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成為黃種人：一部東亞人由白變黃的歷史
◎橫跨科學、醫學與人類學領域，解構種族思維史的來龍去脈
◎第二屆中央研究院人文及社會科學學術性專書獎
◎政治大學歷史系楊瑞松副教授專文推薦
為什麼中國人接受成為「黃種人」，日本人卻始終抗拒？
而更大的問題是：東亞人真的是「黃色」的嗎？
種族思維領域的不凡貢獻！
原來，我們的「黃皮膚」不是天生如此，而是始於西方科學的建構，
又被自身文化所認同的結果。
「黑眼睛黑頭髮黃皮膚，永永遠遠是龍的傳人。」一曲《龍的傳人》唱遍華人地區，而我們也被教育認知自身的「黃種人」屬性，並認同自身的「黃皮膚」，這似乎已是一種常識。
不過，你有所不知的是，我們從來就不是「黃色」巨龍的傳人。至少，中國古代文獻並沒有「黃種人」的記載，也沒有種族學上的膚色概念，反而，中國人區分自己和外國人（胡人）的標準是毛髮和眼睛。甚至，在前近代的西方文獻與遊記中，中國人與日本人還被西方人形容是「白皮膚」，用以描述中國與日本國家富足、文化昌盛、願意與西方貿易且接受西方基督教義並成為教徒。
然而，至十八世紀時，「白種人」卻已是屬於西方人的專有名詞，而東亞人也逐漸染黃。對此，學者奇邁可深入探究了，在西方人的描繪之中，東亞人究竟是從何時開始變「黃」？又是經由哪些科學理論，東亞人成為了「黃種人」？
原來，十八世紀的自然學家卡爾．林奈與十九世紀的科學家和人類學家，藉由種種科學探測，逐步建立起將不同人種以顏色區分的標準，當東亞人被西方人歸類於「蒙古人種」時，同時也成為了「黃種人」。這一種族思維，也日漸成為東亞人——尤其是中國人——的一種身分認同。更在二十世紀初，出現「黃禍」一詞，暗示東亞人即將對西方產生威脅。
一切都是近代西方科學的把戲！時至今日，儘管種族思維已不再是主流，在西方的學術著作與公眾媒體上，也已很難再找到「蒙古人種」、「黃種人」等人種區分，但這樣的種族意識，在當代東亞地區卻還仍未消逝！
◎第二屆中央研究院人文及社會科學學術性專書獎
◎政治大學歷史系楊瑞松副教授專文推薦
為什麼中國人接受成為「黃種人」，日本人卻始終抗拒？
而更大的問題是：東亞人真的是「黃色」的嗎？
種族思維領域的不凡貢獻！
原來，我們的「黃皮膚」不是天生如此，而是始於西方科學的建構，
又被自身文化所認同的結果。
「黑眼睛黑頭髮黃皮膚，永永遠遠是龍的傳人。」一曲《龍的傳人》唱遍華人地區，而我們也被教育認知自身的「黃種人」屬性，並認同自身的「黃皮膚」，這似乎已是一種常識。
不過，你有所不知的是，我們從來就不是「黃色」巨龍的傳人。至少，中國古代文獻並沒有「黃種人」的記載，也沒有種族學上的膚色概念，反而，中國人區分自己和外國人（胡人）的標準是毛髮和眼睛。甚至，在前近代的西方文獻與遊記中，中國人與日本人還被西方人形容是「白皮膚」，用以描述中國與日本國家富足、文化昌盛、願意與西方貿易且接受西方基督教義並成為教徒。
然而，至十八世紀時，「白種人」卻已是屬於西方人的專有名詞，而東亞人也逐漸染黃。對此，學者奇邁可深入探究了，在西方人的描繪之中，東亞人究竟是從何時開始變「黃」？又是經由哪些科學理論，東亞人成為了「黃種人」？
原來，十八世紀的自然學家卡爾．林奈與十九世紀的科學家和人類學家，藉由種種科學探測，逐步建立起將不同人種以顏色區分的標準，當東亞人被西方人歸類於「蒙古人種」時，同時也成為了「黃種人」。這一種族思維，也日漸成為東亞人——尤其是中國人——的一種身分認同。更在二十世紀初，出現「黃禍」一詞，暗示東亞人即將對西方產生威脅。
一切都是近代西方科學的把戲！時至今日，儘管種族思維已不再是主流，在西方的學術著作與公眾媒體上，也已很難再找到「蒙古人種」、「黃種人」等人種區分，但這樣的種族意識，在當代東亞地區卻還仍未消逝！
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
December 17, 2016
Indians - and even more occasionally Native Americans, Jews or Arabs - were sometimes described as "Yellow" before the mid-18th century. The Chinese and Japanese were white (or brown if they had been in the sun) in the eyes of Europeans. How did we get from there to the remarkable belief that East Asians (also a problematic concept, but see my review of Kowner and Demel 2013 for THAT one...) are yellow?
