The proper label for the culture that the book hopes to build must satisfy three criteria.

First, culture must be the core of its very definition.

Second, it should include key elements of race (i.e., bloodlines) and ethnicity, but not constrained by countries or geographic locations.

Finally, it must be broad and inclusive, with the potential to encompass all those with the same heritage.

The obvious candidate for such a label is Chinese. The second and much less well-known candidate is Hua. Unfortunately, neither of these two labels completely satisfies the desired criteria.

After extensive research and testing with various groups of people, I settled on a new word that is a combination of two Chinese characters, Hua (华) and Li (礼). Li is a word used before the time of Confucius to denote the proper ways of living and interacting with others, such as family members, non-kinship groups, authorities, etc. Li includes (but is not limited to) rituals, as it is sometimes misunderstood. I used Hua to represent the genetic dimension of the new label, following its current use, and Li to represent the cultural dimension of the new label, without strict adherence to literal meanings of the characters, which are imprecise and lack consensus.

why hualish