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Recently there was a conversation between my mother and a girl from my university, explaining that "Orientalistik" was studied there, whereby the "Orient" in this case referred to the Middle East, Persia and the Turkic lands, whereas my mother had always assumed that "Orient" referred to China, Japan and Korea.
Asia, in the original sense, meant the lands to the east of the Aegean, and was juxaposed with "Europe"- that is, with Greece. In this Grecocentric juxaposition, Europe represented liberty and civilization, whereas Persian-dominated Asia represented tyranny and slavery. For most of the middle ages, the geographical conception of Europe was less than concrete, and nations were culturally distinguished by their religious affiliations.
As we venture into the modern age, and increasingly diverse cultures are discovered by European exploration, we find that Europe again emerges as the juxaposed land of civilized peoples (hence to a 19th century gentleman, the boundaries of Europe lay not in the Urals, but at the Eastern Gate of Vienna.) Hence the connotation of "Asia," for the major part of the word's history, has not referred to the Pacific races but the peoples to the immediate East and South-East of Europe, and has meant something that was "not Europe."
Hence it is so easy to categorize this historically and culturally amorphous pseudo-continent as one entity; Asia doesn't represent something that is, but something that isn't.
Eventually, the importance of the mongoloid races in the Eastern portion of this continent outstripped their co-inhabitants in the other portions, and became themselves the most obvious representatives of the continent, usurping the word from its proper heirs.
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On December 13 2008 05:53 Hot_Bid wrote:
asian when directed at people has ethnic/racial meaning, it doesn't mean continental asian, so please stop getting hung up by that.
racially, indians are caucasian. they are not asian.
there is no asian race. The race of chinese korean and other yellow people is mongoloid. In the UK asian refers to pretty much exclusively people from south asia. Are they referring to an "asian race"? No, they aren't, because there is no "Asian" race.
On December 13 2008 05:29 3 Lions wrote:
A lot of Korean/Chinese/Japanese people in the US don't think of Indians as Asian. Personally, for me, Korean/Chinese/Japanese/Vietnamese/anything west of India and south of Russia is Asian, everything else is Middle-eastern or Russian or Indian.
This is pretty ignorant. I don't mean to nitpick but the impression from this comment and many other people's comments is that they assume the only south asian country is India. There are several south asian countries including pakistan, bangladesh, nepal. sri lanka, bhutan, etc.
Saying, "everything else is Middle-eastern or Russian or Indian". Do you classify everything in south asia as Indian? That seems pretty ignorant, and like some other people mentioned, would be offensive if you weren't from India.
On December 13 2008 00:04 Bosu wrote:
That being said I wouldn't refer to an asian person as yellow because they don't look yellow, asians look asian and indians look indian.
First of all, I'd like to say, the comment that "Asians look Asian" is not really a good choice of words because the question is regarding what Asian should mean.
Also I would want to state that in countries such as india and pakistan there is a very large range of in appearance, in skin colour as well as various other features. There are several different races which look quite distinct in these countries, and its actually quite hard to say what looks "indian". The fact is, "indian" is not a race either.
The reason why I have a problem with east-asian people being called simply "asian" is that first of all there is no asian race. By definition, Asian means a person of decent from a country in Asia. That is the only meaning that word has, and the only meaning it can ever have really. If somebody says. "you're not Asian, you're brown", what does this mean? I'm from Asia and I'm proud to be from Asia. People seem to think that these countries, (and I don't mean just India) aren't part of Asia or "technically" part of Asia. That offends me. To say "oh well, technically, South Asian people are from Asia, or are Asian". India and Indian culture has had a huge effect on the entire continent of Asia as a whole From South Asia to Central Asia to East Asia to South-East Asia. In fact, India is probably the most unifying thing throughout the continent.
For people of south Asian origin to not be considered as Asian is severely incorrect in my opinion. If the term Asian is to be used, there should be no reason why I should not be considered Asian. I wouldn't object to people from other parts of Asia being called Asian as well. But as it stands in North America this is not the case.
Perhaps I should have titled the thread differently so this issue would be more clearly stated, however it really doesn't matter much anyways I suppose.
I wish people actually knew a bit of history about the continent before making stupid remarks like "India is not really a part of Asia" or talking about the "Asian Race".
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CA10828 Posts
then should anyone from north or south america be called american? i mean technically it's correct, right?
