Professor Wang William Shi-yuan is a graduate of Columbia College in New York who received his PhD from the University of Michigan. He was Professor of Linguistics at the University of California from 1966 to 1995. He is currently the editor of the Journal of Chinese Linguistics, which he founded in 1973. In 1992, he was elected Inaugural President of the International Association of Chinese Linguistics, and is a member of Academia Sinica. In 2004, Prof Wang joined the Chinese University of Hong Kong Department of Electronic Engineering. He is currently Director of the CUHK Joint Research Centre for Language and Human Complexity, which was recently established in partnership with Peking University and the University System of Taiwan.

In most people's minds, the terms 'Chinese' and 'Han' are almost equivalent, as census reports tell us that around 95% of Chinese people are Han. The word 'Han' also calls to mind a variety of associations that appear to confirm this correspondence. For instance, Handai 漢代, the great Han dynasty, shared the world with the Roman Empire at the beginning of the Common Era. Hanyu 漢語 is the official language of China while Hanhua 漢化 refers to the process of sinicisation. In common nouns, such as haohan 好漢, 'han' refers to masculine prototypes.

However, the apparent equation of 'Chinese' and 'Han' obscures China's rich cultural heterogeneity and the tapestry of diverse historical sources that have been woven into the China of today. It is understandable that Western scientists may sometimes miss this point. For example, in an article published in 1996 in the popular magazine Discover, Jared Diamond of UCLA called China 'the empire of uniformity'. Diamond was immediately taken to task by E.G. Pulleyblank, the late historical linguist of the University of British Columbia. Three years later, in another review in the Journal of Chinese Linguistics, Pulleyblank gave a more comprehensive account of the numerous ethnic strands that make up contemporary Chinese culture.

One need not search far for evidence of this heterogeneity. Simply flipping through the pages of Historical Atlas of China of Tan Qixiang 譚其驤, a visual idea of China's dynamic history will be provided, which extends from the Neolithic era, when China was comprised of many largely isolated cultures, to about 6000 years ago when these cultures interacted to form what Chang Kwang-chih 張光直 called 'Initial China', to the pre-Qin period when written history began in the North, all the way down through the many dynasties to the China we have today. The boundaries of this historical stage have been continuously changing and shifting, contracting and expanding, with numerous actors appearing and disappearing. The names of many of these actors appear in manuscripts as early as the Shijing and Oracle bone inscriptions, such as Qiang 羌，Rong 戎，Di 狄，Di 氐 and Man 蠻. Some of these names used to be written with uncomplimentary radicals, like 犬 and 蟲, revealing an unbridled prejudice. However, learning who these actors really were would require extensive research, and this project has hardly begun.

An early pioneer in this important research area was the late anthropologist Fei Xiaotong 費孝通, whose 1989 article, "Zhonghua minzu duo yuan yi ti ge ju" 中華民族多元一體格局, was a source of inspiration for me. In this article, Fei Xiaotong succinctly argues that the Chinese people should be regarded as heterogeneous and that Chinese culture should be studied from this perspective. It is difficult not to feel the pain that Fei Xiaotong conveys in his account of his 1935 fieldtrip to Da Yao Shan 大瑤山 in Guangxi with his new bride:

The Da Yao Shan at the time were covered with primitive forest and dense bamboo groves, and along its narrow winding paths wild grass and trailing plants made the way undiscernible. We had entered the Yao mountains on November 18, and on December 16 on our way from the Hualan Yao to the Ao Yao area we got lost. Inadvertently I stepped into a trap set by hunters and wounded my leg and my back; my late wife went down the mountain to ask for help. It was dark already and the way was dangerous; she lost her life by drowning …

This paragraph formed an indelible image in my mind and opened up new horizons for thought. However, it was not until 1997, sixty-five years after Fei Xiaotong's trip, that I was able to visit the Da Yao Shan, thanks to the effective leadership of Professor Shi Feng 石鋒 of Nankai University and the arrangements he made with helpful colleagues at Guangxi Normal University in Guilin. Surprisingly, I found that the primitive conditions captured in Fei Xiaotong's early reports still largely prevailed.

In the inaugural newsletter of the International Association of Chinese Linguistics, I suggested that a central mission for the Association should be:

… the application of the methods of general linguistics to the languages found in China. This would include, of course, research on many non-Sinitic languages, such as Altaic, Austric, Tibeto-Burman, etc., especially on their interactions with the Han dialects. After all, China is a Sprachbund in the full sense of the word. Her linguistic fabric has been woven together over the millennia from many intertwining and inseparable strands. 

