Talk:East Asia
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[edit] Inclusion of Vietnam
Vietnam is considered part of East Asia by many people. That is why I added Vietnam, and because some people do not consider it part of East Asia, that is also why I added the caveat about Southeast Asia. Vietnam should not be removed from the page. --Lowellian 08:21, May 2, 2004 (UTC)
Actually, see MediaWiki Talk:East Asia for the discussion.Lowellian 09:54, May 2, 2004 (UTC)
While culturally is obviously a lot in common with East Asian countries, I think most people see Vietnam as definatly South-East Asian. Of course, there isn't anything wrong with mentioning the other viewpoint, as the article does. Why should this be a contentious issue? It's not like one or the other is "better". They're just geographical regions. 66.81.215.117 23:40, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
And besides, Vietnam is only "Southeast Asian" in terms of geographic poistion; it's cultural, ethnic, political and religious formation came from Southern Chinese patterns. If Vietnam has to be in "SE Asia", than so does Southern China. And also, should Mongolia be moved down to the Central Asia section, as opposed to East Asia? In terms of ethnic origin (Mongol, Altaic, etc.), religion (Tibetan Buddhism), political history (Mongol, Russian patterns) and region, Mongolia does not have much in common with China in any sense. User: Le Anh-Huy
Come on, The name Viet-Nam is a Chinese based word in itself, the Viets share almost all of their culture with the Chinese. If Vietnam isn't included in the East Asian cultural sphere at least then Mongolia shouldn't be part of cultural East Asia. - Chen Ah-Huang
-- Someone removed Vietnam off all the sections on the east asia page just recently (although the page had remained basically unchanged for a LONG time) and they didn't even bother notifying anyone although there'd been extensive discussion on it. To remove Vietnam off the "cultural" east asia section is even more absurd.
By the way, leading prestigious colleges on east asian studies including Harvard list Vietnam as culturally east asian. If you want proof, I'll link you myself on Harvard's page (and other universities', if needed).
--Vietnam in the modern sense is considered to be south-east asian. Culturally it may have been largely influenced by China, but many academics would consider it not of geographic East Asia. They may have been sinocized but unlike the other Yue tribes they did not immerged themselves in Chinese society completely. And besides this article is mainly refering to "East Asia", which means CJK, China, Japan, Korea. -anonymous
-- What you say is noted, however: 1. You say "many academics would consider it not of geographic east asia". NO academics refer to Vietnam as geographically east asian. But that's not the point. Since when did the page ever claim Vietnam as "geographically east asian"? It has always been put under "Cultural East Asia". This page doesn't refer to CJK alone, it is to inform people of the many different definitions of "east asia" and what it entails - including culture, geography, politics - and conflicting views. The fact that Vietnam belongs to cultural east asia should be noted because it is said as so in many of the top institutions of the world - including those which have some of the top east asian programs. It should be noted that while it's not geographically east asian, it definitely fits into a certain cultural sphere. Basically Vietnam's inclusion (among other country's inclusions here) are to insure that more people know about Vietnam's place culturally as opposed to geographically.
I'm definitely not saying that you are wrong - because it's just a different opinion - but since wikipedia is NPOV - it lists both opinions.
-- You are right, Vietnam is considered to be part of the East-Asian cultural sphere and should be included, so I stand corrected. -anonymous
I stumbled upon this article and removed Vietnam without knowing this dispute was going on. You may revert it but as a South-East Asian myself, we have always accepted Vietnam as a SEA country and never even thought of it as being in East Asia. It is true that their culture is more similar to China than any other SEA country; the aboriginal tribes are more closely related to those of the Philippines and Thailand. Mongolia, as far as I knew, is not in East Asia but is considered to be on the eastern side of Central Asia or sometimes even North Asia. If you want my personal opinion, I think that people should stop looking for terms like "East" or "South Asia" and remember that it's mostly political. China, for example, borders on four of the five regions of Asia. It is hardly on the eastern side. The whole idea of CJK is actually a way of stereotyping by suggesting that all three countries are similar enough to be put together. Japan and Korea have both been influenced by China, just as Vietnam has, but they are both distinct. Why is it that many people can tell a Japanese or Korean from a Chinese just by looking at them? China is a very big country and both Korea and Japan are actually far away. This is a strange place for me to put in my two cents but I think we shoud stop identifying ourselves by subregions and simply see ourselves as Asians whether it is from the South or South-East. But, of course, that would render this article meaningless.