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yellow skinned = chinese, korean, japanese. Yeah that whole bit
asians = people of asia.
my dad always called it gold (if you translate it directly from chinese)
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Braavos36375 Posts
i think the OP just can't get over little technical inconsistencies. honestly, who cares if the description is not 100% correct, why are you so up in arms? is it some personal thing where you think you should be called asian but some idiots call you brown? who cares?
Asian has colloquially come to mean East Asian, just like millions of words have come to mean something different than their literal definitions. Accept it.
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8748 Posts
On December 16 2008 15:26 Hot_Bid wrote:
i think the OP just can't get over little technical inconsistencies. honestly, who cares if the description is not 100% correct, why are you so up in arms? is it some personal thing where you think you should be called asian but some idiots call you brown? who cares?
Asian has colloquially come to mean East Asian, just like millions of words have come to mean something different than their literal definitions. Accept it.
yep yep
usage notes in the dictionary at dictionary.com explain pretty well:
Usage Note: Asia is the largest of the continents with more than half the world's population. Though strictly speaking all of its inhabitants are Asians, in practice this term is applied almost exclusively to the peoples of East, Southeast, and South Asia as opposed to those of Southwest Asia—such as Arabs, Turks, Iranians, and Kurds—who are more usually designated Middle or Near Easterners. Indonesians and Filipinos are properly termed Asian, since their island groups are considered part of the Asian continent, but not the Melanesians, Micronesians, and Polynesians of the central and southern Pacific, who are now often referred to collectively as Pacific Islanders. See Usage Note at Oriental.
Usage Note: Asian is now strongly preferred in place of Oriental for persons native to Asia or descended from an Asian people. The usual objection to Oriental—meaning "eastern"—is that it identifies Asian countries and peoples in terms of their location relative to Europe. However, this objection is not generally made of other Eurocentric terms such as Near and Middle Eastern. The real problem with Oriental is more likely its connotations stemming from an earlier era when Europeans viewed the regions east of the Mediterranean as exotic lands full of romance and intrigue, the home of despotic empires and inscrutable customs. At the least these associations can give Oriental a dated feel, and as a noun in contemporary contexts (as in the first Oriental to be elected from the district) it is now widely taken to be offensive. However, Oriental should not be thought of as an ethnic slur to be avoided in all situations. As with Asiatic, its use other than as an ethnonym, in phrases such as Oriental cuisine or Oriental medicine, is not usually considered objectionable.
language sucks sometimes but it shouldn't ever fail. if you feel like your message isnt being properly conveyed, then use more words to fix it. if you fail, then you just suck at communication. don't blame it on language. also, if the person you're talking to gets the wrong message, and you try to correct it, and they are stubborn and refuse, then they suck at communication. language isnt the problem. hiding behind what a dictionary says = big lol. come out of your hole shy nerds!
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i never want to fall into the shy nerd hole
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It's not politically correct to address any of the races by their skin colors, as none of them are actually pale white, yellow (who the fuck has skin color yellow wtf?) or black.
However it does not carry the same magnitude as the word 'yellow'. The term 'white' was never used with a degrading connotation, in fact it was the other way around, it was historically used to express their superiority over other races. On the other hand, "yellow" or the "yellow peril" was used derogatorily in early 20th century by North Americans to describe immigrants from China and other East Asians. The term 'brown' however was never used in this way. It was merely created out of need to identify the South Asians separately.
+ Show Spoiler +
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If it offends you when your called "yellow" does this mean you never ever say "the black guy" "the white guy"
I am assuming you say the african american.... the caucasion?
i highly doubt this.. if it offends you look away honestly i dont care it it does or not thats just plain RETARTED
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On December 16 2008 20:30 GearitUP wrote:
If it offends you when your called "yellow" does this mean you never ever say "the black guy" "the white guy"
I am assuming you say the african american.... the caucasion?
i highly doubt this.. if it offends you look away honestly i dont care it it does or not thats just plain RETARTED
Haven't you heard of a song by James Brown "Say It Loud I'm Black and I'm Proud? Have you ever heard an Asian man say " I'm Yellow and I'm Proud?" It was African Americans who promoted the word 'black' in place of 'negro' as a result of civil rights movement in the 1960's. Asians on the other hand never label themselves as 'yellow'.
The term 'white' was never used derogatorily. It was historically used to express their superiority over other races. The phrases 'Yellow peril' and "yellow danger" were however used with strong negative sentiment to describe immigrants from China and Japan throughout 19~ 20th century.