In line with this mission, our usual fieldwork involved eliciting basic words and video recording some of the linguistic sessions. I wanted to learn about the Yao languages and to compare them with the Miao and She languages distributed in other provinces, which are putatively closely related to each other. Before this trip, I had done fieldwork in villages in Mexico, Kirzghistan and other less developed countries. However, nothing could have prepared me for the dismal conditions in which some of the Yao communities lived. However, it repeatedly recurred to me that these people are Chinese, just as I am myself. The contrast with the shiny skyscrapers and spendthrift, wasteful life-style in China's big cities was just too blatant and unsettling.

Several years later, in 2002, I had another opportunity to visit more ethnic minorities, this time initiated by Professor Chen Bao-ya 陳保亞 of Peking University, officially at the invitation of Yunnan province. Bao-ya is Director of the Centre of Chinese Linguistics at Peking University. Our team included Wang Feng 汪鋒, who was then writing his PhD dissertation with me at the City University of Hong Kong and is now a professor at Peking University. Professor Mu Ji-hong 木霽弘 of Yunan University took care of the complex logistics of the visit. One of my favourite photographs from that trip was taken by Bao-ya, when I was showing off my digital camera to an amazed Pumi woman, holding her grandson. It was the first time she had ever seen a picture of herself on the back of a camera, which I had just taken.

We travelled caravan style in one car and two vans, visiting many barely accessible communities in northwestern Yunnan, a narrow corrugated region of China which borders Sichuan and Xizang and is crossed by the headwaters of the Jinshajiang, Lancangjiang and Nujiang rivers. All along the way, Bao-ya, Wang Feng and I talked with the local people, visited schools, attended ceremonies and filled our heads with as much information as possible about the local cultural history, savouring and treasuring every moment of this precious opportunity.

While we inquired as much as possible about the local languages, we also saw some exciting places and met some extraordinary people. One dark night, for instance, while negotiating a narrow mountain road, our way was blocked by several huge boulders, presumably placed there with robbery in mind. Fortunately, our caravan had enough manpower to push the boulders away without further trouble. The people we encountered included a handsome Pumi with a powerful voice, who could belt out folksongs in some eight local languages; a wizened school teacher who had recently returned from his pilgrimage to Mecca; and members of the Lisu community, which was converted to Christianity by missionaries many decades ago, who gave an amazing performance of Handel's "hallelujah" chorus.

Many of the highlights of our Yunnan visit have been preserved on a video called "Shi Yuan Jiang Ke" 士元講課, which was recorded by the excellent media crew who accompanied us in the vans. The video is publicly available at: http://tiny.cc/b28j5w. I also discuss 'Who are the Chinese?' and the importance of studying local languages and cultures for gaining an in-depth understanding of China in a short piece published in the successful Taiwanese popular science magazine (See William S-Y. Wang. "Yuyan shi Yunnan de wenhua baozang" 語言是雲南的文化寶藏, Scientific American 10(2002), 58-59.

However, in 2002, the homogenising influence of globalisation was already beginning to seep in everywhere. We saw abundant signs that many of these local languages will not survive another generation or two. When a language is gone, the culture it supports will soon become extinct. These languages and cultures are all part of China's diverse heritage and the heritage of humanity as a whole. The past decades have seen a growing awareness of the critical importance of preserving the world's biodiversity, especially the endangered fauna and flora. The world's cultural and linguistic diversity is no less important for the balanced development of our species.

Many people have contributed to acquiring knowledge of this human diversity, including my friends of many decades, the husband-wife team of Ovid Tzeng 曾志朗and Daisy Hung 洪蘭. Ovid is Chancellor of the University System of Taiwan and Daisy is Director of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at the National Central University. Over the years, Ovid and Daisy have visited numerous ethnic minorities in mainland China, often donating books and other materials to the local schools. Daisy has been especially active in contributing to the educational and social welfare of the Austronesian minorities in Taiwan.

There has been growing awareness in many fields of the importance of understanding human diversity. For instance, as reported by L.L. Cavalli-Sforza in Nature Reviews Genetics in 2005, the Human Genome Diversity Project was initiated to provide a more balanced perspective on human genetic difference. Similarly, in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), E.B. Falk et al. ask the critical question, 'What is a representative brain?' In relation to neuroscience, they observe that "a limitation of this fast moving research is that most findings are based on small samples of convenience". Clearly, there are important differences between my genes and my brain and those of the Pumi woman shown in the photograph.

