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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe top TEN questions asked to Asian-Americans..
Last edited Mon Jun 6, 2016, 04:59 PM - Edit history (5)


6 votes, 3 passes | Time left: Unlimited | |
What country are you from? | |
2 (33%) |
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Do you speak English? | |
0 (0%) |
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What is your nationality? Are you Chinese? | |
1 (17%) |
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DO you like Anime? | |
0 (0%) |
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How do you like America so far? | |
1 (17%) |
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Would you be able to help me with my Math Homework? | |
0 (0%) |
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Do you date WHITE GUYS?/LADIES? | |
1 (17%) |
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Whats your favorite Chinese food? Have you ever eaten DOG? | |
1 (17%) |
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DO you like JACKIE CHAN?? BRUCE LEE?? | |
0 (0%) |
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DO you do KARATE, OR KUNG FU??? | |
0 (0%) |
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3 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided. | |
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Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll |

Fresh_Start
(11,351 posts)nt
yeah... noodles or RICE???
braddy
(3,585 posts)yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)I guess it is.
braddy
(3,585 posts)race of someone from say, Japan, or China?
I find this confusing.
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)My friends call themselves Asians... WE look like this...
I call myself Asian. Its a category I am satisfied with. I am Also Japanese-American, and Japanese-Hawaiian-native, American.
braddy
(3,585 posts)Pakistan and the Middle East?
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)In England an Elevator is a Lift.
In England a truck is called a Lorry.
its different there, as it is different in New Zealand, Australia and Canada.
Ask an Asian there...I don't speak for All Asians.
braddy
(3,585 posts)yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)the increase in Population. If you want practice, come to San Francisco. Ask Mayor Ed Lee...WERE TAKING over this town... (heehee!!)
pangaia
(24,324 posts)My ex-wife was Chinese.. Well, she still is, of course.. CHinese, that is. LOL
Last year I went to Japan, last month to South Korea, year before Taiwan. In late June I'm going to China again and late July back to Korea....Sept - Japan....
Haven't been to Thailand in years, nor Singapore.. never been to Vietnam.....yet!
I hardly want to go anywhere else outside the US...or EAT anything else !!!
PS.. I'm Hungarian.
Igel
(36,572 posts)I'm American. And I call people from S. Asia "Asian," and I call Yukaghir and Yakut "Asians" and I call Iranians "Asians."
Then again, I've stopped thinking of that as a race and more of an identifier that we put on forms to please the bureaucracy.
I have trouble thinking of folk from the ME as "Asian."
And, yes, I also call Iranians and Palestinians and Jews and Swedes "Caucasians." Sort of a different sort of descriptor. But Saami are Europeans, as are Basques and Tatars.
Confusing ethnic, geographic, and racial words seldom ends well. Communication requires cooperation, and that's just so (early) 20th century.

braddy
(3,585 posts)cagefreesoylentgreen
(838 posts)You can break it down further by saying Han, Uighur, Khazak, Chukchi, Ainu, Pashtun, etc.
Fun fact: Hong Kong Chinese don't like being called Asians, because that's what they call the darker skinned people south of them:
ozone82
(91 posts)...Of the Asian Continent... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia#/media/File:Asia_%28orthographic_projection%29.svg
braddy
(3,585 posts)Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)In common parlance, the word "Asian" denotes race, not geographic origin.
Geographically speaking, Europe and Asia are one landmass, so anyone and everyone born between Vladivostok and Lisbon could be accurately described as "Eurasian". But we don't do that, because our descriptors are based almost entirely around physical appearance, and not place of birth.
cagefreesoylentgreen
(838 posts)Basing it on physical appearance is limiting and backwards. Like it or not, Pashtuns, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Bengalis, Rhoingya, and Persians are all Asians. I saw an Instagram pic of a Turkish girl holding up a sign that said "I am Asian" and she's right.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)I'm not saying that is how it should be, I'm saying that is how it currently is.
Although sometimes it's called "North African" depending how one draws the lines.
Almost the corner of Europe, Asia, and Africa.
So one can pick, I suppose.
Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)They would probably claim to be European.
Asian refers to somebody from South East Asia.
Somebody from Russia or Iran would likely not consider themselves Asian even though they live in Asia.
braddy
(3,585 posts)or a Jewish American, if Jewish is separate on a race form, then why, and will it remain so?
