Do Asian people consider Pakistanis "Asian"? (facts, life, 2014)

[Jeep.Wrangler]

East Asians tend to identify people more along ethnic lines rather than as the broad category of "Asian". It's pretty uncommon to hear anyone use "Asian" in the pan-Asian sense over there. To Chinese for example, Indians are "Indian people", Japanese are "Japanese people", and so on. That said, there is general of sense of cultural groupings like "western people/westerners", muslims, Indian (South Asian) and this is where Pakistanis might be lumped in with Indians and other South Asians. Here is the US, East Asians identify much more with "Asian", including South Asians.

[eugene_allen]

I don't think Asian people consider the people on the west side of the Asian continent, which means the side that passes beyond Myanmar and China borders, Asians. I think the term "Asian" actually indicates the "Oriental Asian" only. Indians are just....Indians. Yeah, I find it very "confusing" when in the US census forms and sorts, they put Indians and Pakistanis as "Asian" but in real life, nobody sees them the same as the "Asians" we're so get used to. Should they add another category for people from the west side of the Asian continent?

[mr bolo]

even though Indians / Pakistanis are asians they look more racially related to middle eastern people, arabs, Kurds, Persian, Afghan, etc

they're definitely from a different racial group than an eastern asian

[Xeoldjk]

In Hong Kong, Pakistanis are regarded as South Asians along with Indians, Nepalis, Sri Lankan and Bangladeshis. People in that city do not really care which specific country or region a South Asian originated. They also classified all white people from different countries as just Whites. However, they classified Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Thai, Filipino, Indonesians distinictively.

It's kinda interesting watching Chinese actors acting as Japanese military officers and soilders, speaking in Japanese with Chinese subtitles on Mailand Chinese TV channels. They do really look like Japanese on the TV.

[Xeoldjk]

People who are not familiiar with other countries make the mistake.
Malaysians and Indonesians also dress in muslim ways, people in SE and East Asia do not consider them as Middle Easterners.

When I was a kid, I thought people in Israel and Cyprus look like Asian, so I was wrong.

Originally Posted by markovian process

I don't understand when people think that anyone who is Muslim or from a predominantly Muslim country is Middle Eastern (or vice versa).

Would the same people who say Pakistanis are Middle Eastern also think the same for Muslim Somalians, Bosnians or Malaysians? What about American-born white or black converts to Islam?

[Xeoldjk]

It is easy to tell Filipino from Indonesians by the way they dress and the level of english.

Originally Posted by The Postman

Yeah of course it's ignorance...I think they'd be able to tell Malaysians aren't Middle Eastern though.

[WoodstockSchool1980]

Of course someone from Pakistan is Asian. If you're from Asia, what else would you be?

The idea that only east Asians are to be called "Asian" is kinda dumb, if you ask me.

[Ihavemanyprcgfss]

The whole idea is South Asians are Caucasians, not Mongoloids.
Chinese(main exception being Uygurs), Mongols, Koreans, Japanese, Okinawans, Mainland SE Asians(Vietnamese, Lao, Thai, Burmese, Nepalis, Bhutans, Sikkim) are obviously Mongoloids.

[WoodstockSchool1980]

Originally Posted by Ihavemanyprcgfss

The whole idea is South Asians are Caucasians, not Mongoloids.
Chinese(main exception being Uygurs), Mongols, Koreans, Japanese, Okinawans, Mainland SE Asians(Vietnamese, Lao, Thai, Burmese, Nepalis, Bhutans, Sikkim) are obviously Mongoloids.

What does that have to do with it? "Asian" means "from Asia", right? I know that some people use it to refer only to east Asians, and in that case they should say "east Asians" or something else, not "Asian" imo.

[415_s2k]

I don't think anyone here considers South Asians "Asian." Kind of like people in North America, they generally think of South Asians as their own group, even if they are indisputably in Asia, and the people always have been here. It's largely split along lines of appearance.

As previously mentioned, people in Asia generally think of individual nationalities before they think "Asian," but when they do think "Asian" as far as people are concerned, in my experience they think of the region from China to the East and the South. To the West is where India, and they don't generally immediately discern the difference between Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi, etc.

Part of it is cultural, too: East and Southeast Asia are more directly influenced by Chinese culture (the Sinosphere) and India and South Asia have their own, separate dominant culture that is equally ancient.