region) with red hair. It happens more frequently than you're aware. Like in the Xinjiang region of China (where the so-called 'blond mummies' were found). The Euripoid people were called the Tocharians (and in DNA tests, they clustered with Central Europeans). But their homeland was Central Asia. On the territory upon which they lived you still see Caucasoid traits cropping up among the now-Mongoloid population:




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So I guess it doesn't matter where you go in the world anymore, all the people are mixed up. The only way to find full-bloods is to be the first person to go into an undiscovered area.

[muddman]

Learn something new everyday.

[Mergie Master]

As an aside; I remember as a kid reading a book about a community of blue-eyed black people that lived in Kentucky. I'm sure they're dispatched to other areas now. The reason I got the book from the library was because a few days earlier I was in a store that was owned by our local butcher and there was a black girl in there that had pretty dark skin and ice blue eyes. I was about 10 years old and I had never seen that combination before, I haven't seen it since either, although I have seen a black with green eyes once. I'm sure blacks with blue eyes is much more prevalent now due to so many inter-racial marriages. I just haven't come across any of them.

The book said that the blue eyes in the Kentucky community had come about during WWII. There was a prisoner of war camp there where they sent German soldiers. These soldiers mingled with the local people, they did the same thing here in Greenwood where we had a POW camp too. They soon started marrying the local girls. The result was a lot of blue-eyes kids.

[Mergie Master]

There are some Asians with blond hair too.

This is a Hmong girl with blonde hair: