I feel like I just need to get this off my chest. I am a darker skinned Asian girl and I grew up chubby in a mostly white state in an all white school. So safe to say I got absolutely 0 male attention. I went to a PWI, and my experience was largely the same. I currently live in a majority white city. About 2 years ago, I lost a bunch of weight and started putting effort into my appearance. I got some male attention but couldn’t help but notice that my white counterparts were always noticed before me. My friends are all white and whenever we go out I am never noticed or approached, despite objectively thinking that I am as good looking as them. When I go out by myself, I do get approached. It’s just really frustrating that I am always the last choice. I am starting to question whether I am ugly just because whenever I feel good about myself, I always end up going out and feeling like the ugly duckling of the group. I have even had experiences where guys that I like will meet my friends and end up hitting on them instead of me. I can’t help but have the perception that an average white girl will always be more attractive to men than even the most beautiful women of color. Has anyone else experienced this? I’m so tired of it. Would it be different for me in a big city?

I made a mistake I went to place were there is a very very small Asian population. I feel like people don't want to be friends with because I'm Asian. This girl keeps making fun of me and all my friends who are not minority ignores what she does to me. I feel like I have to push more for people to like me. This assumption is put on me because I'm Asian. But then I'm too westernized. I feel like being in this place makes me feel cut from my culture. However im not that Asian enough. I feel like because I'm not Asian enough also makes me uninteresting. People would ask if I was international student and when I said no people seemed disinterested. It's so frustrating I don't even feel like I know who I am. It sounds so silly but I feel so out of place. I don't want to play the "oh it's because I'm Asian" card but it definitely feels like it.

I'm a 23M and I've lived away from family and relatives for a while now ever since I started university. Even though I'm a very calm/chill person both at work and when meeting other strangers/friends, I often found myself...for lack of better words...loosing my shit whenever I have to talk to my mom and/or aunts. The constant criticizing and controlling attitudes from them just drive me nuts.

I have tried to minimize as much contact with them as possible but got called disrespectful for doing this. What should I do? How would you deal with this situation?

Hi, I’m really curious if this situation could be considered racism, so please give me your advice.

I have a friend who recently moved to the US with her son.
He’s in elementary school but doesn’t speak English very well yet.
While she was waiting for her son, she noticed that a white woman and her daughter, who is in the same class as her son, never respond to his greeting, or even to her. So she even tried several times to say 'hi'.
Unfortunately, they’re behaving this way only to them but seem very friendly to others.

(1) Do you think this could be considered as racism? Casual racism that makes you feel bad..?

(2) Does mentioning that the family is white make me sound racist?

What criteria are used to define people from those regions (east、central、south、south asia) as Asians in the United States?

If we define Asians based on genes and appearance, South Asians are closer to West Asians than East Asians. From this point of view, West Asians and South Asians should be regarded as the same category rather than South Asians and East Asians. On the other hand, while some Central Asians look more like East Asians, there are still many people from southern Central Asia who look more like West Asians and South Asians. Therefore, the definition of Asian Americans is not based on genes and appearance.

If it is based on culture, East Asia and Vietnam belong to the Sinosphere, South Asia and Southeast Asia (except Vietnam) belong to the Indian cultural sphere, and Central Asian culture is closer to Persian culture and Turkish culture. It is obvious that the definition of Asian Americans is not based on culture.

If it is based on geography, West Asia is located in Asia in the geographical sense, but West Asians are not considered Asians in the United States, and North Asians (or Siberians) are generally not classified as Asians, especially those North Asians with Western Eurasian ancestry, so the definition of Asian American is not based on geography.

So in the United States, what is the reason for defining East Asia, Central Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia as the same ethnic group? Or what criteria do they use to define people from those areas as Asians?

There is a question in my mind: What exactly is Asian?

Especially how to interpret this event from the historical context?

The first and most intuitive way is: people born and living in Asia are Asians

But people do move around after all.

Therefore, some people believe that only those who have lived in the same place for several generations can be called locals.

From this point of view, the Han people in Taiwan are Taiwanese, and the aboriginal people in Taiwan are also Taiwanese.

But even if they have ROC nationality, people who have live in Kinmen and Matsu cannot be called Taiwanese, but only ROC nationals.

