interest in Asian cultures other than your own

[SunWuKong]

are you interested in learning Asian cultures of a different ethnicity from your own? i know i am - particularly with East Asian cultures. have you taken courses on an Asian culture/history/language of a different ethnicity from your own? admittedly, i did not, even though i was interested in doing so. i was more concentrated on doing my double major and minor, which took up all my schedule. anyway, if you have this interest, why do you think you have it? is it because you believe in a pan-ethnic Asian American identity? i think my own interest in East Asian cultures stems from the mere fact that East Asian cultures can be very similar to one another.

[tapestrybabe]

Originally posted by SunWuKung@Jul 5 2003, 12:09 AM
i think my own interest in East Asian cultures stems from the mere fact that East Asian cultures can be very similar to one another.
i think for me...
its the other way around... i like learning about the differences about each culture... i like learning what makes one culture distinct from another...

like with music... i like being able to make that distinction... thats chinese music... and this is korean...

or like with games... majong, thats a chinese game... but Chang-gi, thats a korean game...

or kimonos, thats a traditional japanese type of clothing... but hanboks... thats a traditional korean outfit...

[AngryABCGirl]

Originally posted by SunWuKung@Jul 4 2003, 08:09 PM
are you interested in learning Asian cultures of a different ethnicity from your own? i know i am - particularly with East Asian cultures. have you taken courses on an Asian culture/history/language of a different ethnicity from your own? admittedly, i did not, even though i was interested in doing so. i was more concentrated on doing my double major and minor, which took up all my schedule. anyway, if you have this interest, why do you think you have it? is it because you believe in a pan-ethnic Asian American identity? i think my own interest in East Asian cultures stems from the mere fact that East Asian cultures can be very similar to one another.
I'm not really interested at all in learning East Asian cultures because they are very similiar and I don't have a need to go discover my Chinese culture or anything even though I can believe in Pan-Ethic AA identity. You'lll probably never see me in an East Asian studies class unless I'm doing a langauge to make bling bling someday. I'm more interested in learning about cultures really different and ancient like Roman and Greek History, the Moors, or Mayans because because it's more interesting look back at our humanity and more distant too.

[AliBabaIncorporated]

I learn about Chinese stuff (and to a lesser extent, Malay stuff) with the main purpose of being able to function like a normal member of society, in case I move there one day, which isn't that remote a possibility. Which means, I get over my trouble summoning up interest in traditional culture and history so I can know what I need to know to look at current societal developments intelligently, understand references in books and speeches, try to sound less uneducated when I talk, etc.

With other cultures, it's even worse. I have no incentive to learn about traditional culture and history. I just wanna watch their movies and TV series (if available subtitled in Chinese or English) and listen to their music. If I have a lot of friends from that culture, maybe I'll also get the urge to learn the language and the basics of the culture. Which is how I learned Japanese and bits of Korean and Hindi, and have all this random knowledge about Islam. But I don't really bother trying to learn how to fit into or understand their society that much.

[BeTheReds]

Originally posted by tapestrybabe@Jul 5 2003, 04:18 PM
i think for me...
its the other way around... i like learning about the differences about each culture... i like learning what makes one culture distinct from another...

like with music... i like being able to make that distinction... thats chinese music... and this is korean...

or like with games... majong, thats a chinese game... but Chang-gi, thats a korean game...

or kimonos, thats a traditional japanese type of clothing... but hanboks... thats a traditional korean outfit...
chang-gi is a Japanese game though. so is paduk, gostop, kaibaibo you name it. Most of it was brought over in the colonization period.

Hanbok and Kimono also evolved from the same ancestor. If Japan would get off of its pompous ass and let imperial tombs be excavated, it will be proven once and for all that the Japanese imperial house is Korean, and before the western concept of "countries" invaded the asian mindset, Korea and Japan have such an intertwining history... moreso than Japan would like to admit. But anyway, hanbok and kimono are based on the tratitional clothing style of Koguryo, though naturally with an ocean seperating Korea from Japan and various civil wars and hundreds of years, they no longer resemble each other.

[BeTheReds]

Oh yea, my answer to the topic..

I don't really care about actively trying to learn anything about other Asian countries. The fact that I live in Japan has helped me to learn about Japan a bit.

[tapestrybabe]

Originally posted by BeTheReds@Jul 5 2003, 06:16 AM
Originally posted by tapestrybabe@Jul 5 2003, 04:18 PM
i think for me...
its the other way around... i like learning about the differences about each culture... i like learning what makes one culture distinct from another...

like with music... i like being able to make that distinction... thats chinese music... and this is korean...

or like with games... majong, thats a chinese game... but Chang-gi, thats a korean game...

or kimonos, thats a traditional japanese type of clothing... but hanboks... thats a traditional korean outfit...
chang-gi is a Japanese game though. so is paduk, gostop, kaibaibo you name it. Most of it was brought over in the colonization period.

Hanbok and Kimono also evolved from the same ancestor. If Japan would get off of its pompous ass and let imperial tombs be excavated, it will be proven once and for all that the Japanese imperial house is Korean, and before the western concept of "countries" invaded the asian mindset, Korea and Japan have such an intertwining history... moreso than Japan would like to admit. But anyway, hanbok and kimono are based on the tratitional clothing style of Koguryo, though naturally with an ocean seperating Korea from Japan and various civil wars and hundreds of years, they no longer resemble each other.
omg, i was always under the impression that those were all korean games... and that chang-ji was like a korean chess game... i guess these games started in japan?? anyways, it just goes to show how little i know about certain stuff...

thanks for the education...

[deez nuts]

no. i'm not even that interested in my own culture and history. let alone other asian cultures and histories.

when i mean interested i mean go out of my way as to take a class, read up on it or have an in depth discussion about it voluntarily. no, thanks.

casual convo is ok. but, anything more than that; loses my interest and won't hold my attention.

[golden_buns]

I'm interested to learn mandarin, not cuz I'm interested in chinese culture or girls, but becuase I'd be a hot asset for any consulting firm if I become fluent in Mandarin, since I'm already fluent in spanish, english, and hopefully korean (by the end of this year). In fact, if I get hired by the company that interviewed me last week, I'll try to get transfered to its branch in Beijing, so that I can learn the language

[SunWuKong]

to elaborate on this, while i'm interested in other East Asian cultures/histories beside Chinese, the only time i really read about them is if i'm browsing through a book or if i'm reading short articles about them on the web. as far as books go, there are still so much about China that i want to read about that it takes up most of the list of my reading material. and as far as classes go, i'd probably take something Chinese related first.

[SunWuKong]

Originally posted by BeTheReds@Jul 5 2003, 06:16 AM
... and before the western concept of "countries" invaded the asian mindset ...
are you sure this is a Western concept? there was constant fighting between kingdoms on the Korean peninsula itself until 932 A.D. when Koryo unified the Korean people/nations.

i am pretty certain that in China, the concept of "countries" was always constant, because not only did different nations within China have different rulers, they probably had different spoken languages.

[kimpossible]

I'd put myself in the Sinophile category if I had an interest born of fascination rather than necessity. I feel really pressed for time at this stage in my life otherwise I'd be interested in learning Korean language and some history. I heard Korean grammar is similar to Japanese so the transition wouldn't be too bad. Dunno. Not sure how much is true about Koreans and Japanese being closely related, but I'd like to know more.

[BeTheReds]

Originally posted by SunWuKung@Jul 6 2003, 02:23 AM
are you sure this is a Western concept? there was constant fighting between kingdoms on the Korean peninsula itself until 932 A.D. when Koryo unified the Korean people/nations.

i am pretty certain that in China, the concept of "countries" was always constant, because not only did different nations within China have different rulers, they probably had different spoken languages.
Well, I'd say that it is mostly a western concept. Although there were Kingdoms and armies at that time, people with homes geographically distant from one another would not consider each other countrymen really.

Specifically I am talking about people living in areas like Tsushima, and Manchuria.

In Tsushima, there as no concensus that the people there were Japanese, nor was there any concensus that they were Koreans. They were Tsushimans, and had considerable ties to both the islands and the peninsula.

People in the southern part of the Korean peninsula certainly felt more cultural ties with those in western most areas of Japan than they did with people living along the Yalu.

When the economy is mostly agricultural and there isn't a lot of communication or travel or trading between different areas of a Kingdom, people in one area could care less if another area of their Kingdom just went thru a severe drought, cuz they have plenty of food for themselves.

Tho I do see what you are saying, there was, at least at the governmental level, a sense of nations, however, I don't think there was much nationalism going on in the minds of the people until after the arrival of westerners.

[Hanuman]

Back in college I took some Japanese courses. I think I did so mainly because my father was always telling me that Japanese is someday going to be a valuable language to know. I think I was also interested because of the martial arts I was studying. Now, counting to ten in japanese is the extent of my linguistic skills.

[Ogumo]

I always found chinese culture interesting. Im not really interested in korean culture so much...

[SunWuKong]

<!--QuoteBegin-BeTheReds+Jul 7 2003, 02:05 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (BeTheReds @ Jul 7 2003, 02:05 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-SunWuKung+Jul 6 2003, 02:23 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (SunWuKung @ Jul 6 2003, 02:23 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> are you sure this is a Western concept?&nbsp; there was constant fighting between kingdoms on the Korean peninsula itself until 932 A.D. when Koryo unified the Korean people/nations.

i am pretty certain that in China, the concept of "countries" was always constant, because not only did different nations within China have different rulers, they probably had different spoken languages. [/b][/quote]
Well, I'd say that it is mostly a western concept. Although there were Kingdoms and armies at that time, people with homes geographically distant from one another would not consider each other countrymen really.

Specifically I am talking about people living in areas like Tsushima, and Manchuria.

In Tsushima, there as no concensus that the people there were Japanese, nor was there any concensus that they were Koreans. They were Tsushimans, and had considerable ties to both the islands and the peninsula.

People in the southern part of the Korean peninsula certainly felt more cultural ties with those in western most areas of Japan than they did with people living along the Yalu.

When the economy is mostly agricultural and there isn't a lot of communication or travel or trading between different areas of a Kingdom, people in one area could care less if another area of their Kingdom just went thru a severe drought, cuz they have plenty of food for themselves.

Tho I do see what you are saying, there was, at least at the governmental level, a sense of nations, however, I don't think there was much nationalism going on in the minds of the people until after the arrival of westerners. [/b][/quote]
i would think that the "concept of countries" and nationalism are two different things. it seems to me what you wrote about in that last post is nationalism.

and i would say that Korean people have had a sense of nationalism for a long time, being situated between Han Chinese, nomad tribes in northern China, and Japan.

but Chinese people didn't really have a sense of nationalism until the early 1900s. in other words, they didn't really have a sense that they were one people.

[DragonKnight]

I've always been deeply interested in Japanese culture and history when I was a kid. Still am. Recently getting interested in Chinese history and now Korean. Still wanna get into the languages of all 3. :P

[Ogumo]

Im thinking about learning a form of chinese...but I bet it is extremely complicated to learn.

[Napoleon Chynamite]

I am not really interested in Asian cultures or any other type of culture. I do like learning or studying languages though because of the coolness factor of being able to communicate under an entirely different system, and being able to apply it right away to friends or whatever. I enjoy hanging out with people of different perspectives and from different countries persay because they may have something new and interesting to offer, but it's not really an active search to learn more about their entire way of life or anything. However I do wanna be the first person I know who can speak Chinese, Japanese, and Korean fluently (and without those half-assed American accents).

Learning languages to get girls is stupid. Just talk to them in English. And if they are FOB's who can't speak English well at all, then regardless they'd probably be more impressed with your English skill anyway, ESPECIALLY if you are Asian American and somehow they can't get it through their thick heads that even though you have Asian blood it is not a miracle that you have perfect command of the English language.

[SunWuKong]

<!--QuoteBegin-FrozenPizza+Jul 15 2003, 01:26 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (FrozenPizza @ Jul 15 2003, 01:26 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Learning languages to get girls is stupid. Just talk to them in English. And if they are FOB's who can't speak English well at all, then regardless they'd probably be more impressed with your English skill anyway, ESPECIALLY if you are Asian American and somehow they can't get it through their thick heads that even though you have Asian blood it is not a miracle that you have perfect command of the English language. [/b][/quote]
actually, if you are American-born and trying to hit on a FOB girl in the US, it would probably impress her more if you were fluent in the Asian language of her ethnicity. i don't think they'd be surprised at all that you can speak fluent English if you were born here. instead, they'd be surprised if you speak an Asian language fluently.

[kwalan]

I like finding similarities between cultures. It makes playing diplomat to my ethnically diverse friends easier and relatable.

[SunWuKong]

<!--QuoteBegin-kwalan+Jul 15 2003, 11:14 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (kwalan @ Jul 15 2003, 11:14 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I like finding similarities between cultures. It makes playing diplomat to my ethnically diverse friends easier and relatable. [/b][/quote]
actually i enjoy finding differences in cultures more than finding similarities.