By the way, I'm not really asking you to answer all this, I am just asking whoever can respond, I find it all strange.
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)I consider myself an Asian-American. I am also a Japanese-American, and a Partial Hawaiian-Native and Partial Pacific-Islander. My grandfather is 100% Hawaiian-Native, on my mothers side. As for your question about people residing in the Middle East, I call them Middle-Easterners. They are not confused with people from Pennsylvania. I also consider Filipinos Asians and they probably could be Pacific Islanders...as well.
My friends from Malaysia and Indonesians consider themselves Asians...the ones living here in the States.
braddy
(3,585 posts)yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)I remember being in a chat room with people from Mainland China. When I told them I was Japanese and Hawaiian, they called me a Liar...Japanese people don't mate with anyone but Japanese. I told them I was born in the USA. They said I wasn't Asian...cause I wasn't born in Asia... I said, so what do you call me? They said you are American.. I said my ancestors came from Japan, ...doesn't matter they said, you were born in America, you are American.. I tried to explain to them, that People in the USA DON'T EVEN call us Americans...they were confused, "so what do they call you??" I said, "Asian", they said; "They call you wrong, you are not even Japanese, You are American.." It was frustrating as hell talking to them...they come from an entirely different perspective.
braddy
(3,585 posts)race, Asian obviously has almost zero meaning in that regard, what are we supposed to use in such a discussion?
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)Asian maybe too broad for a race, but its what we use in the USA and its what generations of Asians have used to describe themselves in the broad sense. My dad says my mom is more Pacific islander than Japanese, but I disagree, as her parents have Japanese blood as well. My Dad calls himself Japanese because that's where Yoshida came from, despite his Hawaiian native blood. We have had 3 generations of family in Hawaii, so we are not FOB's (Fresh off the boat). 3 generations of Americans...who came from Japan and Hawaii.
braddy
(3,585 posts)yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)
braddy
(3,585 posts)yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)Its a word WE have chosen to give ourselves. Its like African Americans chose Blacks, or whatever. You want to pigeon hole us into something specific... -shrugs- its NOT going to happen. IN the UNITED states you have Hispanics (Or Latinos) Blacks (African Americans) so that leaves Native Americans (Who were once called Indians, ..which was stupid, they had nothing to do whats so ever with India other than what Europeans called them when they arrived in this country...)so what ARE we to call these bunches of people who come from the FAR EAST.... FAR EASTERNERS? No..many of them came from a wide area called ASIA..so they suggested ASIANS... until you or someone comes up with a special name that doesn't employ Racial Stero types... were sticking with Asians.
Russia is in Asia...should they be called Asians?They prefer Russians. The Ainu don't fit the Stereotypical "Asian look", and yet, if they came to the USA would they call them Asians? Probably. We all eat Rice and Noodles.. should we be called Rice eaters? No. Everyone eats Noodles too. Is a middle eastern an Asian...if they are located in Asia yes, but I call them Middle easterners. If they want to be called an Asian in America so be it. Indians are Asian, and yet they don't have our kind of eyes...they are still Asians.
braddy
(3,585 posts)yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)Are you Caucasian?... did you know there's a little Asian in Caucasian? That's a joke. A friend used to tell me that..i was like what? They have everything, now they want to usurp our name t.oo? ha...too funny.
Response to yuiyoshida (Reply #64)
pablo_marmol This message was self-deleted by its author.
cagefreesoylentgreen
(838 posts)I think he's asking what we monolid folk of the far Eastern side of the Asian continent should be called because apparently "Asian" is too broad of a category and includes too many people who "don't look Asian enough."
My opinion? We're all Asians, deal with it.
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)

Orrex
(64,671 posts)
Seriously, I still overhear that wretched term used from time to time, and I always have to check what century I'm living in when I hear it.
AgadorSparticus
(7,963 posts)Holy moly.....just don't drink the water. 😂
Orrex
(64,671 posts)Admittedly I don't hear it often and it's not too widespread, but the term isn't wholly extinct either, alas.
Mostly from substantially older people.
1939
(1,683 posts)It means "easterner" which it was for Europeans when the term was coined. "extreme orient" is French for the "far east" and English has many loan words from French. Europe was the western world and Asia was the eastern world hence the term "oriental" never meant as an insult, just a description of place of origin.
