Eastern world

An image of the "Eastern world" defined as Asia

The term Eastern world (also the Orient) refers very broadly to the various cultures or social structures and philosophical systems, depending on the context, most often including at least part of Asia or geographically the countries and cultures east of Europe, north of Oceania. The term is usually not used by people in this region itself, since this Eastern world is a varied, complex and dynamic region, hard to generalize, and although these countries and regions have many common threads running through them, historically they never needed to define themselves collectively against another entity, real or superficial.

The term originally had a literal geographic meaning, referring to the eastern part of the Old World, contrasting the cultures and civilizations of Asia with those of Europe (the Occident or Western world). Traditionally, This includes all of Central, North and East Asia (the Far East), Western Asia (the Near East), Southeast Asia and South Asia (the Indian subcontinent), specifically in historical (pre-modern) contexts, and in modern times in the context of Orientalism, but the term is also used contemporarily.

Identity politics

Asian concepts

Although the concept of a united Asian people and not mean Asian race is even more debatable due to the fact that most of the world link the identity of Asian only to the people of South, East and Southeast Asia and so regions like Western Asia that who even though see themselves as part of the Eastern world such as the Arab nations of Western Asia, Israel, Turkey, Iran, and the ethnic groups that come along with these countries do not identify as Asian.^[1] Another reason why a Pan-Asian identity is a flawed work in progress concept compared to the mass unity found in the continents of Europe and Africa is the fact that Asia is the most racially and ethnically diverse continent in the world^[2][3][4] that differs very widely among and within its regions with many different cultures, environments, economics, historical ties and government systems whose people have an even further pan-continental belief of nationalistic, cultural, and ethnic individualism many of whom believe came out of the imperialistic colonization of the continent by foreign Western powers back in colonial times and because of this overt sense individualism across the continent once a specific group(s) is labeled something many groups within Asia will have a hard time identifying with the same label. Most of the people of Asia prefer to identify with their individual nations rather than with their continent, region, or each other and these attitudes can be found throughout the continent.

Other than Asia and some parts of Africa, Europe has successfully absorbed almost all of the societies of Oceania, and the Americas into the Western world,^[5][6][7] but not to the degree that they are considered a part of Europe as is the case with Asia.^[8][9]

The division between 'East' and 'West' is a product of European cultural history, and of the distinction between European Christendom and the cultures beyond it to the East. With the European colonization of the Americas the East/West distinction became global. The concept of an Eastern, "Indian" (Indies) or "Oriental" sphere was emphasized by ideas of racial as well as religious and cultural differences. Such distinctions were articulated by Westerners in the scholarly tradition known as Orientalism and Indology. An intriguing fact to be noted is that Orientalism has been the only Western concept that was about a unified Eastern world and not about any specific region(s), but rather all of Asia together.^[10][11]

People from the Eastern world are known by certain regions in the West as "Oriental", while in others, it may still have a racial connotation (such as Brazil, where the more than 2 million Brazilians of East Asian descent are known as brasileiros orientais – in contrast to asiáticos brasileiros, a term that includes all those with recent descent from anywhere in Asia, including the generally white Arab Brazilians, Mizrahi Jews, Armenian Brazilians, Turkish Brazilians) that became outdated or even offensive in others.

European concepts

During the Cold War, the term "Eastern world" was sometimes used as an extension of Eastern bloc, connoting the Soviet Union, China and their communist allies, while the term "Western world" often connoted the United States and its NATO allies such as the United Kingdom.

The concept is often another term for the Far East – a region that bears considerable cultural and religious commonality. Eastern philosophy, art, literature, and other traditions, are often found throughout the region in places of high importance, such as popular culture, architecture and traditional literature. The spread of Buddhism and Hindu Yoga is partly responsible for this.

Eastern culture

An image of the "Eastern world" defined as Asia or the "Far East", consisting of three overlapping cultural blocks: East Asia (green), South Asia (orange), and Southeast Asia (blue)

The distribution of the two major families of world religion, highlights the religious difference between the East and the rest of the world (Abrahamic religions in purple, Eastern religions in yellow)

Eastern culture has developed many themes and traditions. Some important ones are:

• Abrahamic religions (a.k.a. West Asian religions)
  • Christianity — the majority of the modern world adheres to this faith although it isn't widely practiced in its native continent of Asia anymore and since the faith had spread to the Western World the notion of "Europe" and the "Western World" has been intimately connected with the concept of "Christianity and Christendom" many even attribute Christianity for being the link that created a unified European identity.^[12]
  • Islam — the majority of the world Muslim population have always lived in Asia, due to Islam spreading and becoming the dominant religion of these areas.
  • Judaism — an ethnic culture and religion originating with the Ancient Israelites/Hebrews in the Fertile Crescent, or what is now Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. They eventually evolved into the Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi Jews of the diaspora.
• Zoroastrianism — the monotheistic state religion of Sassanid Persia.
• Asian Cinema
  • Chinese Cinema
  • Hong Kong Cinema
  • Indian Cinema
  • Japanese cinema
  • Korean cinema
  • Taiwan Cinema
• Asian cuisine
  • Chinese Cuisine
  • Hong Kong Cuisine
  • Indian Cuisine
  • Japanese Cuisine
  • Korean Cuisine
  • Taiwanese cuisine
  • Vietnamese cuisine
• Eastern religions / Eastern philosophy
  • Indian religions
    • Buddhism — the path of liberation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality.
    • Hinduism
    • Jainism
    • Sikhism — a religion that developed in the warring plains of Punjab in an atmosphere of ideological clash between Islam and Hinduism. Its followers retain spiritual as well as martial qualities.
  • Taoic religions (a.k.a. East Asian religions or Far Eastern religions)
    • Shenism
    • Confucianism — the belief that human beings are teachable, improvable and perfectible through personal and communal endeavour especially including self-cultivation and self-creation.
    • Far Eastern Buddhism
    • Shinto
    • Taoism
• Oriental medicine
  • Ayurveda
  • Chinese medicine
  • Kampo
  • Traditional Korean medicine
  • Traditional Tibetan medicine
  • Traditional Vietnamese medicine

See also

• Adoption of Chinese literary culture in the Sinosphere consisting of Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, Mainland China, North Korea, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam
• Arab world
• Central Asia
• Continental union
• East-West dichotomy
• Greater India
• Muslim world
• Silk Road
• Western Asia

References

• Ankerl, Guy (2000) [2000]. Global communication without universal civilization. INU societal research. Vol.1: Coexisting contemporary civilizations : Arabo-Muslim, Bharati, Chinese, and Western. Geneva: INU Press. ISBN 2-88155-004-5.