well that dont really make no difference ,,portugese is a lot closer to chinese than english is so there is a head start and anyway he may have been chinese , just because he had dark hair dont make him portgese ,, dont be to quick to make asumptions ,

As far as I know one type of chinese is about like any other ,,, all sound the same to me .,, as far as I know no western person has learned any of them beyond a few words ,,,,, never seen any evendents that people can learn them ,,,

Some body said there are 'obvious linguistic reasons' why pin yin was not made the default ,,,,,, that person does not know what hes talkin about ,,,one need only look to the Dungan people of Russia to see that Chinese can be written entirely with an alphabet with no loss of meaning or function whatsoever, and zero need for Chinese characters. Seems that someone has bought into a popular sino-myth ,,,,

I wouldn't waist time on any time of chinese learning because ost of them speak english any way ,,,