Now you see why there is diference.
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dang... that sux DONT CALL ME WHITE I M GOING TO CRY --v
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On December 16 2008 15:26 Hot_Bid wrote:
i think the OP just can't get over little technical inconsistencies. honestly, who cares if the description is not 100% correct, why are you so up in arms? is it some personal thing where you think you should be called asian but some idiots call you brown? who cares?
Asian has colloquially come to mean East Asian, just like millions of words have come to mean something different than their literal definitions. Accept it.
Are you "Asian"?
I'm not up in arms; I'm trying to explain how it sounds retarded if somebody says your not Asian to me. It's like they associate me with India or something, as if India is a continent. If you are Korean or Japanese and they consider you Chinese, they get really upset about it. I don't have the same animosity or sentiments, but I am still not Indian.
If you say I'm complaining about little technical inconsistencies, then what's the problem if I call East Asian people yellow? There are a lot of them which look yellow to me. If not all of them are yellow, its just a little technical inconsistency, just like how there are a lot of black people who's skin color is more brown than black, or how there are a lot of South Asian people who's skin color is tan or white.
Also once again to note, the use of the term Asian for East Asians isn't universal. In the UK , exclusively means South Asian, so its not like the whole world unanimously thinks that Asia = East Asia.
I think everybody should strive towards more accurate terms for ethnic groups; I am just expressing my sentiments regarding the matter, and I am interested and appreciate reading different people's opinion on the matter.
One other thing HotBid, first you started talking about the "Asian Race" and stating that's why Asian=Asian Race, now you blame me for not being able get over little technical inconsistencies. If you have a problem with what I'm saying that's fine. But listen, terms and words in English change all the time. Nothing is set in stone.
There are people who are more educated and less ignorant to know there is no "Asian Race" but using an incorrect term may make people have stupid contrary assumptions. There are a lot of people who don't even think that India and other South Asian countries aren't even part of Asia! I blame this due to the use of this incorrect term.
It's like if you have some pride in being part of Europe, but people don't even think that your country is in Europe. Not sure if that is a good analogy, but haha maybe somebody will get what i'm saying.
Like some Chinese people told me that Buddha is Chinese. And then one person said a lot of people think that Buddha probably came from China.
And just because something means something in North American English, I don't have to accept it. If black people didn't like the term "colored person" or "negro" or "nigger" they didn't have to just accept it.
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Calling Chinese/Koreans/Japanese 'yellow' just because North Americans do not categorize India/EMEA under 'Asia' is like slapping person B for person A's deed.
However since whining here certainly will not make any difference to the North America's general public opinion, the only realistic viable solution that I can suggest is that you start to call Eastern Asians 'yellow' for the sake of 'balance' and when confronted for it, explain the logic and the idea behind it to avoid getting beaten.
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On December 17 2008 01:05 1tym wrote:
Calling Chinese/Koreans/Japanese 'yellow' just because North Americans do not categorize India/EMEA under 'Asia' is like slapping person B for person A's deeds.
However since whining here certainly will not make any difference to the North America's general public opinion, the only realistic viable solution that I can suggest is that you start to call Eastern Asians 'yellow' for the sake of 'balance' and when confronted for it, explain the logic and the idea behind it to avoid getting beaten.
lol i call east asians yellow and they don't have a problem at school all the time. i didn't even know until this thread that some of you think its offensive. I personally don't see a problem at all...
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On December 16 2008 15:26 Hot_Bid wrote:
i think the OP just can't get over little technical inconsistencies. honestly, who cares if the description is not 100% correct, why are you so up in arms? is it some personal thing where you think you should be called asian but some idiots call you brown? who cares?
Asian has colloquially come to mean East Asian, just like millions of words have come to mean something different than their literal definitions. Accept it.
Just like calling every black person African-American.
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I explained perfectly in my previous posts why it may be offensive to call Eastern Asians 'yellow' as opposed to calling caucasians 'white' or African Americans 'black' so good luck with that in the future.. It would be like playing Russian roullette.. Obviously your friends at school will not find it offensive..
P.S It's never about what you think is 'offensive' personally. It's always about what counter parties may find 'offensive'
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black, yellow, white.
I'm not a racist so I can't see anything offending in those words.
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Ahahaha. To be fair, some of the native Koreans assume that the random caucasians they see on the street are Americans as they cannot really tell the difference..
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/0501/18/simpsons.jpg)