Whether examining how different Latin and German words for various colours were applied to groups of people through the 18th and 19th centuries (even if we only had the twelve or so early editions of Linnaeus' Taxonomy we would have already quite a history of muddle-headed incipient racism on our hands), or shining light on "scientific" methods of categorisation and physical measurement that flourished not so very long ago, or demonstrating how moral concepts (degeneration, perfectibility, etc) and aesthetico-moral concepts (white beautiful; yellow/Mongolian ugly; me Jane you Tarzan) invaded various discourses, Keevak is persuasive and writes nicely.
My main reaction to this concise history of a surprisingly powerful idea was: what an intellectual mess people, some of them extremely clever people, made. When he discussed how people with Down's syndrome came to be called "mongoloid" it is enough to make you weep. When he said, quite calmly, 'I can't speak for other scholars but when I look at Chinese skin I don't actually see the colour yellow' (and of course it really is as simple as that, the erudition that preceded that observation is just the icing on the cake), you just have to laugh at the sheer ridiculous delusion of the prison house of language, culture, habit, prejudice and a naive belief in the objectivity of scientific concepts.
What Keevak doesn't discuss is how Chinese and Japanese scholars and popular writers appropriated the idea of yellow skin, the Yellow race, etc, though the 20th century. For that, the classic 1992 work of Frank Dikötter is a good place to start...
Whether examining how different Latin and German words for various colours were applied to groups of people through the 18th and 19th centuries (even if we only had the twelve or so early editions of Linnaeus' Taxonomy we would have already quite a history of muddle-headed incipient racism on our hands), or shining light on "scientific" methods of categorisation and physical measurement that flourished not so very long ago, or demonstrating how moral concepts (degeneration, perfectibility, etc) and aesthetico-moral concepts (white beautiful; yellow/Mongolian ugly; me Jane you Tarzan) invaded various discourses, Keevak is persuasive and writes nicely.
My main reaction to this concise history of a surprisingly powerful idea was: what an intellectual mess people, some of them extremely clever people, made. When he discussed how people with Down's syndrome came to be called "mongoloid" it is enough to make you weep. When he said, quite calmly, 'I can't speak for other scholars but when I look at Chinese skin I don't actually see the colour yellow' (and of course it really is as simple as that, the erudition that preceded that observation is just the icing on the cake), you just have to laugh at the sheer ridiculous delusion of the prison house of language, culture, habit, prejudice and a naive belief in the objectivity of scientific concepts.
What Keevak doesn't discuss is how Chinese and Japanese scholars and popular writers appropriated the idea of yellow skin, the Yellow race, etc, though the 20th century. For that, the classic 1992 work of Frank Dikötter is a good place to start...
August 18, 2016
The interaction between (eastern) Asia and Europe has been going on not for decades but for centuries since the Age of Discovery. Early accounts of merchants and missionary describe eastern Asian as a fair skinned people, adjectives ranged from white to olive to brown, but never settled on any of which. So why Asian suddenly becomes yellow by late 19 century?