response: Your points about the "looks" of Chinese or Vietnamese people arew more based on assumptions or even ignorance. China and its peoples are far too heterogenous for it to be brushed with one stroke. Excluding Vietnam is based on lack of knowledge of that country and its people. The Vietnamese are known as "Kinh"/Jing and are NATIVE to southern China and northern Vietnam...and really has nothing to do with "Southeast Asia". Le Anh-Huy 10:39, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
response:
^ I agree with you kind of on some points...but at the end of the day east/southeast asia are just geographic regions. This is why there's even a discussion. Because some like to look at "east asia" as a cultural region and not just geographically (which is how it should be looked at..) Let's look at Singapore for instance...they are (technically) southeast asians like Vietnam, they too belong to ASEAN - but the majority is Chinese, though some may have malay blood. The only reason we have articles like these is because things always seem to have to be put into groups when it comes to scholarly research and the study of culture - whether in universities or in general. It stems from an idea that people from certain regions will be likely similar culturally which in the case of Vietnam was rendered obsolete by the millenium of chinese domination. Subregions should not be so emphasized - I agree with this - but the truth of the matter is in the scholarly world it is and that's why some things need to be clarified. I'm tired of people generalizing or assuming things about Vietnamese culture based on its geographic region.
Also..what aboriginal Vietnamese tribes are you referring to? The majority of people in Vietnam are kinh ethnic Vietnamese who came from North Vietnam and South China, and then constantly moved down - expanding Vietnam to what it is today. According to genetic studies ethnic Vietnamese (called Kinh) Vietnamese are genetically close to Laotians and Southern Chinese, not Thailand or the Phillipines -and yes, genetics vary widely in Southeast asia anyway. Vietnam has tons of aboriginal tribes/ethnic minorities (so do other countries) - but it doesn't make those groups ethnic Vietnamese. Discussion of physical phenotypes is pretty useless though because they vary so much everywhere and everyone has different opinions. The matter discussed at hand here is geography and culture, not phenotypes. But of course we've already established that Vietnam is definitely not in geographic east asia, just in the Chinese cultural sphere. When others regard Vietnam as Southeast asian, it has nothing to do with Vietnam's culture. This is important because it's constantly discussed - who has more Chinese influence? Korea or Vietnam? Japan has even less than Vietnam. There was even a book just released this year by Cambridge University that claimed there were no two countries more similar than China or Vietnam (China and Vietnam: Politics of Asymmetry). From my experience in university clubs and communicating with other members from other universities - Vietnamese and Chinese students often hold joint cultural events at their school lol for their cultural organizations
Why Vietnam is even included in here is not based on opinions of a few people online, but is mentioned in books and taught at some of the top institutions in the world. Maybe someday people will stop using these subregion-geographical terms incorrectly.. :( as far as I know - CJK first only existed anyway in reference to the software developed for those countries' scripts - and it only began being used for the regions themselves later on in an incorrect way by others - which btw - if you want to google, "CJKV" is the latest software, not just CJK anymore lol since Vietnam used to use their own Chinese characters-based script
By the way - it's perfectly right for you to discuss it here hehe. Thank you for taking the time to write out your opinion rather than just doing whatever :)
[edit] Revertions by Wik
Wik, would you mind telling us what is wrong with the current version, before reverting once again? Your revertions are mostly removing information. --Cantus 23:53, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
[edit] CJK
Re "The regions of China, Japan, and Korea, which have historically related writing systems, are sometimes collectively referred to as CJK.": CJK refers to languages and/or scripts, not regions. A-giau 22:26, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)
[edit] East Asia
East Asia refers to Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia combined. This article depicts East Asia as synonymous with Northeast Asia which is wrong.
