Talk:East Asia

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Contents 1 Easian 2 Inclusion of Vietnam 3 Revertions by Wik 4 CJK 5 East Asia 6 Mongolia and East Asia or Central Asia? 7 Taiwan&China 8 Caption 9 Northeast Asia 10 Political Entities in East Asia 11 East Asian people 12 Mongolian society 13 Inline References 14 Taiwan dispute 15 Removed section

[edit] Easian

What about the term "Easian" which is short for East Asian? The term when used to describe people of East Asia has no racist connection unlike many of the other words that often get used. Asian is often used but is not sufficient in describing the area as Asia is a much larger region with many different racial types. I have seen the use of this word on forums but it hasn't had a mention here.

Never heard of it, except (as you say) as a short form of East Asian, much as Xmas is a short form of Christmas. I've never heard it used with reference to people as some sort of euphemism or, actually, at all. If you have references beyond "often used" or "on forums," please point the rest of us to them.Rikyu 03:30, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Here are some examples of people that recognise the shortened term. Observe the links

http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/mongols/

http://www.easia-travel.com/

http://easia.imb.org/video/index.htm

http://tc2tc.mojolingo.xuite.net/m2m-0000/www.easia-adventures.com/

http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/easian/

http://www.library.umass.edu/subject/easian/askeasl/askEASLguides.html

http://www.library.umass.edu/subject/easian/askeasl/JpnILLpract.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jokti (talk • contribs) 22:16, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, in every case except Easia Travel, "easia" or "easian" is, as I suggested above, just an abbreviation for "East Asia" or "East Asian"--in fact, "easia" or "easian" appears only in the URL, and nowhere in the pages themselves. The one exception, Easia Travel, is a registered trademark for the travel company, and has nothing to do with the people of East Asia.Rikyu 23:43, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[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)

I meant DPRK.--Jerrypp772000 17:13, 5 May 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)

In my experience, "Northeast Asia" primarily refers to Korea and Japan, with some interest in Manchuria and the eastern chunk of the Russian Far East. In other words, East Asia minus all of China except for the portions northeast of the Great Wall. For example, the Association for Asian Studies has a "Northeast Asia Council" that funds research and teaching on Japan and Korea, but accepts proposals for near neighbors. I don't know that this information requires a whole page of its own, but if it seems worthwhile to provide a link to the AAS NEAC, I suppose a separate entry is justifiable.Rikyu 22:12, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Political Entities in East Asia

I see this has been going around and around, and an anonymous user from Taiwan just again removed the clarification of (Taiwan) after the listing of ROC (something they have been doing all over Wikipedia). I have rewritten the list to use as the name of the political entity the title of the page linked to. If "North Korea" is where the user is going, let's leave it at that--if they want to know the official name of the DPRK, they can click the link and find out. On the other hand, I removed the extra link to "China" following the listing for the PRC, because the target page is explicitly about China as a cultural entity, not a political one. If there should be a cultural China link on the page, it should be somewhere other than the list of political entities.Rikyu 17:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] East Asian people

I don't know that I have access to adequate source material, but to my knowledge it is generally understood that East Asians (Chinese, Koreans, Japanese) collectively comprise a distinct racial group which I think should be recognized in the article. For instance, in the controversial world of intelligence testing, this group is regularly regarded as distinct unto itself–—the categorical/classificational implications of which I take to be at least as significant as the linguistic aspect. Does anyone have any references to cite to this effect? W.M. O'Quinlan 17:40, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

It may be "generally understood," but there is no credible evidence to suggest that even "Chinese" constitute a distinct racial group, much less in combination with Koreans and Japanese. Linguistica and paleontological evidence for Korean and Japan suggest multiple waves of migration over a long period time, some from more westerly areas on the mainland (at least Altaic peoples, and, in the case of Korea, possibly even Scythians), and some from insular Southeast Asia (Malayo-Polynesian peoples). Chinese have historical recognized anywhere from 5 ethnicities/races (canonized in the Qing dynasty as Han, Tibetan, Uighur, Mongolian, and Manchurian) to 56 (the official number in present-day PRC), and there has been significant mixing between all of these groups. The Chinese term more or less analogous to the idea of a Chinese "race/ethnicity" is Han, and that is, like Black or White in the United States, as much a cultural and political concept as anything else.

Physical anthropologists suggest that Asian populations can be divided into two broad groups based on features like tooth shape etc. into Sinodonts and Sundadonts; these two terms reference China and Indonesia, respectively, but the gradiant ("boundary," if you like) like squarely athwart south-central China, southernmost Korea, and central Honshu in Japan. So in the broadest physical sense, if you accept the Sinodont-Sundadont distinction as constituting a racial distinction, there are two in the East Asian population.

I personally don't find intelligence testing at all meaningful. If that kind of pseudoscience is acceptable, then why not give the more common pseudoscientific "evidence" for unique East Asian races found over there: blood types.

My advice is don't muck up this entry with racial mumbo-jumbo.Rikyu 18:31, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting that the issue of intelligence is pertinent to this article, I was only using the heated context of race and intelligence research (to which a consistent/approximately coherent definition of race is germane) to see how useful it is to make "racial" distinctions between Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese on the one hand, and, for instance, Thai, Laotian, and Vietnamese peoples on the other. In other words, it has been important (indeed central) to race and intelligence measurement to establish as close to a meaningful definition of a racial group as possible; insofar as such a definition has been established, what seems to be the case is that there are meaningful divisions between the population that includes the Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese and the Southeastern Asian populations.

So I am just saying that I am familiar with this kind of distinction on the basis of my familiarity with the race and intelligence controversy, but I haven't heard of scholars distinguishing between the East Asians and the Southeast Asians in other contexts.

So I guess my question is ultimately this: What is the genetic/linguistic/historical/etc. (in effect, those qualities that comprise the notion of "race") relationship between East Asian peoples (usually understood to be the Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese) and the Southeast Asian peoples (e.g. the Vietnamese, Thais, Laotians, Bamar, etc.), as opposed to the relationship between the East Asians and, say, Northern Europeans? My interest in this question has arisen because I remember reading an article by Cavalli-Sforza which suggested that the Southeast Asian peoples are more closely related to the people of the Indian sub-continent, the Europeans, and the Austronesian peoples than they are to the Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese (which to me seems odd).

I would also say that while I agree with you that the article should by no means hinge upon the racial aspect of the geographical region in question, I would disagree with the idea that such an aspect is nothing more than mumbo-jumbo, or that it has no relevance to the article whatsoever. Cheers, W.M. O'Quinlan 20:00, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Your question presumes that there are reifiable boundaries between "East Asian peoples" and "Southeast Asian peoples." Aside from the apparent Sundadont/Sinodont gradiant that some paleontologists recognize, there is no good reason to construct such categories apart from the fact that some people now live in areas labeled "East Asia" and "Southeast Asia." For example, different groups from what is now considered China have moved in and out of Southeast Asia west at least as far as Burma and south well into insular Southeast Asia for thousands of years. Some of these groups have maintained some kind of sense of Chinese-ness (Hakka, Fujianese, Hokkienese), whether self-identified or externally identified, while others (Hmong, Burmans) have magically lost it or appear to have migrated out before their areas were considered "East Asia." Furthermore, if there is no clear singular "race" that unites "East Asian peoples," as I suggest above, then on what basis are we to construct a comparison with "Southeast Asian peoples," which are if anything far more varied? Racial distinctions are fundamentally social-political constructs that are at times justified by appeal to stereotypes constructed through selective recognition of arbitrary features in localized gene pools, and as such are highly subjective, highly contingent upon historical moments, and highly dependent for their coherence on minimal sampling and maximal averaging. Unless you want to make this entry larger than the rest of Wikipedia together, and probably ignite any number of online wars in the process, it's best to keep the focus of this article on geography, political entities, and the analytic notions that inform study of the area.

