It's much easier for an East Asian person to become integrated into a Western society than the other way around.
You can live in Japan/China/Korea for decades, be married and have children with a local, and speak the language fluently and people will still call you a foreigner to your face.
Agreed, I work with dozens of western Chinese, japanese and koreans every day.
My son is 50/50 Thai / English.
We live in Thailand and he is accepted as 100% Thai.
I admit that I'll never be accepted as Thai but that comes with benefits as well as drawbacks.
It's generally easier on the kids in Thailand, I think, because mixed race couples are more widely accepted there than in Japan/China/Korea.
I did a few years teaching ESL in Seoul and out of hundred kids, there were just two siblings that were mixed race - Korean mom and American Dad.
Even though these two kids looked basically Korean (except their hair was dark brown instead of black) and spoke fluent Korean, I was shocked that some of the other kids in the class referred to them as 외국인 (foreigners), the exact same word they used to refer to me as white man.
Pretty much why I was prepared to settle here.
You can be born in a western country as an East Asian and still also be called a foreigner and asked where are you really from
Yes, you can.
But it's not as prevalent.
Whoops, double-posted.
It’s true that they’ll call you a “foreigner” to your face, but they don’t mean anything bad by it in most cases. It’s just a classification, understandable since these aren’t really “melting pot” nations. I’ve lived in all three places and never had anything but positive regard from people who see me as a foreigner. Even when I got arrested in Beijing, I was really impressed with how I was treated.
I never said they necessarily mean anything bad by it, though.
Regardless of whether your status as a foreigner is perceived as being positive or negative, you'll always be a foreigner.
This is the kind of shit Japan said about its Great East Asia Co Prosperity Sphere when it basically subjugated a lot of its neighbors prior to WWII... I hope history won't repeat itself in such a way.
I came here to mention Japan's "Asia for Asians" campaign in the early 1900s. Glad to see I'm not the only history nerd commenting on this post!
Kiiiiinda hard for South Korea to hear that with a straight face, considering China sided with NK pretty significantly in the Korean War and considers NK an ally (or at least definitely within their sphere of influence) to this day.
Yeah, East Asia will ally with Beijing when Beijing actually decides to see the rest of East Asia as equals and not just former tributary nations. (Believe me, I'm Chinese, this is unfortunately all too common a superiority complex that Chinese people have.)
It's not that they want to be Westerners, it's that they don't want to be bullied by the regional superpower, and the other world superpower supports them in resisting Beijing.
Very unconstructive to pose the world as westerners and not westerners.
Talk of joining "westerners" and everyone instead and not this polarization
Russia should be proof enough that humanity doesn't need rogue states
Petulant child picking up fights with every neighbor, claiming he owns everyone's toys and breakfast, behaving like the natural state of the world is to revolve around himself, sports a surprised Pikachu face when said neighbors decide to go to the movie together.
My duality is much more to are you an reasonable person which can be openly self-critical but also are aware of authority bias, or do you join primitive and absurd dualities as this?
Standard kindergarten polarizarion from the Chinese leadership, nothing new I guess.
So China is accepting Japan into their midst and getting all buddy-buddy?
How very Nanking of them...
China will never ever consider Japan as an equal or viable partner. Breaking the bond between West and Japan? Sure, they are all about that but being buddies and accepted into China? Never ever happening.
Starting to smell fear from China. Maybe they are starting to realize they aren’t as great as they thought
If China is Democratic and less invasive, then yes.
Edit: I don't know what CCP sympathisers are trying to prove by trolling. They have to prove themselves to Japan, South Korea, South East Asia not to some random Internet person 😂
This is quite rich for China to ask while constantly complaining about being victimized by Japan during WWII while not a peep has come out of them about the shaming they suffered during Opium wars when western nations effectively carved up China to spheres of influence. Not to mention the seizing of neighbor's islands and territories through force while proclaiming it as theirs because an insane Chinese monarch once sent out a bunch of rickety boats into the seas centuries ago. I suggest Chinese tidy up their over-all diplomatic messaging and strategy first.
not a peep has come out of them about the shaming they suffered during Opium wars when western nations effectively carved up China to spheres of influence
The century of humiliation is something that is mentioned by the Chinese government a lot, I'm not sure what you meant by this.
If you’re talking about Zheng He and his fleet, those boats were not rickety. It was an impressive fleet. That said, that doesn’t magically give their claims in the South China Sea any more credence than arguing the British still have a rightful claim over Ireland.
Are you saying China benefited from the Opium Wars?
That would make about as much sense as criticising China for complaining about what Japan did to it in the past.
Luckily westerners never talk about WWII and what the Nazis did. No films, no books, no memorials. It's like none of it ever happened. Good thing, too; imagine how embarrassed you'd be to try to work in good faith with people you've been at war with after spending years funding them.
Far from not a peep, China mention their "unequal treaties" and the "century if humiliation" a lot, it's a rallying cry and something they would definitely use to bolster the case they're making here. What did you mean by this?
while not a peep has come out of them about the shaming they suffered during Opium wars when western nations effectively carved up China to spheres of influence
This is the underlying reason why they don't like or trust the west. It's pretty much their whole MO and why they think Japan and South Korea will rally with them.
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