- You are right however that use of "east asia" which combines northeast and southeast is rarely used today, as evident in university studies or the multitude of news articles dealing with such. Perhaps there should be a small explanation about hwo "East asia" is sometimes used to refer to both geographic Northeast and Southeast combined regardless of culture or anything else. - Anonymous user
[edit] Mongolia and East Asia or Central Asia?
The maps on the page should be changed. Mongolia can't be on geographical East Asia on one, and not on the other. User Tridungvo 10.33 10.12.2006
In terms of ethnic origin (Mongol, Altaic, etc.), religion (Tibetan Buddhism), political history (Mongol, Central Asian, Russian patterns) and region, Mongolia does not have much in common with China in any sense. So shouldn't Mongolia be moved to the "Central Asia" section? Le Anh-Huy 01:39, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
- Mongolian society is influenced by China and is usually considered East Asia a part of East Asia geographically and culturally. RevolverOcelotX
Such a blunt and too short of a response (not really an answer) like that doesn't really explain; we should provide more explicit reasons as to how Mongolia is in the East Asian sphere. Most websites for Central Asian news have a Mongolia section, and so this opinion that Mongolia is in that region, is by no means of my own. I already put the reasons above why I think it is in Central Asia, and not "East Asia". If you wanna talk "influence", Mongols probably "influenced" the Chinese more so than vice versa; look at how Chinese traditional costumes have changed throughout the centuries; the addition of the neck collar is either a Mongolian or Manchu adaption. Whereas, Mongol and Manchu clothes have stayed more or less the same. Le Anh-Huy 02:34, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Taiwan&China
Since the Republic of Korea and the People's Republic of Korea get to use South Korea and North Korea, I changed People's Republic of China and Republic of China into China and Taiwan, so it's less confusing now.--68.98.154.196 01:33, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
- What is People's Republic of Korea?68.145.105.91 18:22, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
- Well, someone changed it back w/o explaining, so I decided to make it as confusing as the person wanted it to be.--Jerrypp772000 22:37, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Caption
It says "political-geographical," which does not make sense, as in a political sense, China's goverment is more like Vietnam's and not South Korea or Japan. In anycase, I changed the caption and I see no reason for it to change back without some logical discussion first.
- What do you mean? What did you change?--Jerrypp772000 22:35, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Northeast Asia
"Northeast Asia" currently redirects here, but the article does not mention, let alone explain the term. I think this should be fixed or the redirect should be deleted.
The Korean Wikipedia also has a redirect to "East Asia"[1] and mentions "Northeast Asia" as synonymous with "East Asia" in the latter article's first sentence. The Chinese Wikipedias (zh-yue:東北亞, zh:东北亚), however, clearly distinguish between the two terms.
This is not to suggest we should follow the Korean or the Cantonese Wikipedia, each of which only presents one definition of "Northeast Asia" and fails to mention that there are others. Rather, it should be pointed out that
- neither of the two terms has a universally accepted definition,
- some people do not distinguish between concepts of "East Asia" and of "Northeast Asia", and that
- among this subset of people who do not need two different terms, some may prefer one term over the other, or even discourage using the other.
(Personally, I use both terms to mean different things.) I expect that enough instances from reputable sources could be found for several different usages of both terms that conflict with both the Korean and the Cantonese Wikipedia's definitions.
If you agree, we should decide whether "Northeast Asia" should
- still redirect and its definitions be explained here, giving weight to those who regard the term as meaning more or less the same as "East Asia", or
- get its own article, giving weight to those who make a distinction.
Wikipeditor 16:36, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
FWIW, I am not the author of the above unsigned post under the header #East Asia. Wikipeditor 16:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