Keevak is a professor of the foreign language department of Taiwan National university, he set out his research in order to answer above question. While, his research is clearly extensive, the structure of the book does not seem to follow a typical research report structure, which makes the book easier for general consumption. However, this does not mean the book is easy to read, more so due to how closely related I am to the topic, however the light humour and carefully chosen words do make some of the chapters easier to bear. Without spoiling the book, I think the book is very interesting and very informative, professor Keevak clearly knows what he is talking about, even the sections about Asian cultures are on point and free of the misconceptions western writers so often makes. One thing I'll say is that the author clearly has a very high command of German, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, and not all of the quotes in the book have English translation.
Keevak is a professor of the foreign language department of Taiwan National university, he set out his research in order to answer above question. While, his research is clearly extensive, the structure of the book does not seem to follow a typical research report structure, which makes the book easier for general consumption. However, this does not mean the book is easy to read, more so due to how closely related I am to the topic, however the light humour and carefully chosen words do make some of the chapters easier to bear. Without spoiling the book, I think the book is very interesting and very informative, professor Keevak clearly knows what he is talking about, even the sections about Asian cultures are on point and free of the misconceptions western writers so often makes. One thing I'll say is that the author clearly has a very high command of German, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, and not all of the quotes in the book have English translation.
November 2, 2024
Keevak's ambition was to retrace the notion of "yellowness" in racial thinking. That is to say, when did Europeans and Western thinkers started to use "yellow" to reference East-Asian people. Though the book looks quite promising and I do have to say that I'm impressed by the amount of sources Keevak read, in the end, I did not learn much. Even worse, the very final sentence of the book is the question he asked at the beginning. If at the end of your 200 pages you find yourself asking a similar question as the one at the beginning of your journey, there might be an issue in your delivery.
Keevak does know his subject but he does not go in-depth enough! You cannot write that the "Mongol" triad of invaders made of Gengis Khan, Attila and Tarmelane is made-up without explaining why this triad is an aberration: first of all, Attila is not even Mongol, let alone Asian. And Tamerlane is from the actual Uzbekistan, before creating the Timurid empire and reigning over a territory going from Turkey to Pakistan.
The same goes for his analysis on the attribution of the notion of "Mongolian" or "Mongolianness" to people suffering from the Down syndrome: he does not mention at all how degrading that must have been for these people, nor how this participated in a validist social environment for so long.This wouldhave been the perfect opportunity for Keevak to take it to another level and mention how the notion of "yellow" as a racial category is intrinsically intersectionnal!
Not to mention his style, very difficult to read, to understand where he wants to get. At first I was seduced by his non-conforming writing style because as a research student myself I know how tiring it can be to read thick volumes in anthropology/sociology/history with complex phrasings. However, more than once was I lost while reading him. You can clearly see that his thoughts were not properly structured and he goes back and forth so many times that it eventually does not really make sense anymore. Moreover, I do not think it was wise to not choose a chronological organisation for this book because in the end, not only does he follow a mostly chronological development, but by trying so hard to be thematical he goes back and forth in the same sub-chapter, which is not easy to follow or understand.
Still, it is quite an interesting book for those who know nothing about the concept of "yellowness" and would like to know how stereotypes on Asian people were constructed in the West!
Keevak does know his subject but he does not go in-depth enough! You cannot write that the "Mongol" triad of invaders made of Gengis Khan, Attila and Tarmelane is made-up without explaining why this triad is an aberration: first of all, Attila is not even Mongol, let alone Asian. And Tamerlane is from the actual Uzbekistan, before creating the Timurid empire and reigning over a territory going from Turkey to Pakistan.
The same goes for his analysis on the attribution of the notion of "Mongolian" or "Mongolianness" to people suffering from the Down syndrome: he does not mention at all how degrading that must have been for these people, nor how this participated in a validist social environment for so long.This wouldhave been the perfect opportunity for Keevak to take it to another level and mention how the notion of "yellow" as a racial category is intrinsically intersectionnal!