Such differences were recently discussed in depth by a team of social scientists in a series of thought-provoking papers. In a 2010 issue of Nature, J. Henrich et al. remind us that 'Most people are not WEIRD'. The authors note that:

…anthropologists have long suggested: that people from Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic (WEIRD) societies—and particularly American undergraduates—are some of the most psychologically unusual people on Earth.

Basing our knowledge of human diversity primarily on studies of undergraduates in Western universities is surely unsuitable, not only for genetics and neuroscience, but also for understanding behaviour. We must not forget the lesson of the blind man and the elephant. The role of language is of paramount importance for appreciating human diversity, as it is the primary medium through which we understand the world and interact with others. As the French Nobel Laureate F. Jacob recently stated:

We mould our "reality" with our words and our sentences in the same way as we mould it with our vision and our hearing.

Let us return now to the question I posed at the beginning of this essay, 'Who are the Chinese?' It is clear that China is presently populated by diverse social groups that have been interacting with each other for at least six millennia, through love and war. We are the Hans, who have become the overwhelming majority over the millennia through assimilating our neighbours; we are the Manchus, who ruled China's last dynasty but have been largely absorbed into the majority; we are the Huis, with no language of our own to speak, but with a very distinct culture; and we are the Yaos, the Pumis, the Lisus, the Bais, the Mongols, the Tibetans, the Uighurs, the Tajiks and the many other groups that continue from their ancient sources. We are the composite of duo yuan yi ti 多元一體 that Fei Xiaotong spoke of.

As Chinese, we share many common genes and neural circuits, just as we share many traditions, loyalties, beliefs and behaviour. Of particular importance is our shared written language, which has glued us together for well over 3,000 years. However, all of these observations are just the tip of an immense iceberg that we should strive to understand in ever greater depth. Many of the communities in China's hinterlands are only just now being identified, and their languages have not yet been analysed. Moreover, the cultures and languages of many of China's small communities are fast becoming extinct. Knowledge of China's 'non-WEIRD' communities is surely crucial for understanding humanity in general.

To end this essay on a constructive note, on this 50th anniversary of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, our university recently established a new Joint Research Centre for Language and Human Complexity, or CLHC for short (see http://clhc.cuhk.edu.hk for a webpage under construction). Professors Virginia Yip  and Peng Gang of the Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages have contributed greatly to bringing this about, with support from the Vice Chancellor. Parallel centres are being set up at Peking University, directed by Professor Chen Baoya and at the University System of Taiwan, directed by Professor Ovid Tzeng.

We have included the term 'complexity' in the name of the CLHC to underscore the fact that recent developments in the study of complex adaptive systems have provided a promising multidisciplinary framework for guiding our investigations on questions of 'Chinese' and general 'human' difference. Like other cultural and physical systems, language is a complex adaptive system that is composed of many interacting subsystems, all of which are constantly and dynamically adapting to each other and to their external environments. 

To my mind, the establishment of the CLHC is an event of long, historical significance. We will adopt a multidisciplinary perspective that combines the insights of the humanities with the methods of sciences such as linguistics and cognitive neuroscience. Timeless literature and great science are both produced by the same marvellous brain of ours, and both are precious sources of insight for exploring the nature of human complexity. Our aim is to complement first-hand observations of human diversity in the field with behavioural laboratory experimentation and the powerful brain imaging technology that has been developed in recent decades.

The CLHC will initially focus on investigating the more unique characteristics of our languages and cultures, such as the tones we speak and the sinograms we write. Our investigations will also extend to broader questions, such as the relation between linguistic tone and the perception of music, and the neurocognitive bases of selective linguistic impairments, such as dyslexia, ageing and language loss. The hope is that some of the new knowledge acquired from these investigations will be of direct use to society.

Our aim will be to link our work to multilingualism, as is strongly exemplified in Hong Kong and is present to various extents throughout China. After all, Cantonese, Taiwanese and Putonghua are as different as French, Italian and Spanish. If our 'reality' is indeed moulded by our words and sentences, as the above quote from F. Jacob suggests, then what is this 'reality' like when we switch back and forth among distinct languages? Will it be possible to study this trafficking between languages with brain imaging? These questions are fundamental to understanding language and human complexity. Perhaps, when I next have the occasion to contribute to this bulletin, I will be able to offer readers some concrete findings from the CLHC.