Comments on: All Asians Look Alike

By: John

John — Tue, 04 May 2010 20:32:07 +0000

Hey Steve, I love your point. From afar people may look alike; so, we need to get close. Simple, but profound.

By: Steve Orris

Steve Orris — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:52:46 +0000

There’s a lot of name calling going on here.
I guess we can’t agree on what to call someone who looks different (to whatever degree) from us. I think I’m German-Swedish. But I only call myself American. I’m sure they are great countries but I care more about America than Sweden or Germany. I’m speaking in terms of political borders here.
But people are people, not countries. All people are equal, and God wants us to love everyone the same, regardless where their ancestors are from.
Do people all look the same? Maybe from a distance. Maybe we need to get closer. Close enough to call each other “brother” and “sister”.

By: John Lee

John Lee — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 16:38:00 +0000

Hey Dave. You have some good points. I think some of the social theory of Peter Berger may help in parsing out the structure of society, especially his points on ideology, deinstitutionalization, and plausibility structures. I think when we understand how society works (or gain a better understanding) and the injustices and assumptions it possesses, the church needs to formulate a way to educate. From this perspective, I believe Asian can be important conduits of grace and understanding as they seek to mediate between people. Humility and sacrifice will be required. Just my opinion. I wrote a little outline of this: http://www.historyandtheology.com/?p=686

By: Kevin (Ket)

Kevin (Ket) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 00:35:47 +0000

…Incidentally, one of our family friends (also Chinese) has a Korean girlfriend.

And I don’t know if “Sulu” is really a blatantly Japanese name. I don’t think the Japanese language even has an “L” sound.

By: Kevin (Ket)

Kevin (Ket) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 00:16:25 +0000

Speaking as a Chinese-American, I have to agree with others who say that the Pan Asian approach, especially when we speak as citizens of America. We can even look at this at the basic level of pop culture, where people constantly lament the lack of Asian representation in American cinema. Taking the aforementioned John Cho as a Japanese character, it certainly leaves a bit of a sour taste in your mouth. But John Cho resembles a Japanese person more than a non-Asian does. I’ve read an article online that suggests that there simply aren’t enough Asian Americans (in this case, Japanese Americans) who are in the business of performing arts.

Has anybody heard of the pop cultural phenomenon, the “Korean Wave”? Apparently, people all over east Asian and southeast Asia have been embracing South Korean pop culture. Some people theorize that it’s a response to the continuing Westernization of their culture. I recently saw a film from Thailand. The subject matter was what it was like to grow up as a child in 1980′s Thailand. Even as a Chinese-American, there were more resemblances to my experiences growing up than in American films that try to explore a similar subject. Of course there are some subtitle facial differences, but with a large amount of my family and family friends in northeast America, a great proportion of my time growing up was around other people who had dark-brown-almost-black hair and brown eyes. So there are differences, but the Pan Asian identity is still easier to identify with than other identities at the moment. I’ve even read testimony from others actually living in Asia that intermixing has been going on for a good deal of time now that you can no longer just assume somebody is, say, a “pure” Chinese person.

By: Open Discussion: Do All Asians Look Alike? « Stuff Asian People Like - Asian Central

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 04:45:00 +0000

[...] is even a topic of interest in the Next “Gener.Asian” of [...]

By: jpbronsin

jpbronsin — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 21:43:54 +0000

Been reading around, good insights. I don’t always agree and some of it contributes to the problem, but glad there is a blog such as this.

By: j

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 20:26:49 +0000

i absolutely love this blog, and discussions on race. i am an african-american woman, and it is refreshing to hear the experiences of other persons of color…if you don’t mind, i will be linking your blog to my blogroll. be blessed! i look forward to having many more discussions!

By: elderj

elderj — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 07:15:17 +0000

James, I think the chief reason this is an issue for ethnic minorities in the US more than whites is because the racial history and current reality of our country. We’ve always been White and not-white. That’s the only category. So Germans and Irish and Greeks and Lithuanians when they first arrived, they didn’t think of themselves as Whites. The became White in order to distinguish them racially and privilege wise from the Blacks (and others) who weren’t privileged.

We still live with this legacy. White is normative in our society. It is the default. Asian is not unusual, but it isn’t normative.

By: elderj

elderj — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 07:03:45 +0000

I would like to point out that I have outed myself as a moderate Trekkie. Please make a note of it.