Not to mention his style, very difficult to read, to understand where he wants to get. At first I was seduced by his non-conforming writing style because as a research student myself I know how tiring it can be to read thick volumes in anthropology/sociology/history with complex phrasings. However, more than once was I lost while reading him. You can clearly see that his thoughts were not properly structured and he goes back and forth so many times that it eventually does not really make sense anymore. Moreover, I do not think it was wise to not choose a chronological organisation for this book because in the end, not only does he follow a mostly chronological development, but by trying so hard to be thematical he goes back and forth in the same sub-chapter, which is not easy to follow or understand.
Still, it is quite an interesting book for those who know nothing about the concept of "yellowness" and would like to know how stereotypes on Asian people were constructed in the West!
August 7, 2018
As implied, the book is a history of race and racism, with a special focus on how and why Westerners came to see Asians as "yellow". The author talks about the history of race in general, the association of races with particular colors, and the evolution of racial thinking. A few key features stand out to me:
1. The author takes a long view of racial thinking, by extending this history both to the Middle Ages before the invention of race, and to the late 20th century when Western racism was seriously challenged by the rest of humanity. Altogether, the book encompasses some 800 years.
2. The author treats race and racism as social constructs with an actual developmental history in the West, and seriously examines the history of how these constructs evolved in Western thought. Since many people think that race is "real", biological, and immutable, it is fascinating to read about how many different ways even just Europeans divided the world, from T-O charts of late antiquity to the totally different and rapidly changing categories of the early modern period.
3. Counter-narratives: The author includes both Western counter-narratives from throughout this history (that is, people who thought "yellow", "Mongolian", or even "Asian" were stupid and incoherent categories) as well as East Asian responses to Western racialization.
I really liked this book, my only 2 suggestions for improvement are that 1) it would be nice if the author included a conclusion or an epilogue, and 2) I wish the history was extended all the way to the 2000s, instead of ending in the 1970s.
1. The author takes a long view of racial thinking, by extending this history both to the Middle Ages before the invention of race, and to the late 20th century when Western racism was seriously challenged by the rest of humanity. Altogether, the book encompasses some 800 years.
2. The author treats race and racism as social constructs with an actual developmental history in the West, and seriously examines the history of how these constructs evolved in Western thought. Since many people think that race is "real", biological, and immutable, it is fascinating to read about how many different ways even just Europeans divided the world, from T-O charts of late antiquity to the totally different and rapidly changing categories of the early modern period.
3. Counter-narratives: The author includes both Western counter-narratives from throughout this history (that is, people who thought "yellow", "Mongolian", or even "Asian" were stupid and incoherent categories) as well as East Asian responses to Western racialization.
I really liked this book, my only 2 suggestions for improvement are that 1) it would be nice if the author included a conclusion or an epilogue, and 2) I wish the history was extended all the way to the 2000s, instead of ending in the 1970s.
December 19, 2019
It was an interesting exploration on the origin of the yellow race in the western effort to racialize the world’s people, placing themselves on top as the most evolved race, and finding criterias such as arbitrary skin colour to construct a hierarchy of civilization to support white people’s innate right to colonize and enslave. I find the topic fascinating but found the author’s writing on the dry side, and less than riveting despite some eye opening facts and ideas. But in the end, I don’t think the author made any real strong closing remarks in trying to answer his own question and I am left a bit befuddled as to his conclusion.