Orrex
(64,671 posts)"Oriental" is insulting for a host of reasons, not least because it presumes that Europe is the standard against which "foreign-ness" is judged. And if you're tempted to issue some rejoinder re: "eastern and western hemispheres," let's not pretend that it's as simple as that.
"Oriental" has long been used to imply an air of exotic mystery, as if Asian people are mystical creatures guarding arcane secrets, chiefly because they were unfortunate enough not to be born white and western.
While we're at it, "western" doesn't carry that same negative connotation largely because the term is self-chosen; it's not a label that one group arbitrarily applies to another.
Yes, at the time of its coinage the word "Oriental" wasn't intended to be any more insulting than the baseline assumption of white superiority, but perhaps that's just the white man's burden to bear.
If the people whom you would categorize as "Oriental" don't like it, then that's the end of it. You don't get to impose your retrograde label simply because you think you can justify it by tricks of colonial etymology. I've recently argued with an asshole on Facebook who used the exact same "logic" to justify his use of "colored."
Also, whether you meant it to be so or not, nothing sounds more racist than a person explaining why their defense of a racist term is justified.
1939
(1,683 posts)is from the Greeks and is believed to be derived from the Assyrian word "Asu" which meant east. So "Asian" should be equally offensive since it presupposes a Eurocentric term of reference as does "oriental".
Orrex
(64,671 posts)If a group chooses a term by which to self-identify, then that's up to them, even if it's inconsistent with your own desire to cling to outdated and racist labels assigned from outside that group. It's about agency and self-determination. I frankly don't believe that you fail to understand this, and I suspect instead that you're either trolling or trying to make some bizarre point about... something that you haven't quite articulated.
Also, see my above comment about nothing sounding more racist than a person explaining why their defense of a racist term is justified.
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)Did you chose to call AFRICAN AMERICANS blacks? WE don't get to choose our name? How mighty nice of all of you.
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)An Oriental Rug for example. We are people. We don't wish to be labeled as property.
1939
(1,683 posts)"If an adjective is used for a "thing" it cannot be used to describe a "person".
Oriental rug
Swedish meatballs
Polish sausage
Sicilian pizza
French horn
Scottish terrier
Hawaiian punch
Dutch rub
Irish jig
cagefreesoylentgreen
(838 posts)"Swedish meatball" lacks the same historical context and connotation "Oriental" does. That's the difference. And your refusal to acknowledge that there are contextual and connotation differences between the two says a lot about you.
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)
Nothing sounds more racist than a person explaining why their defense of a racist term is justified.
This is especially true then they appeal to a bizarre form of pseudo logic.
Sad to see someone defend retrograde & racist notions so stubbornly on a left-leaning website.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)But nobody seems to run with that.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)or WHAT KIND OF ASIAN ARE YOU?
i am the good kind!
Iggo
(48,704 posts)The MASSIVE amount of tone-deafedness it takes to ask a human being "What are you?"
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)I have said... I was born in the year of the Rabbit...
It really confuses them.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)1968 here
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)RobinA
(10,242 posts)when people want to know about your ancestry? They probably want to avoid making some kind of mistake that will get them further derided. I don't want to think a Vietnamese person is Korean or assume that someone Korean is Chinese. Maybe they are interested? If I, a white person, travel to China, I would expect people to ask me what kind of white I am. They naturally want to know if I am from Australia or Quebec.
As a white person, when I travel to tourist destinations in the US I am very conscious of white European travelers and where they are from. We might strike up a conversation based on our national origin. I can't do this with an Asian? (I don't, by the way, I avoid all conversation even remotely related to race or national origin with non-whites because it's kind of can't win at the moment.)
cagefreesoylentgreen
(838 posts)The difference is that when we Asians are asked, "Where are you from?" is that the asker has the expectation that we are foreign and somehow exotic and is disappointed/disbelieving when they don't get the answer they want. It's pretty patronizing. It reinforces the racist idea of the "perpetual foreigner" and that we can't really be Americans because of the way we look.
For me, personally, I'm more likely to respond positively to "What's your ethinic background?" than to "Where are you from?" or, worse, "What are you?"
