Chapter 3
Lian and Ivo spent the following two days touring the village and its surroundings and interviewing almost all the villagers. The distinctive physiognomic differences with ethnic Han Chinese were remarkable. In fact, they were notably taller, their hair and beards were often brown, blond or red, their eyes blue or green. The features in general were Eastern, fruit of a prolonged crossbreeding during a period of two millennia. Lian needed an interpreter to communicate with most of the locals, since they did not speak Mandarin Chinese or any of the dialects that the anthropologist understood, coming mostly from the south of China. The local teacher offered to perform as a translator.
The story repeated with each of the testimonies of the settlers. All were aware of their physical
