I apologize for both my grammar mistakes, as English isn't my first language and second, for some of the ignorant questions/comments I'm about to make. Please bear with me

Dear Historians of the world,

I am one very confused person: I have been living in China for the past 3 years, and due my job, I get to read a lot about Chinese traditions and culture. I'm sorry I can't produce some of the articles, I work as a translator for a website, I can't really keep track of everything... Sorry. Anyways, Culture or WenHua as they call it, is a word they seem to really like here in China, it seems to me (and not just me) that there is this ingrained idea that Chinese is the only culture in the world. And the only surviving one too.

Ever since I can remember, I've heard that China has 5,000 years of history. On one hand, the love of Chinese for their culture inspired me to start digging on my own country's history and some others too. On the other, because at work I sometimes find some hmm let's just call them facts, that I am not sure I believe and some others that are just seem to reinforce this "only culture idea", I sometimes resort to my limited Internet resources to try to verify some of those facts. I'll give you some examples: one said that in 45 years, China had sent 21,000 doctors abroad and cured 200 million people in 49 countries; another one, China was trying to peacefully explore some gold mines during the Spanish rule over the Philippines, but the Spanish vilified Chinese and as a result, 25,000 of them ended up dead. Given that this is such a great number of deaths, I asked my colleague to produce anything where I could read about such massacre. But not only did she not even know the name of this incident, she couldn't find nothing but a brief mention on some old Chinese book.

This is why, my by now brainwaished brain has started to get suspicious over certain things. And now I'm troubled. Please bear with me once again, I sometimes can't investigate things on my own, due to Google and countless things being censored here.

I have read, and here goes my first question, that China's 5,000 years of history, was a response from Mao Zedong to Korea saying they had a history stretching back 8.000 years, and that the Chinese history was at some points so vague and confusing that it was kind of hard to get the gist of it, or even consider it as 'continuos' . Some website claimed that all in all, you could account Chinese history as going back 3,500 years tops.

Furthermore, I read that Iran was 7,000 old, and that also got me confused. So question number 1: is it true that China has 5,000 years of history? If not, do we just believe it out of sheer repetition?

The second long question of mine, revolves around a comparisson mostly between my home country (Mexico) and China. It's a bit disorganized, so be warned.

It is my understanding that the Chinese territory wasn't the same all through history, but has become bigger. China has, just like Mexico, 56 ethnicities (or indigenous groups as we call them home). I learned that corn domestication was achieved five thousand years ago in old Mexico.

Here are some similarities I find or think I find (and this is just my opinion) between both countries: both produced their own kind of ceramic (Mexico has something called talavera, with 2,000 years of history); while football was supposedly invented in China, there was an ancient ball game in Mexico too (could be the Tajin area); China gave tea to the world, Mexico gave them chocolate; China invented pinatas, while the conquistadors were surprised to find that one of the indigenous groups in Mexico also had something similar. The Olmecs invented some sort of compass, that just didn't catch on I guess. Both countries are family oriented, don't really mind much that whole personal space deal, food is such an obsession, etc.

But I wonder, how come China got more territories, and changed it's own configuration, is predominantly Han but at the same time has all these ethnicities; Mexico is predominantly mestizo but just like China, we have all these indigenous groups, but no official language, just a common one, or putonghua as Mandarin is called in Mandarin; China has had an ovethrown dynasty to become communist to become whatever it is today; while Mexico had emperors, had dictators, kings, presidents and whatever it is that we are today.

So how come China is considered so old, but Mexico seems to be considered old only by us Mexicans? or so is my perception.

While it's true that modern Mexico and it's language are the mix of two worlds, I think some of those indigenous groups survived the Conquista (just like Uigurs and Tibetans are still around under the Han), our language is stuffed with words of Latin/indigenous origin, and these indigenous groups are still around, so are they old or what are they?; our Day of the Dead tradition, has its origins 3,000 years ago, and by the seventies it became what it is today, some sort of pagan indigenous celebration mixed with Catholicism. I'm confused. Confused because China changed territories, I guess at its beginning it began as many tribes under one (maybe not, I don't know), has cultural diversity and some of its food, has ingredients native to other countries, but other countries, including mine, have been inhabited by the same people but migration affected them, just like China, have lost or gained territory, and yet it seems that China gets the credit of being the only continuous one... Why? Why not Iran as I asked before, and...

What exactly am I, as a Mexican, and what exactly is Mexico, as a territory inhabited for a few millennia, part of it destroyed, part of it still around, part of it evolved into a fusion of the old and the new?

Thank you for reading, and apologies for this confusing text, but I'm just so curious to hear some 'outsiders' voice, since I'm a bit biased.