Edited many times because I'm cranky, it's early, and I'm sorry.
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)
Marengo
(3,477 posts)Tended to regard Asians as inferior, cheap labor and the like. The question carries an incredible amount of historic baggage. Speaking from my experience being married to a naturized Chinese woman, that question reinforces her sense of "otherness" as we live in a predominately Anglo community. She's tired of it, having lived here 12 years, and just wants to be automatically accepted as an American. I'm not originally from the place where I now live, and in fact come from a quite different cultural background. However, no one thinks to ask as I look the same as all the other Anglos.
We are to regard all Asians as a monolith? Because it can't be both ways. Either we (whites) regard Chinese people as Korean people as Japanese people or we have to ask. In may experience, Asians do not like it when whites don't understand that there are distinctions among Asians, but we aren't allowed to ask, so... I'm left with treating Asians I meet as a generic Asian until some clue as to heritage is offered. In my experience, Asians who were born in America have not shed every vestige of their ethnic roots and just want to be Americans without a cultural heritage.
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)Your posts are always super..... direct.. but coming from about 20 degrees, humorous, topical ( did I just type "topical?"


safeinOhio
(34,836 posts)To our attention. I've been quilty of asking, where did you get that beautiful accent. I thought it was a comment on language, not race. Think I'll stop that.
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)and may even work.
heh!!
safeinOhio
(34,836 posts)I do like to pick up smiles from any age or gender.
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)why not. Its sure better than insults.
Prism
(5,815 posts)I love that place - there's one two blocks from my apartment.
My bf is Chinese American, and this video is so apt. I'm always wondering what's in the cupboard (because I certainly cannot read the labels).
I'm jealous of his eating dexterity, though. Whatever it is, the bones will be picked clean by the time he's done. When he finishes ribs, the plate looks like an archaeological site. Nothing but piles of bleach white bones.
gohuskies
(1,189 posts)The primary question I've been asked all my 61 years is 'where are you from' which is really what's your nationality. The other one is a comment like, you speak pretty good english. Very demeaning but it shows the level of stereotypical attitudes that prevail in our country.
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)You speak English really well, who taught you?? Are your parents from here???
Gaaah.... I get tired of that too!
Igel
(36,572 posts)Hard to read racism into that. I'm sure there are those that try and think they succeed.
rufus dog
(8,419 posts)but such a horrible driver?
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)How many accidents do you see??? Heh!!

greiner3
(5,214 posts)With the cars exerting some gravitational pull on the bicycles. Just sayin
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)pangaia
(24,324 posts)Whiskeytide
(4,520 posts)... supply business in Vietnam. It looks like a gold mine!😄
cagefreesoylentgreen
(838 posts)"Are you Thailand or Asian?"
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)A guy asked me once if I was North Korean, figured He was just a troll, trying to get a reaction from me.
cagefreesoylentgreen
(838 posts)When I worked for a large parcel shipping service I had to explain to a customer that, no, we don't ship to North Korea and, yes, a South Korea exists and Seoul is not in North Korea.
Chellee
(2,231 posts)Even our own.
This happened many years ago, but the stupidity of the conversation has stayed with me. So I'm trying to call someplace in West Virginia and I am using the operator to find the number for me. She is having no luck whatsoever finding it, and tells me, "I'm not finding Charleston Virginia." And I tell her, "No, WEST Virginia." She replies, "Ma'am, I'm checking ALL of Virginia, not just the western portion of it."
That was when I had to explain that West Virginia was an entirely different state than Virginia. SMH
spooky3
(36,932 posts)pangaia
(24,324 posts)Warpy
(113,131 posts)My corneal transplant was delayed for a day because some dumb shipping clerk routed it to San Diego for shipment into Mexico.
guillaumeb
(42,649 posts)Great choices.
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)Great poem by Alison
pangaia
(24,324 posts)yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)This woman in a doctors office was making conversation with me. She said she read in a Readers Digest that some Asians, like in Thailand put firewood in their bathtubs and cook their dinners there.. she was like, "You don't do that, do you?" She was serious. I Just laughed.
