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The term "Han" comes from the Chinese Han dynasty, which ruled China from 206 B.C. to 220 A.D. It was an era of political, artistic and cultural achievement in China and a period on which Chinese look back with pride. China in those days occupied a much smaller portion of modern China, in the eastern half of the present borders. Since then, ethnic Chinese have been referred to as "Hans."

Approximately 1.25 billion of China's 1.3 billion people are of Han ethnicity. The remaining 55 million of China's people are from ethnic minorities, of whom the most well-known outside China are Uighurs (living in Xinjiang in northwest China), Tibetans, Mongols and Manchus. Some of China's minorities have been effectively Sinicized and display little distinct cultural or ethnic character from Hans. Tibetans and Uighurs have not been Sinicized.

Prejudice toward Tibetans among Hans is fairly widespread, but by no means universal. Many Hans recall earlier periods of Chinese history when Tibetans were regarded as fierce warriors and fighters, inspiring both admiration and fear among Hans. The negative assessment among some Hans toward Tibetans probably stems in large measure from the lower standard of living enjoyed by Tibetans, and to the fact that minority populations like Tibetans are statistically so small amidst China's vast population that they are seen as strange and different. Chinese have considerable pride in their language and culture, and since the Tibetans do not share either they are frequently seen as inferior, meaning not Chinese.

"Han" is the Chinese word that is generally translated as "Chinese" in English. Hence, the term "Han Chinese" is -- in a sense -- redundant. The term is used to designate the ethnic majority of the People's Republic of China. The PRC counts 56 ethnic groups, including the Han. The Han constitute about 92 percent of the population, with 55 "ethnic minorities" constituting the remainder. The Tibetans are counted as one of these 55, numbering approximately 5 million, with about half residing in the Tibet Autonomous Region and the other half living in ethnic Tibetan regions to the east of the TAR, in the provinces of Xinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan.

China and Tibet have a long history, during which the Chinese have certainly regarded Tibetans as different, and, in many ways, inferior, a people who are wild, uncivilized, bathe infrequently, speak a different language, have an unpalatable cuisine and practice a strange religion. In Chinese, the word for Buddhism is fo jiao, the teachings of the Buddha; the word for Tibetan Buddhism is lama jiao, the teachings of the lamas. This latter term is the source of the English word "Lamaism," a pejorative term for Tibetan Buddhism.