Most multicultural cities in Asia? (interesting, country, place, people)

[macjr82]

WhenI think mutli-cutural, I think multi-national. the peopel you see from different countries, the available cuisines from different countries. A place with a cosmopolitan feel. I think this is themsot widely accepted use of multi cultural, in fact. Cosmoplitan, in internationlaism, it literally means a city/place or person that embraces its multicultural demographics.

[Selurong]

Originally Posted by Smtchll

ehh. Well the Philippines has more than 100 ethnolinguistic groups, so Manila is probably very multicultural. But since most of those ethnic groups look the same, people dont think of it as multi-cultural. I guess when we mean multi-cultural, we really mean multi-racial, even if all those people speak the same language, share the same religion, and culture.

Have you completely disregarded our history?

Manila has the world's oldest Chinatown (Bindondo), the only area in Asia which holds Latinos (Cavite) and has native names in Chinese, Arabic, Sanskrit and Spanish: "東都" (Dongdu), كوتا سلودونڠ (Kota Saludong), "षेलुरोन्ग्" (Selurong) and Nuevo Reino de Castilla (New Kingdom of Castille) back when Huang Gatchalian, Sultan Bolkiah, Maharajah Hayam Wuruk and Conquistador de Legaspi ruled Manila.

What's non-sensical is that refugee centers like New Yuck are deemed Multi-cultural but an area contested by 9 major wars between several transcontinental powers...

Manila...

Isn't?

Besides, it's not us Filipinos who push this, it's foreigners themselves! Those guys invaded, bloodied and destroyed our city 9 times and the place has changed culture and religion because they deemed possession of the city crucial to their empire..

Also around 9 times, we have dutifully and diligently rebuilt our city over and over again despite these waves of devastating occupation.

And now, you have the gall to claim that a refugee center like New Yuck or Ontario-Canada have more of a right to be called a Multicultural City compared to our bloodied, war-torn, land which has paid for the status of being a global city, with multiple invasions?

Frankly, you are insulting us, by not acknowledging this.

And this is equivalent to saying that Wellington New Zealand is more Multicultural than Jerusalem.

Just because New Zealand has more refugees and a higher range or races there. Completely ignoring the fact that Jerusalem has layers of Arab, Jewish, Crusader, Roman, Greek, Phoenecian and blahblahblah influence showing in it's culture and ruins. And also has been the contested battle-field of around 12 cultures and has been leveled by 12 wars too.

You can also see the same thing in Manila; which have varying layers of culture, i.e: the Laguna Copperplate Inscription showed an Indianized Era, the Tarsillas showed Islamic rule under Sultan Bolkiah, or the Manila Galleons, union with the Mexican Viceroyalty of New Spain and then the ruins of the Art Deco structures gutted during the Second World War, showed CLEAR American colonialism.

Get your brain back into you head.

Wellington is not more multicultural than Jerusalem.
New York is not more multicultural than Manila.

Merely because of the fact that there is a higher range of refugees in those places (Wellington and New York).

The Exhibit A, is in the history.

How many ruins of crusader castles are there in Wellington as compared to Jerusalem? How many Romance of Don Juan are there in New York as compared to Manila?

Perspective.

[Selurong]

Originally Posted by OyCrumbler

In the way that there are so many in the continent of Asia and having Manila as the most multicultural city in Asia is ridiculous outside of creating an extremely limited and generally ridiculous definition of multicultural?

I'm sure that for any city or country there will be natives who will blindly vote for their city or capital, but the question would be who outside of the natives would vote the same?

Read my above post.

Do you think refugee centers like New Yuck can compare?

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by Selurong

Read my above post.

Do you think refugee centers like New Yuck can compare?

Yea, obviously I do. I think your definition of multicultural is really idiosyncratic and obviously most people seem to disagree with it.

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by Smtchll

ehh. Well the Philippines has more than 100 ethnolinguistic groups, so Manila is probably very multicultural. But since most of those ethnic groups look the same, people dont think of it as multi-cultural. I guess when we mean multi-cultural, we really mean multi-racial, even if all those people speak the same language, share the same religion, and culture.

Yea, I can definitely buy that argument, but that kind of argument definitely lends itself to an argument that'd be even stronger for Indian megacities which would draw upon even larger and more distinct within-country ethnolinguistic groups (and even with a lot of people who actually look significantly different). So an argument on those grounds, while it does highlight the kind of diversity you can find in Manila, Indian cities like Delhi and Mumbai seems to have an stronger argument.

