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It's just used for convenience. I don't have a huge beef with it, and I'm 'Asian.' Some make a big deal out of being 'Asian' but to me it's just incidental, not something that defines me, just where my more recent ancestors happen to originate.
And nothing in common? I beg to differ. Rice is pretty much a pan-Asiatic thing. Take East and Southeast Asia: similar food staples, similar religions, the influence of Confucianism, the physical resemblance.etc.
I think this was discussed before on the World forum, but historically, South-East Asia belonged to South Asian civilization not East Asian civilization. Confucianism is a Chinese thing only in the Chinese sphere of influence such as Japan and Korea (I don't think of any of it existing in the native element of S. E Asian civilization, other than Chinese immigrants to it).
But I won't argue with someone who's got real South-East Asian street cred.
Rabindranath Tagore, the 19th and 20th century Bengali poet and first non-Western Nobel laureate (the guy that wrote India and Bangladesh's national anthems, being the only fellow to do so for two countries) was a big proponent of pan-Asianism (in part as a response to western colonialism etc.). He made friends with intellectuals in China, Japan, Persia etc. and saw Asian countries as sharing solidarity. He believed that eastern "spirituality" and "wisdom" or whatever could act as a counterbalance and/or actual complement to "western" hard power, which mainly manifested in superior technology/economics etc. His dream of Pan-Asian solidarity though was unfortunately put paid to by the fact that as Asian countries industrialized, they just ended up as countries do, fighting with each other (such as Pakistan vs. India, India vs. China, China vs. Japan).
As to Asian as a term, in the US, it refers to those peoples whose ancestries lie east of the Middle East.
Those cultures do have a lot in common geographically and environmentally. They are the rice-growing monsoonal civilizations (other areas lying to the west or north have different agricultural styles and ways of life such as pastoralism and use of "western"/Near Eastern crops).
Pan-Asian sentiment was also partly inspired by the fact that historically the religions of the area were called "eastern religions" contrasted with the Abrahamic religions (Jewish, Christian and Muslim) lying to the west.
Americans consider "Jewish" one of the four races? Wha?
Every Jewish person I work and associate with is of some type of Central European origin. I would never consider them another race other than "white"... and indeed, there ARE black Jews, Arab Jews, etc.
Well from now on we should just call these "asians" mongoloids.
Mongoloid [ˈmɒŋgəˌlɔɪd]adj (Social Science / Peoples) denoting, relating to, or belonging to one of the major racial groups of mankind, characterized by yellowish complexion, straight black hair, slanting eyes, short nose, and scanty facial hair, including most of the peoples of Asia, the Eskimos, and the North American Indians
Well from now on we should just call these "asians" mongoloids.
Mongoloid [ˈmɒŋgəˌlɔɪd]adj (Social Science / Peoples) denoting, relating to, or belonging to one of the major racial groups of mankind, characterized by yellowish complexion, straight black hair, slanting eyes, short nose, and scanty facial hair, including most of the peoples of Asia, the Eskimos, and the North American Indians
Almost no one in a social setting (not an academic one), at least that I know of, groups people that way (maybe anthropologists might, but not regular people).
No one would have a Cherokee and a Chinese sit down at the table, or a Filipino and Greenlandic Inuit sit and talk about how they are both Asian (contrary to any kind of shared physical appearance), while people would have an Indian and a Chinese sit down and talk about pan-Asian attributes like shared cuisine such as rice and curries, stereotypes about engineering or other college students, "eastern" religions, wearing red dresses by the bride in weddings, arranged marriages or at least family interference in dating and big extended families gatherings.
Being Asian, as defined in western culture is about cultural spheres, just like "western" is also defined by cultural sphere.
So why do so many Amercians' insist on referring to Asians and Blacks as if they were single people with single traits, habits, skills and faults?
It isn't just Americans who use the terms, and conversely other groups might refer to whites as if they were a single people when it could be a someone from Siberia, South Africa, or a Cajun from Louisiana all with different traits, habits, skills, and faults.
Arabs, Turks, Kurds and most other west Asians are Caucasian.
They might have a similar skull shape, but I have yet to meet one of those people's that I would classify as white. Their skin color is brown! Not to mention the vast array of cultural differences between people from the middle east and people from Europe. People from western Asia should have their own category.
Pan-Asian sentiment was also partly inspired by the fact that historically the religions of the area were called "eastern religions" contrasted with the Abrahamic religions (Jewish, Christian and Muslim) lying to the west.
Au contraire: Judaism and Islam are classified as Oriental (= East) religions; Christianity is the only Occidental (=West) religion.
They might have a similar skull shape, but I have yet to meet one of those people's that I would classify as white. Their skin color is brown! Not to mention the vast array of cultural differences between people from the middle east and people from Europe. People from western Asia should have their own category.
Race is based on the bone structure of the face, not the color of the skin,
Last edited by Walter Greenspan; 03-11-2012 at 01:54 PM..
I'm always puzzled that Americans seem to divide the world into 4 races - whites, Asians, Blacks and Jews. Realistically, the world is far, far more complex and suggesting there is a single "asian" people is counter-productive.
What do these people have in common?
1) A Muslim Pakistani soldier of Pathan origin, native language Urdu
2) A Flores Indonesian fisherman, Christian, of mixed Indonesian-Portuguese blood, native language Bahasa
3) A Cao Dao Buddhist Viet Namese doctor from Saigon, native language Viet Namese
4) A Buddhist monk from Pagan, Burma, native language Shan
5) A Hindu Tamil IT worker from Sri Lanka, native language Tamil
These people actually have nothing in common at all - not skin type, nor religion, nor language, nor lifestyle, nor genetic code nor ancestry nor common experience. Some may be natural enemies.
So why do so many Amercians' insist on referring to Asians and Blacks as if they were single people with single traits, habits, skills and faults?
Fail! There are three main races Negroid, Caucasian and Mongoloid. Indians racially speaking fall under the Caucasian category for the most part. You are confusing religion, ethnicity and culture for race.
They might have a similar skull shape, but I have yet to meet one of those people's that I would classify as white. Their skin color is brown! Not to mention the vast array of cultural differences between people from the middle east and people from Europe. People from western Asia should have their own category.
Walter is correct. Race has nothing to do with color. There are pgymy type aboriginal Asians (aka Negritos) who most would consider African. However in terms of DNA they are about as far as you can get from Sub Saharan Africans.
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