I was joking, but...also only half way...
sushi, mapo dofu, dan dan mian, uni ika no temaki, jiaozi, more sushi,, bibimbap, even more sushi,
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)pangaia
(24,324 posts)To tell you the truth?/ I haven't experienced that yet... maybe next time I am in Seoul.... :>
Skittles
(161,791 posts)yes, a neighbor asked if I was as angry as she was about another neighbor (from Vietnam) leaving footwear on the doorstep of our breezeway....I said no, I only get mad about REAL issues
on edit, making sure you know I am making fun of the questions, in asking my question
NBachers
(18,291 posts)
(I'll withdraw this if requested)
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)and People have asked me some of them, the others I have been told by friends. The funniest one came from Arizona.. someone asked me if I was Native American. I said no, I was Asian. She was like, "Oh! YOU are my first ASIAN!!", I guess she was excited.
malthaussen
(17,923 posts)Shandris
(3,447 posts)...of course on the suitability of the situation, the locale, and so on; I don't mean Creeper Joe on the subway, ya know!).
I couldn't imagine being in a position to need to ask any of the others. Maybe I should spend less time learning and more time doing...whatever it is people do these days. Then I wouldn't be able to determine most of them on my own and the rest from tact, freeing up the time needed to ask completely inane questions about horrible stereotypes. Why, my popularity might improve!
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)
dilby
(2,273 posts)Which country I adopted my kids from. I always find it amusing, I tell people my ex wife is Japanese and they usually feel pretty embarrassed super quick.
Rex
(65,616 posts)nt
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)I will hear that alot or... "Hey! what's your favorite Anime?" ...not a good pickup line.
Rex
(65,616 posts)Yet most of them don't have the internet and have no real ability over a cell phone, so I'm guessing they heard it from somewhere in real life.
Pick up line, lol I should have known.
longship
(40,416 posts)
R&K
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)longship
(40,416 posts)Except that it underlines your OP.
My best to you.
GummyBearz
(2,931 posts)"Can I buy you a drink"
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)Your posts are an oasis of positivism on DU. You seriously rock!
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)Blue_Tires
(57,596 posts)
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)Blue_Tires
(57,596 posts)Also, where I grew up and live the vast majority of Asians I've known in my life are Filipino....
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)and good places to eat as well..
Bucky
(55,334 posts)Marengo
(3,477 posts)To my Chinese wife, a naturalized US citizen. As I remember she answered something like aboard a 777. Many ask this in one way or another though. Most often it's where are you from.
yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)will check me out, with that look, and say, " Hi, what are you?" ...my response is always like; LATE FOR A MEETING...
cagefreesoylentgreen
(838 posts)yuiyoshida
(43,199 posts)Marengo
(3,477 posts)Have any concept of how ignorant they sound. The other very common question my wife will be asked when folks learn she's from China is if she has eaten dog. The usually reply, unless she knows and likes them, is an unpleasant silence. The recurrent and generally unspoken undertone is one of disapproval, as if the culinary tradition of the west is morally superior to any other. I was also somewhat surprised to learn how many Americans think the Cultural Revolution is still going on in some form or another.
I am glad I live in my neighborhood.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)It's not like being punched in the face, or insulted.
it's kinda funny because those guys are trying to be nice to her - in their own incompetent way.
Yet, you are trying to be mean to them, because they annoyed you without meaning to, or because of your own sense of superiority to them.
When it comes to awful human behaviour, isn't being purposefully mean worse than being unintentionally annoying?
Of course, you know what many people find annoying? - somebody who disagrees with them about any topic.
cagefreesoylentgreen
(838 posts)What I find annoying are people with zero self-awareness to realize they are the source of the problems they complain about and choose to blame others.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)you do realize that you are basically blaming the victim there.
Person A - awkward and clueless
Person B - is mean to person A because they do something Person B finds annoying
Person B is basically a bully who thinks, in their own mind, that they have a legitimate reason to hurt somebody else.
Myself, I think the world needs more love and understanding, more kindness, and more laughter, and not more contempt and cruelty.
cagefreesoylentgreen
(838 posts)And then there are those who remain patronizing fucksticks despite one's best attempt to be kind. I've met a few of those, and since I don't believe in an afterlife, my time is limited and I'm not going to waste it on them. Welcome to my ignore list.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)that you made time out of your precious life to write that obnoxious post.
MrScorpio
(73,748 posts)She's from Illinois by way The Netherlands.