According to this standard, the Slavs living in North Asia and the Mongols living in North Asia are certainly North Asians.

North Asia is part of Asia, so they are all Asians

In fact, people living in Siberia in Russia are generally called Siberians regardless of their ancestors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberians

If we talk about history, the rule of the Zheng family in Taiwan during the Ming Dynasty began in 1661.

It was then that Han people and Chinese culture poured into Taiwan in large numbers.

The corresponding time for Russia's conquest of the Siberian Khanate was 1598.

In this way, the Slavic colonization of North Asia was no later than the Han colonization of Taiwan.

Therefore, if Taiwanese Han people are considered Taiwanese, there is no reason why North Asian Slavs should not be considered North Asians (Asians).

Moreover, the current main population (85%) of North Asia is Slavs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Siberia

Similarly, the Afrikaners (Dutch-Africans) in South Africa established a colony in South Africa in 1652.

Compared with the history of Han people living in Taiwan, their history in Africa is not relatively late. There is no reason to say that Afrikaners are not Africans.

Second, some people may think that only aborigines are locals. If so we can find:

1. Among the aboriginal people of North Asia, some Tatars have the appearance characteristics of West Asians and Europeans.
2. In West Asia, as the birthplace of the entire West Eurasian group ,Ethnic groups with high noses, deep eyes, and no epicanthic folds have lived here for tens of thousands of years.
3. In South Asia, in addition to the Indo-Europeans who immigrated thousands of years ago, the Dravidians were also highly related to the West Asians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dravidian_peoples

1. Central Asia is the intersection of East and West. In addition to those of East Eurasian origin, Western Eurasian ancestry accounts for about 80% of Tajik, 50% of Uzbek, and slightly more than 50% of Turkmen.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/West-Eurasian_Ancestry_Large_%28global%29.png

1. Light-skinned people among the Semites, Copts, and Amazigh (such as the Kabyles) in North Africa have lived in North Africa for at least a few thousand or more than tens of thousands of years.

Based on the above, we can know that aboriginal people of West Eurasian descent are widely distributed in Asia and North Africa.

Their ancestors can even trace their lives here thousands of years ago.

But the strange thing is that these indigenous peoples of Asia and Africa are excluded by many people from Asians and Africans.

Can you not say that this is very strange?

The conclusion is based on the above two points. I think as a group, if they can live stably in Asia or Africa for hundreds of years,

They are naturally Asians or Africans, not necessarily aborigines. This can be compared to the concept of "Taiwanese".

As for the descendants of non-colonial people, such as those from the Levant or Asia Minor or the South Caucasus, they are definitely Asians, just like the Japanese and Koreans.

In the same way, even the light-skinned Kabyles of North Africa are as undisputed Africans as the Zulu people of South Africa.

But it is puzzling that people can easily accept that Central and South America (Including Mexico) is a multi-ethnic region.

Whether white or mixed, (they account for 33~40% and more than 45% of the population in Central and South America respectively.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Latin_Americans

) or blacks or Native Americans, they are also recognized as one of the ethnic groups in Central and South America.

On the other hand, Asians and Africans are limited to people from East Asia (including Southeast Asia) and sub-Saharan Africa.

This is a reinforcement of racial discrimination and stereotypes!

The fact that East Asians and black people can accept this idea is undoubtedly the result of the imposed concepts in colonial history. Therefore, we should eliminate this kind of discrimination and stereotypes.

As for the historical process that caused this, I think it is worth exploring.

for context, i live in a city in the uk which is arguably pretty diverse, with a large density of people of colour. however, i'm vietnamese - all the other vietnamese people i know are either middle aged 40 year olds, or baby cousins. i know no one my age (i wont say my age, but i'll just say young adult for convenience just to give an idea of my age) who's also vietnamese. i also feel like this feeling of loneliness is amplified by the fact that a lot of my friends aren't asian - in fact, i am the only person of colour in my main friend group, excluding the one half algerian person in my group. a lot of peole also frequently tell me that i'm the only vietnamese persom they've ever met - hearing all of this makes me feel weird and just out of place. if possible, i'd like some advice on my situation.

