The Chinese nation is a pluralistic family, with many different surnames, our common surnames have hundreds, called "hundreds of family names". The surname is of great significance to Chinese, it is not only the embodiment of the concept of clan, revealing the closeness and ethical relationship between people, but also a kind of "historical relic", a kind of imprint left by history in contemporary life.
Through surnames, we can trace history, review the historical changes that have occurred, understand the past of our ancestors, trace back to the roots, and enhance the cohesion of the Chinese nation.
"Eccentric Prince" China trip
The composition of Chinese surnames is particularly complex, out of the original surnames in the Central Plains, there are many ethnic minorities to change their surnames, for example, many Manchus later changed their surnames to Han surnames, and some ethnic groups will change their surnames because they avoid the emperor's era name, name, and avoid hunting. In addition, there are some surnames that flowed into China from other countries in the process of historical and cultural exchanges, and their ancestors may be foreigners, and the "An" surname may be like this.
Since Zhang Qian sent an envoy to the Western Regions during the Western Han Dynasty and opened up the Silk Road, the Central Plains region and the countries in the Western Regions have opened up frequent trade exchanges and cultural exchanges. At that time, there was a very strong empire in the Middle East, known as the Sabbath, and they were mainly descendants of the ancient Persians.
At that time, there was a prince named An Qing in the Sabbath Kingdom, who was a maverick and distinctive prince. Why is Prince An Qing different? Because as a prince, he had no interest in the throne, power, or politics, but instead "did not do his right work" and was obsessed with Buddhism. What is even more puzzling is that after the death of his father, he directly passed the throne to his uncle, but he became a monk and immersed himself in the practice of Buddhism.
Later, in order to be able to spread Buddhist ideas to the world, An Qing traveled all the way along the Silk Road to China to preach. After coming to Luoyang, the capital of the Han Dynasty at that time, An Qing was immediately attracted by the prosperity of Luoyang and the long-standing Central Plains culture, so he decided to settle in Luoyang from then on.
In order to facilitate their lives in the Central Plains, they began to simplify their surnames, taking the first character of the Sabbath Kingdom as their surname, and at the same time, began to intermarry with Han Chinese. In this way, An Qing, as the ancestor of the An clan, has since allowed the Persian bloodline to spread in the Central Plains.
The Grand Tang Dynasty and the tribute of all nations
There is also an interesting story about the history of the An surname, which is also related to the Sabbath states in the Western Regions. The Tang Dynasty was the most powerful empire in the history of the mainland, reaching the peak of the feudal historical dynasties of the mainland, especially the "rule of Zhenguan", which established the position of the Tang in world history.
The sheng tang meteorology attracted countless neighboring countries to worship at that time, and became vassals of the Tang Dynasty, showing the weather of "all nations coming to the dynasty". It is said that at that time, there was a nobleman called AnFuguo in the State of Rest, because he liked the Tang Culture very much and was attracted by the atmosphere of the Tang Dynasty at that time, so he brought more than 5,000 people to Chang'an to meet Li Shimin during the Zhenguan period, and brought Li Shimin a lot of rare treasures from the Western Regions.
Li Shimin longyan was overjoyed, thinking: People have come from afar to worship me, and they have brought so many gifts, so many people, and the row is so big, we as the host, as such a big empire, we can't look too stingy, that makes people laugh. Thinking of this, Li Shimin decided to also entertain An Fuguo and his party. Li Shimin not only left An Fuguo and his retinue and family in the Tang Dynasty, but also rewarded An Fuguo with an official position.
However, because there were more than 5,000 people in an annexation, the number of people was really a bit large, and it was really inconvenient to arrange for them to live in Chang'an, so they left Anfuguo and his family in Chang'an, and the rest scattered throughout the country. An Fuguo and the people who came to the Tang Dynasty with him changed their surname to An surname, and since then they have settled in the Central Plains, multiplying and spreading from generation to generation, so that they have today's An surname.
A multi-ethnic culture with a myriad of weather
The Chinese nation is a unified and diversified family, and Chinese culture has great inclusiveness and can accommodate everything in the world. Chinese culture is very magical, no matter what foreign culture, after coming to China, it will be assimilated by Chinese culture, corrected, and then become a part of Chinese culture, without changing the original face of Chinese culture and the most essential things.
From ancient times to the present, countless foreign cultures have spread from all over the world to China, but no foreign culture can change Chinese culture and homogenize Chinese culture, which is the biggest charm of Chinese culture - super inclusiveness and digestion ability.
Today, it is often seen that more and more foreign cultures and foreign festivals have become widely popular in China, and are sought after and welcomed by young people. There are often people who worry about whether we will blindly pursue Western culture and forget our own traditional culture. This concern is not unreasonable, but do we really need to be so pessimistic? In fact, as long as we carefully analyze it, we can find that after those so-called Western festivals entered China, they have basically changed their essence, but they have only retained the appearance of some Western festivals, and even the appearance is incomplete.
We take Christmas as an example, Christmas in foreign countries belongs to a religious holiday, is a Christian faith in the country of the holiday, China is not a Christian country, China's Christmas does not have the spiritual core of Christianity at all. On Christmas Eve in China, everyone gives each other apples because peace and the "apple" of "apple" are harmonic sounds, which mean praying for peace, and peace in the West are fundamentally different things. This Christmas Eve has been localized by Chinese culture. So, in essence, it was Chinese culture that changed Christmas, not Christmas that changed Chinese culture.
Conclusion: Chinese culture has a history of thousands of years, in the long history of these thousands of years, countless foreign cultures are like tributaries into the great river of Chinese culture, integrated into Chinese culture. We have such a long cultural history, we should have strong cultural self-confidence. After so many years, after many dynastic changes, cultural exchange events such as the Sabbath Country do not know how many times have occurred, and our Chinese culture has not been eroded, why do we not have the confidence to face those Western festivals today?
In the future, as long as our motherland is strong enough to become a prosperous world power like Datang, there will be countless foreign cultures that will take the initiative to integrate into our national culture, and we should carry the self-confidence and tolerance of a big country, bring good things first, and enrich Chinese culture through our own digestion and improvement, making it a part of our own culture.