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Sichuanese people
四川人 / 川人 / 川渝人

The Golden Sun Bird, a rediscovered artifact of the Ba–Shu culture, believed to be a totem of the ancient Shu people, [1] and the emblem of Chengdu since 2011. [2]
Regions with significant populations
Mainland China	Sichuan Chongqing
Taiwan	As part of Mainlander population
Languages
Historically Ba–Shu Chinese, also known as Old Sichuanese. Presently Sichuanese dialects of Southwestern Mandarin.
Religion
Traditionally Mahayana Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and Chinese folk religion, but also Christianity (see Christianity in Sichuan) and Islam (see Islam in Sichuan)
Related ethnic groups
other Han Chinese, Yi people, Tujia people, Qiang people

The Sichuanese people ^[a] are a Han Chinese subgroup comprising most of the population of China's Sichuan province and the Chongqing municipality.

History

Sichuanese people in a Taoist religious procession. Reliefs from the Taoist Temple of Saints Erzhu [ zh] and Yang Xiong (Temple of West Mountain), Mianyang, 7th–10th century. Photographs by Victor Segalen, mission archéologique en Chine, 1914.

Beginning from the 9th century BC, Shu (on the Chengdu Plain) and Ba (which had its first capital at Enshi City in Hubei and controlled part of the Han Valley) emerged as cultural and administrative centers where two rival kingdoms were established. Although eventually the Qin dynasty destroyed the kingdoms of Shu and Ba, the Qin government accelerated the technological and agricultural advancements of Sichuan making it comparable to that of the Yellow River Valley. The now-extinct Ba–Shu language was derived from Qin-era settlers and represents the earliest documented division from Middle Chinese.

South Sichuan was also inhabited by the Dai people who formed the serfs class. They were later thoroughly sinicized, adopting the local language of speech. Large numbers of foreigner merchant families from Sogdia, Persia and other countries immigrated to Sichuan.

During the Yuan and Ming dynasties, the population of Sichuan, Chongqing had been reduced due to immigration, deportation and flight of refugees fleeing war and plague, new or returning settlers from modern Hunan, Hubei, Guangdong and Jiangxi, replacing the earlier spoken language with different languages they adopted from the former regions to form a new standard language off communication. ^{[3] [4] [5]}

Recent history

Many migrant workers from rural Sichuan have migrated to other parts of the country, where they often face discrimination in employment, housing etc. ^[6] This is due to China's household registration policy and other parts of people from midwest China face the same problem.

Language

The Sichuanese once spoke their own variety of spoken Chinese called Ba–Shu Chinese, or Old Sichuanese before it became extinct during the Ming dynasty. Now most of them speak Sichuanese Mandarin. The Minjiang dialects are thought by some linguists to be a bona fide descendant of Old Sichuanese due to many characteristics of Ba–Shu Chinese phonology and vocabulary being found in the dialects, ^[7] but there is no conclusive evidence whether Minjiang dialects are derived from Old Sichuanese or Southwestern Mandarin.

Cuisine

Sichuan is well known for its spicy cuisine and use of Sichuan peppers due to its more arid climate.

Notable people

Well known Sichuanese people are such as:

• Ba Jin (1904–2005), author and political activist
• Bai Ling (1966–), actress
• Chang Dai-chien (1899–1983), artist
• Zhang Qun (1889–1990), premier of the Republic of China
• Fala Chen (1982–), actress
• Chen Pokong (1963–), author, political commentator and democracy activist
• Chen Shou (233–297), official and writer
• Cheung Chung-kiu (1964–), business magnate
• Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997), revolutionary and paramount leader of China
• GAI (1988–), rapper, singer, and songwriter
• Guo Moruo (1892–1978), author, poet, historian, archaeologist, and government official
• Huang Jiguang (1931–1952), highly decorated soldier during the Korean War
• Jiang Zhuyun (1920–1949), revolutionary martyr
• Li Bai (701–762), poet
• Li Bifeng (1965–), activist, poet and Christian
• Li Shou-min, better known as Huanzhulouzhu (1902–1961), novelist of the xianxia fantasy genre
• Li Shunxian ( c. 900–926), Persian-Sichuanese poet
• Liu Yonghao (1952–), businessman
• Li Yifeng (1987–), actor and singer
• Li Yuchun (1984–), singer, songwriter, and actress
• Liao Yiwu (1958–), author, reporter, musician, poet, and critic of China's Communist regime
• Luo Ruiqing (1906–1978), army officer and politician
• Empress Dowager Ma (Southern Ming) (1578–1669), birth mother of the Yongli Emperor, a convert to Roman Catholicism
• Sanyu (painter) (1901–1966)
• Song Cheng-tsi (1892–1955), Anglican bishop
• Song Yonghua (1964–), scholar
• Su Shi (1037–1101), writer, poet, painter, calligrapher, pharmacologist, gastronome, and statesman
• Su Xun (1009–1066), writer
• Su Zhe (1039–1112), politician and essayist
• Tan Weiwei (1982–), singer and actress
• Tang Chun-i (1909–1978), philosopher and scholar
• Wang Jiujiang (1957–), painter
• Wang Jianlin (1954–), business magnate, investor, and philanthropist
• Wang Xiaoya (1968–), television host and media personality
• Wang Yi (1973–), Calvinist pastor and human rights advocate
• Xu Youyu (1947–), scholar
• Stephen Yang (1911–2007), surgeon, medical educator, and Quaker peace activist
• Yang Xiong (53 BC – 18 AD), poet, philosopher, and politician
• Y. C. James Yen (1890/1893–1990), educator
• Lucy Yi Zhenmei (1815–1862), Roman Catholic saint
• Yu Jie (1973–), Calvinist democracy activist
• Yue Yiqin (1914–1937), flying ace
• Zhang Lan (1872–1955), political activist
• Zhang Yong (1969/1970–), Singapore's richest man in 2019
• Zhao Yiman (1905–1936), resistance fighter
• Zheng Ji (1900–2010), nutritionist and pioneering biochemist
• Zhu De (1886–1976), ex-warlord, later revolutionary and father of the People's Liberation Army
• Zhuo Wenjun ( fl. 2nd century BC), poet
• Zou Rong (1885–1905), revolutionary martyr

See also

• Erlang Shen
• Jinsha site
• Sanxingdui
• Sichuan opera
• Clothing in ancient Shu
• Catholic Church in Sichuan
• Protestantism in Sichuan

Notes

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sichuanese people.