This forum does slant a lot more towards Southeast Asia, then East Asia, than it does to South Asia, Central Asia, Western Asia (Iranian plateau, Anatolian peninsula, Arabian peninsula, the Levant, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus) which is a bit of a shame since those are all huge and diverse regions which were arguably far more trafficked and more significant cultural crossroads.

[Selurong]

Originally Posted by OyCrumbler

Yea, obviously I do. I think your definition of multicultural is really idiosyncratic and obviously most people seem to disagree with it.

Why is it idiosnycratic? Doesn't Manila, which has the world's oldest Chinatown (Binondo) and the only Latino municipality in Asia (Cavite). Does not qualify it to be more multicultural that the other's who say that Singapore is? (Has no Latino-area and is a modern Chinatown compared to Binondo, which is the world's oldest Chinatown).

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by Selurong

Why is it idiosnycratic? Doesn't Manila, which has the world's oldest Chinatown (Binondo) and the only Latino municipality in Asia (Cavite). Does not qualify it to be more multicultural that the other's who say that Singapore is? (Has no Latino-area and is a modern Chinatown compared to Binondo, which is the world's oldest Chinatown).

The Chinese have had a presence in southeast Asia and other parts of Asia well before the establishment in Binondo without having to establish an official chinatown and ghettoize the Chinese population who had previously not had to have those restrictions for the several centuries prior. What, did you think it had to take Spanish domination of the Philippines in order for other cultures to have discovered maritime trade and settlement? Is your mind that thoroughly colonized?

Having a latino municipality is great, but does that hedge against the greco-buddhist syncretic religions of century past or any of the other myriad fusions and crossroads throughout the Old World? Does it matter there were other much larger European, latino or not, throughout Asia? If you're arguing on the level of how far in the past these influences are, then Manila is going to be late to the party. If you argue on a very idiosyncratic level of it having to fit exactly what happened to Manila, then surely you've got a good argument, but nothing otherwise especially as most suggestions so far have been about distinct communities that currently exist.

[neMarL]

Originally Posted by OyCrumbler

The Chinese have had a presence in southeast Asia and other parts of Asia well before the establishment in Binondo without having to establish an official chinatown and ghettoize the Chinese population who had previously not had to have those restrictions for the several centuries prior. What, did you think it had to take Spanish domination of the Philippines in order for other cultures to have discovered maritime trade and settlement? Is your mind that thoroughly colonized?

Having a latino municipality is great, but does that hedge against the greco-buddhist syncretic religions of century past or any of the other myriad fusions and crossroads throughout the Old World? Does it matter there were other much larger European, latino or not, throughout Asia? If you're arguing on the level of how far in the past these influences are, then Manila is going to be late to the party. If you argue on a very idiosyncratic level of it having to fit exactly what happened to Manila, then surely you've got a good argument, but nothing otherwise especially as most suggestions so far have been about distinct communities that currently exist.

Then why was the oldest Chinatown located in Manila? Does that suggest that a more substantial, saturated, prominent and intellectual number was situated in Manila? Can you shed more light on your take of this side of history as it happened.

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by neMarL

Then why was the oldest Chinatown located in Manila? Does that suggest that a more substantial, saturated, prominent and intellectual number was situated in Manila? Can you shed more light on your take of this side of history as it happened.

Because chinatowns are a fairly modern construct from when there was heavy enforced segregation and much less integration so these segregated neighborhoods would keep going? These were built because these were legally enforced segregated neighborhoods meant to keep people easily contained and destroyed if deemed necessary.

There were overseas Chinese communities from hundreds of years prior to the establishment of the Manila chinatown--most of them ended up being assimilated especially if they went really far, but others became subcultures within those new homes.

The probably most numerous of these would be those in the Malay peninsula and surrounding islands since that was such a valuable trade route. Those communities still exist as Peranakan Chinese/Baba-Nyonya and that started with a smaller first wave in the 10th century and then became much larger with another wave starting in the beginning of the 15th century. However, they didn't become ghettoized into a single Chinatown, but were instead settled throughout and had a lot of freedom of movement. This became much less so as trade become the monopoly of colonial powers who had strong incentives for controlling, regulating, and taxing trade.

Also in the same region in overlapping eras would be a lot of Indian influence, especially those of the previously dominant Tamil kingdoms.

It's interesting that both groups had long standing communities in the region and that was only magnified during the colonial era when even more came in as laborers and traders. The Malacca straits region were always international as it had been a major international trade route for about a millennium and a half.

[Chava61]

Originally Posted by Davy-040

I think Tel Aviv and Pattaya should be in the top 10 instead of Beijing and Mumbai

I definitely think that Tel Aviv is more international/multicultural than Beijing.