Let's go see Sam in Atlantic City

[Section A]

>> Of course, I call people from India, the Middle East, Singapore and Indonesia Asians, too.



And they are Asian. It's interesting; I'm Indian (i.e. my parents are from India), and once I said something to the effect of being Asian or something and someone said, with much conviction, "You're not Asian, you're Indian!" I responded with, "No, actually India is part of south Asia," to which the reply was, "Yeah but that's not REALLY Asia." I guess the term "Asian" somehow became a term to use for people of Chinese, Korean, or Japanese descent. Not that I really care anyway; it's just kind of interesting...


(By the way, since this thread was originally about Paolini, I thought I'd mention that I think I'm going to see him play at the Dayton (OH) Bombers over winter break.)



Post Edited (11-13-03 15:04)

[Becca]

As long as we're this far off topic....  I spent this past summer in Scotland, and the BBC was forever mentioning the "Asian community" of the UK, or describing someone in the news as "Asian", etc - it took me a month (of not being very attentive to the TV) to realize they meant "Indian"! As Avash said, India's in Asia and there's no reason not to describe people from there as Asian - but to me the terms have never been interchangeable. I think that's because over here the word Asian has become associated with physical characteristics more than geography.

On a briefer note, LGR!



Post Edited (11-13-03 17:11)

[Will]

Avash '05 wrote:

It's interesting; I'm Indian (i.e. my parents are from India), and once I said something to the effect of being Asian or something and someone said, with much conviction, "You're not Asian, you're Indian!" I responded with, "No, actually India is part of south Asia," to which the reply was, "Yeah but that's not REALLY Asia." I guess the term "Asian" somehow became a term to use for people of Chinese, Korean, or Japanese descent. Not that I really care anyway; it's just kind of interesting...

(And now, to partially bring us full circle...)

If I had to guess, I would say the major reason in the United States the term "Asian" is associated with people descended from Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and other people originating from areas of easternmost Asia is basically to countermand the use of the term "Oriental".  Those descended from people originating from India probably weren't offended by the use of the term "Indian", so there was no reason to change what to call them.  But those formerly referred to as "Oriental" required a new term, or rather, a less offensive term.  Thus, "Asian" was born...err, reborn.  You know what I mean.

Just a theory.

[ugarte]

One of the guys who got revenge on Volonnino wrote:


If I had to guess, I would say the major reason in the United States the term "Asian" is associated with people descended from Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and other people originating from areas of easternmost Asia

I think the difference in the typically presumed meaning of "Asian" in the US and the UK comes from the same reason that the bulgogi is better here in NYC, but the vindaloo is better in London.



Post Edited (11-13-03 17:59)

[Becca]

quite so, old chap, quite.

[Beeeej]

Bump.

The clear preference among those who expressed one, either here or by private e-mail, was for Dec. 26.

So now I'll actually set about planning to buy a block of tickets.  Clean slate time; e-mailing me your preference before is not enough to get you a ticket.  E-mail me privately at jta1 at cornell.edu and let me know how many you need.  Let's make the deadline Dec. 5; if I wait until after my classes end and my finals have begun, I'll never actually buy the tickets. ::nut::

Beeeej

[So \'02]

It's OK, I call white people Occidental. :-D