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
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.
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.
No. Japan embraced European racial ideology but still wanted its own empire. This was problematic for Japanese imperialists because Europeans considered them as lesser life forms, and reiterated this in the League of Nations. Thus, capitalist Japan has always had to have a contradictory view of race, wanting to be equal to Europeans (and superior to non-Europeans) while not being European.
This racial view of the world is no longer so overt, but still exists. European leaders still consider themselves a white “garden” compared to the non-white “jungle”. Who is considered European, Western, and/or white can be changed. Following the war in Ukraine, Russia has been described as Asian more frequently. For the collaborationist regimes in South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, they are often grouped in as the “West,” but because they are undeniably Asian (unlike Russia), they will never be completely accepted. Racists don’t ask you for your nationality before they push you off a cliff - they just look at you. Japan & South Korea need to realize that they are Asian instead of begging white supremacists to be honorary whites.
I’m from Europe, and no one here or in america considers Korea or Japan uncivilized or a “jungle”. On the opposite, lots of weebs and kpop/kdrama fans all around.
Most of the world has moved over the concept of race, and political ideologies are what now unite people. And Korea and Japan, being democracies, belong with “western” democracies more than China. China knows this, and they try to play on feelings about race and geopraphy
"Europe is a garden. We have built a garden. Everything works. It is the best combination of political freedom, economic prosperity and social cohesion that the humankind has been able to build – the three things together. And here, Bruges is maybe a good representation of beautiful things, intellectual life, wellbeing.
The rest of the world – and you know this very well, Federica – is not exactly a garden. Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden." -High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell
Also my point is East Asian countries’ proximity to Westernness is very conditional.
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
