Nov 6

Nov 6 S01E08 - What is Asia?

Jay Ooi

Transcript

Hyun Jin Kim

Jay Ooi

This term Asian - where did this term come from? And how should we be using it today?

Hello and welcome to Shoes Off, stories about Asian Australian culture. I’m Jay Ooi.

What is Asia? No, really, have you ever thought about it? It’s a continent right? But, I mean, is it? Where is the clear physical border between Europe and Asia? The answer of course, is, there is none - it’s really one big continent that is Eurasia. So back to the original question: what is Asia? Where did this divide come from, and what does it mean for us today?

Hyun Jin Kim

during this period, which we call the archaic and Classical periods of Greek history, the Greeks defined Asia as comprising basically the territory of the Persian Empire as it's stretching from Turkey to India. Hecataeus, who was the first Greek geographer that we are familiar with, thought that Asia was one of the two continents into which the world was divided.

My name is Dr. Hyun Jin Kim and I'm the senior lecturer in classics at the University of Melbourne. I specialise in Greek historiography and the Greek ethnography.

Hecataeus thought that there was perfect symmetry between North and South. There was a Northern continent, which he called Europe and there was a Southern continent, which he called Asia and Asia included all of the Persian Empire and so everything from Turkey to India and also what we call Africa.

Jay Ooi

So, two things here. Firstly, the Ancient Greeks were the ones to start using the term Asia around the 6th Century BC to refer to an area of the world, and secondly, let’s keep in mind that this was a time when world geography didn’t exist. This is before the idea of a spherical world, and before a lot of exploration between continents, so when Dr Kim says Heacataeus thought there was perfect symmetry between North and South, Hecataeus literally thought the world was kind of a big circle, surrounded by a moat of water called the ocean. And being greek, he thought Greece was the centre, and the whole world stopped around India and excludes most of modern day Africa and Asia, with no concept of Australia. So when he uses this term “Asia” to describe the “southern” part of the world, it’s only referring to the world that he thought existed. And interestingly, by this definition, China is part of Europe, and Egypt is part of Asia. But the actual term Asia? Well that dates back to around 1200BC.

Hyun Jin Kim

It actually comes from a Luwian kingdom called Assuwa. Now the Luwians were an Indo-European speaking people or people who spoke Indo-European languages in what is now Western Turkey, originally called Anatolia. The kingdom of Assuwa, which is the origin of the term Asia, was located on the the Western half.

Jay Ooi

Okay, back to Ancient Greek history. We have Hecataeus doing his best to map the world, but what is happening in around Ancient Greece during the 5th and 6th Centuries BC?

Jelle Stoop

I am Jelle Stoop, and I am a Greek historian at the University of Sydney

In the 6th and 5th Century, Greeks are definitely expanding through colonising efforts. T At the same time, they are bumping into the borders of what is the Mediterranean, so one border they are bumping into is the Persian Empire on the East, and that leads to the Persian war, so there is a big thing going from the 6th and the 5th Century.

Jay Ooi

When we talk about where the Greeks were and where the Persians were, where are they on a modern day map?

Jelle Stoop

The Greeks are of course in the mainland Greece as we know it today, but also a lot further. It is probably better to think that they are just across the Mediterranean and the wider Mediterranean

That is a huge stretch, and the second huge stretch of Greek presence is around the Black Sea. That is definitely from the 6th and the 5th Century onwards, then when we go into the 4th Century, then a lot of settlements are also across the eastern expanse.

Jay Ooi

And we have the Persians stretching from the west coast of modern day Turkey down to the Hindu Kush, depending on the exact time. That’s the mountain range that stretches from Afghanistan into China. So we have the Persian empire occupying this region, bumping up against the Greeks to the west who are scattered around the Mediterrenian Sea and the Black Sea. And the Greeks get better at their geography as well - Herodotus, another Greek historian, ends up classifying what we call Africa into a separate continent.

is there a sense that maybe they wanted to separate themselves and probably just to say, we're a different area continent as we [crosstalk 00:15:45] today?

Hyun Jin Kim

Definitely. That's the idea. Herodotus, at the beginning of his work, says that Europe is regarded by the Persians to be territory that is not governed by them. They think that all of Asia belongs to them, but Europe has been separated off, he says.

Jay Ooi

How widespread were these terms? Like was it common, do normal people or, I don't know, was it beyond geographers this idea of Europe, Asia and Europe and Africa or what they called Africa, Libya.

Hyun Jin Kim

I would assume so. I think most of the Greeks inhabiting the polis, at least those who were educated. Literacy rates in Greece were very high. I think it is safe to say that most of the Greeks during the fifth century, at least, at least the educated elements of Greek society would have been aware of those terms.