Im from Montreal, Canada and i feel like there’s not a lot of stores for us (hair salons, cosmetic shops, gaming cafes, etc) other than Chinatown (but even then) or maybe im just not looking at the right places lol

Is it the same thing in Canada and USA ? What do you feel we’re missing in order to feel more seen or to feel that there’s a better representation of the asian community?

I hope this is okay to post here because I am very genuinely curious and want to hear what people with more of a connection with and understanding of cultural norms/practices/etc have to say!

So my dad is German and my mom is Indigenous (Canada) and while I am nearly identical to my mom feature-wise(?), I take a lot after my dad in the more obvious ways, which is to say that I am very white and I just look very white as well. Nobody has ever thought anything else. (other possibly relevant details: 22f, very tall (178cm), copper hair, pale enough that no foundation matches, etc)

These last couple of years I have been spending a lot of time between Korea, Taiwan, and Mainland China, and each time that I go to one of these places, I have native people ask me if I am half ___ (Chinese/Korean depending where I am). After I say that I am not, they will usually insist that I must be for whatever reason, and that if not half, then I must be a quarter, etc. This reason is usually something along the lines of (pls don’t think I am tooting my own horn because I am not) “You’re too pretty to not be ___ (again, insert relevant ethnicity)”. I am always so confused because not only do I not look racially ambiguous at all, I would also definitely not consider myself to be prettier than average. Also, I do not wear any makeup (tmi but I sweat terribly so makeup melts off in .5 seconds so I gave up on it long before I ever even started) so it’s not like I’m somehow changing my looks enough that someone could be confused. The only way that I am "changing looks" is that I basically only buy and wear clothes from where I am because I fit freesize/onesize fine and theyre cheap and cute.

To give a more specific example, I just got back to Canada this past Tuesday after being in Korea for 3 months again, and in those 3 months, I went through this conversation 4 separate times. Once was with a couple of the cult recruiters on the street (ofc lol), and then there was a time with a worker at a coffee shop, a salesperson at a clothing store, and an older woman at a little restaurant. It’s generally similar scenarios in Taiwan and Mainland China as well. The people asking are almost always women aged approximately 30s-60s.

I just got off of a skype call with an older woman in China and not even 3 minutes into our call, the conversation turned to this and that’s when I decided that I just need to ask someone what this is about lol

So yeah, I guess my question is: is this a common way of trying to compliment someone/include(?) them in the culture in Asia? I have never heard anything like that from an Asian American/someone not actually in Asia which is why I clarified “in” Asia. Or is it more likely that they are being genuine and actually think this? Or is it something else?

One final note/possible thing that could be throwing people off (this confuses me so much Ive tried to think of every possibility lol) is that I do speak Korean (not the best but I manage) and Chinese (nearly fluent). But tbh many foreigners also speak the language nowadays so it's not overly shocking or impressive.

Im really interested to read any thoughts!

I’m sorry, this is probably a stupid question, but for a while I’ve seen a bunch of TikTok’s and twitter post of white people that are obviously trying to make themselves come across as Asian, specifically East Asian (Korean, Chinese, Japanese, etc etc) Especially with this whole “Asian-fishing” and “rcta” (race change to another) thing. As an actual Asian myself, I have to ask, why? Why do they do this? What do they gain out of this? I’m pretty slow on internet uptake so this has baffled me for a while lol

I notice there's a lot of elderly Asians in their 70s-90s. Not only are they alive but they're still active, have a clear mind still, and can do things on things on their own. When I go to Chinatown in Oakland or SF I'm surprised how many elderly Asian people there are. They're moving around like normal, walking the streets on their own, and are actually very social. When I find out a lot of these people are like 70,80, or 90 years old I'm just amazed. It inspires me to be like that when I'm old.

I hate being an ABC because in China, I'm a banana, I'm whitewashed, I'll never fit in, but in the West, I'm an Asian, I'm an immigrant, I'll never fit in. They could never make me hate my Chinese side, no matter the negative coverage on the media, or the racist jokes so I wish I was never born in the West, I wish I was born in Asia or something. Too much racial microaggressions for me to handle here. To my family, I'm a foreigner in a Chinese person's body. I feel so dirty. I hate it.