If you are interested in the complexities here, for a single but well-executed example, take a look at Mark Hudson's Ruins of Identity: Ethnogenesis in the Japanese Islands (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999. He goes through all the linguistic and paleontological evidence regarding the origins of modern Japanese and the relationship with Jomon, Yayoi, Ainu, Korean, and other peoples. This should be more useful for the purpose at hand than Cavalli-Sforza's speculations. Cheers yourself. Rikyu 03:53, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

My question was simply whether or not those boundaries between the said population groups exist in any meaningful way, which you answered (you have my gratitude). If possible, I'd like to hear some other opinions on the matter though, since you disagree that race can be a legitimate category beyond the social aspect of it. W.M. O'Quinlan 19:23, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mongolian society

I see how (Outer) Mongolia can be considered part of East Asia geographically, but culturally? True, they use chopsticks, at least sometimes. But otherwise? Is their society influenced by Confucianism? Do/did they use Chinese characters? Is pastoral nomadism a typical East Asian way of life? Are there any other societies in East Asia that were heavily formed by Soviet socialism? Yaan (talk) 01:04, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

While I am at it: What about prayer wheels? Common in Japanese, Korean, or (Han-) Chinese societies?Yaan (talk) 13:33, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

The Qing dynasty, which ruled Mongolia for several hundred years, was essentially Confucian. Vajrayana Buddhism, the direct predecessor of Mongolian Buddhism, was big in China around 600-900 AD and survives as Shingon in Japan to this very day. Pastoral nomadism is common in northern China. And if North Korea wasn't heavily formed by Soviet socialism (hell, Stalinism), I don't know what is! Jpatokal (talk) 07:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

True, there are ethnic Mongols, Kazakhs, Tajiks etc. living in northern China. That does not make Mongolia (or Kazakhstan or Tajikistan, for that matter) "culturally East Asian". Portugal ruled Macao for several hundred years, but is hardly "culturally Iberian". I don't think North Korea ever had a thorough rejection of "cult of personality", so I'd rather be careful about comparing it with other pro-Soviet states - China, on the other hand, always condemned such revisionist tendencies. But this last comparison seems meaningless anyway - Just because Kim Il Sung (like Mao) got some inspirations from the Soviet Union of the 1940s does not make Mongolia culturally East Asian. Au contraire - when Mao took offense with the Brezhnev doctrine, Mongolia's brand of socialism was all the more Soviet, right up to their late-80s attempts at Glasnost and Perestroika. All kids learnt Russian as foreign language, students were sent to the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary or East Germany, people saw Russian movies, read Russian books, the cities began to look more and more like Russian cities etc. They even put those ribbons on their girl's heads! Yaan (talk) 14:57, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Inline References

The article currently contains many statements that are not supported by in-line references. Some of these statements appear very speculative and a cursory web searches have not reveal obvious sources that could substantiate these claims. I have now added a relevant template to the top of the article indicating the need for references. The fact template has been carefully added to each statement that seems to require backup - I know this "litters the page", but since the quality of the article is compromised by the lack of sources, this is probably justified. laurens (talk) 07:56, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Taiwan dispute

Should Taiwan be included in the list as a country itself, or should it be considered as part of the People's Republic of China? I think it should be listed after Hong Kong and Macau, or at least, put Taiwan in italics and explain why. Kubanik (talk) 16:34, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

In the infobox there is already a footnote after Taiwan explaining it's disputed sovereignty. I have added that same footnote after Taiwan in the list in the article I believe you are referring to (see my edit: [2]). Is this good enough? LonelyMarble (talk) 16:43, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's much better now. I'm not a Chinese notionalist or anything (I'm not even Chinese.) But I think it is important to make clear that Taiwan is not recognized as a sovereign country by the UN and most countries. Thank you for editing it, I didn't know how to edit it being neutral. Thanks again. Kubanik (talk) 20:16, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Removed section

"Some definitions are even broader and include Burma, Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand.^[1][2][3][4]"

Removed this section. Those nations are geographically and culturally considered "South East Asia," not "East Asia." Even further out can even be considered Oceania & Pacific rim, Intranetusa (talk) 16:06, 22 April 2008 (UTC)