August 23, 2026
1. 這是一部正統的學術著作。
2. 作者從歐美各個時代的文書材料，梳理出在大陸東西兩方普遍交流之後，歐洲人不斷地在擴展對東方認識的過程，逐漸將「定義膚色」當成域外民族的重點。
3. 承上。總體說來，中世紀前的歐洲人對東亞人的膚色，並沒有太多的關注，所以留下的相關記錄詞彙紛雜多元。會形成需要特別描述的，是時代差不多在 18~19 世紀歐洲興起擴張殖民主義，除了必須提升自己所屬族群的信心之外，也同時要將亞非人民劃出自身所處的類別，以達成「他者」的定義。於是在各種褒貶中立偏頗多樣的形容詞中，將「白皮膚」歸給了歐洲人，「黃皮膚」歸給了東亞人。（當然「黑皮膚」在此更早之前已歸給了薩哈拉以南的非洲人了。）
4. 再承上。即使分佈地域廣泛的東亞人的膚色，與傳統歐洲白人的差異難以一眼辨別出來，但歐洲人仍需要開發出所謂的「科學」方法來加以處理，於是開發出色票或陀螺來加以量測。其後更是開發出人種學的分類，即最高等的白色「高加索人種」，以及在其兩個劣等端點的黃色「蒙古人種」和黑色「衣索匹亞人種」。
5. 20世紀初的中國，對「黃種人」的西方描述，完全不感到冒犯（即使西方此時的用意是「骯髒的黃 luridus」），也願以黃皮膚加以自稱；這自然與中國文化傳統對「中央/ 黃色」的推崇有關。反而是日本知識界對於自己被歸為黃色的反應激烈、難以平忿；或許這正是其「脫亞入歐」的思想產生的背景。
6. 值得細讀的好書。GR 登記在此的書名資料挺奇怪的。
2. 作者從歐美各個時代的文書材料，梳理出在大陸東西兩方普遍交流之後，歐洲人不斷地在擴展對東方認識的過程，逐漸將「定義膚色」當成域外民族的重點。
3. 承上。總體說來，中世紀前的歐洲人對東亞人的膚色，並沒有太多的關注，所以留下的相關記錄詞彙紛雜多元。會形成需要特別描述的，是時代差不多在 18~19 世紀歐洲興起擴張殖民主義，除了必須提升自己所屬族群的信心之外，也同時要將亞非人民劃出自身所處的類別，以達成「他者」的定義。於是在各種褒貶中立偏頗多樣的形容詞中，將「白皮膚」歸給了歐洲人，「黃皮膚」歸給了東亞人。（當然「黑皮膚」在此更早之前已歸給了薩哈拉以南的非洲人了。）
4. 再承上。即使分佈地域廣泛的東亞人的膚色，與傳統歐洲白人的差異難以一眼辨別出來，但歐洲人仍需要開發出所謂的「科學」方法來加以處理，於是開發出色票或陀螺來加以量測。其後更是開發出人種學的分類，即最高等的白色「高加索人種」，以及在其兩個劣等端點的黃色「蒙古人種」和黑色「衣索匹亞人種」。
5. 20世紀初的中國，對「黃種人」的西方描述，完全不感到冒犯（即使西方此時的用意是「骯髒的黃 luridus」），也願以黃皮膚加以自稱；這自然與中國文化傳統對「中央/ 黃色」的推崇有關。反而是日本知識界對於自己被歸為黃色的反應激烈、難以平忿；或許這正是其「脫亞入歐」的思想產生的背景。
6. 值得細讀的好書。GR 登記在此的書名資料挺奇怪的。
May 28, 2026
more of a survey of uses of the term “yellow” in relation to Chinese and Japanese (and sometimes other Asian people)… sometimes it felt too much like a catalogue of examples in a way that was boring and sometimes felt irrelevant, wanted more of a thesis to be honest but maybe the question he posed at the outset couldn’t really be answered after all idk.
Read
May 5, 2021nice
April 28, 2023
We were taught we are "yellow" in school. But the metaphors of yellow are different between Europe and East Asia. Illness and Royalty.
December 22, 2023
上大學時沒修過奇邁可的課，總得讀過他的書（？
May 22, 2025
讀完就發現：種族和膚色歧視確實是一樣荒謬得令人大笑的概念可悲的是今天人類仍然在實踐和二百年前差不多水平的荒謬
//盧尚在一九一六年挖苦的表示，任何皮膚都是「牛奶咖啡」，就看它是如何調製出來//
//盧尚在一九一六年挖苦的表示，任何皮膚都是「牛奶咖啡」，就看它是如何調製出來//
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews