Current Events > Why do we use the term 'Asians' when this refers to East Asians specifically?

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for those that don't know, Asia is the largest continent in the world that consists of South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, West Asia, Central Asia, and North Asia...

notice how East Asia (consisting of Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan) is just a very very small portion of this massive ass continent? South Asia contains India. Central Asia contains the -stan countries, and Southeast Asia is the most diverse, consisting of major Muslim (Indonesia, Malaysia), Buddhist (Thailand) and Christian (Philippines) nations that we hardly hear about. Even in China alone, there are hundreds of various ethnicities being marginalised.

But here someone hears Asian and they think of a Japanese, Korea or Chinese person. Heck, some people can't even tell the difference between these three nationalities.

Asians refer to Asians.

People cant typically tell the difference between Eastern Asians. So to avoid doing the thing where every hispanic is a Mexican, they say Asian.

People THINK they know the other nationalities. But they only know Indian.

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In the UK "Asian" refers to south Asians, i.e., Indians, Pakistanis, and Bengali.

It's a traditional distinction that was made before modern concepts and understandings of geography. We had been trading with all these different countries centuries before we even knew there was a North and South America. Historically there just wasn't that definition or distinction that Indian = Asian.

There's also the cultural aspect to it.

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TheDurinator posted...

In the UK "Asian" refers to south Asians, i.e., Indians, Pakistanis, and Bengali.

then how do you call the East Asians as?

Why do we use the term 'Americans' when this refers to the United States of America specifically?

for those that don't know, America consists of two continents in the world that consists of Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela...

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