Jelle Stoop

Greeks do not consider themselves as Asians. Whatever it is that they think of themselves, they are not from Asia. That is sometimes correct and sometimes, it is not correct, so of course, those who live on the west coast of Turkey, that is what today and the Romans would call Asia Minor and so that is part of Asia which we think of today as well. What makes that interesting is that for the Greek minds, the common denominator is that Asia is a different place where other people live, but then you can't really deny that some Greeks are also dealing with or living in Asia, and that needs to be negotiated on a day to day basis.

Jay Ooi

So Asia was a common term used by the Greeks, and it was used to separate them from the other, shall we say, inferior races, but Asia wasn’t the only term they were using.

Did they have a term for people who were north of Greece, so Belgium and up to Scandinavia I guess? Was there a term for that area of the continent?

Jelle Stoop

Yes. The Celts, Keltoi, you will hear in Greek sources, so that would be the Celts as you hear them later on.

Jay Ooi

Right. So, it was like the Greeks vs. the people up north and the people to the east and they are all enemies.

Jelle Stoop

Yes. The Greeks, whether they knew it or not, they definitely think of themselves as Mediterranean people and once you start to bump into people who start to eat fewer olives and drink less wine and have other practices that they consider normal, then they would be considered weird.

Language is another big barrier. Once they stop speaking Greek, people start to appear weird. The term barbarian, comes from the Greek barbaros, and that means literally, someone who does not speak the Greek language, because they are “barbarrarara”. They are mumbling.

Hyun Jin Kim

The Greeks did not really think of themselves as either European or Asian, although they lived on both the Asian continent and the European continent and also the Libyan continent. But they saw themselves as being the center. This is reflected very clearly in Aristotle's conception of the continents. He says that and he gives you the same story that the Asians are intelligent, but cowardly, the Europeans are stupid, but brave and the Greeks who just happen to live in the ideal climate in between are both sufficiently intelligent and sufficiently brave. They should rule the world, if only they were able to achieve political unity.

Jay Ooi

Yepp, the Greeks also saw those northern Europeans as beneath them as well. But for most of the Roman empire after this, the distinction between Asia and Europe as physical continents becomes less important.

Hyun Jin Kim

Well, back then during the middle ages, really the divide was between Islam and Christianity. It was Christian versus the Islamic world.

The Romans didn't really see the world as a sharp dichotomy of East and West. They saw their empire as being universal. It was meant to conquer all of the world, although it didn't, obviously, but then that's how they perceived of themselves as being a universal empire.

The sharp divide between East and West, between Eastern civilization and Western civilization, that is a modern construct, that is not how the ancients and medieval peoples view the world.

The Chinese... for starters, never have regarded themselves to be the East. They regarded themselves to be the center. It's the Chong Guo, it's the middle kingdom. So the East West divide is definitely a European thing.

But because Europe or Western European powers have been so dominant in global politics for the last two centuries or three centuries, this Western idea of the world has permeated other cultures. East Asians now of course, perceive themselves as being East. That is because they are East of Europe. The terms that we use, I mean, Far East, that's what we call East Asia, but far from who, right? From Europe. Even our geographical terminology is determined by a Eurocentric world view.

Jelle Stoop

The other thing is, of course, just the realizing that you can not do without conventions. The point, I think, is to not just get rid of them, but just to be very conscious about them.

Jay Ooi

Yes. That is what I am coming to realize that some of these terms may not have started well, but the way that we use them now is different and is actually useful in a lot of senses.

But it also might be detrimental in other ways.

At least to my understanding, Asia, it's this othering of the West. And that's how it's came about. And so, I just had this thought that was like, "Is this a good term for us to use?"

Ying Jie Guo

No.

Jay Ooi

Why is that?

Ying Jie Guo

If we are thinking about the same thing, Asia is not a good term to use, even Chinese is not a good term to use, because there are enormous internal diversities.

Jay Ooi

This is Professor Ying Jie Guo from the University of Sydney. You may remember him from episode one about names.

Ying Jie Guo

So, these terms, in many ways, are a shorthand. Shorthands are there because of convenience. And the convenience conceals that diversity, and it makes it easier to do a number of things. But, you are absolutely right. It's just, othering is probably not a nice way of putting it, but it's a really a way of drawing a line in the sand and say, we, they, and that's what is happening here. And usually, Australians don't say we, Europeans, they are ... It's very much the same we. But when you say Asians, they're out, they belong to the outer group. They're not part of us. And, in that sense, it's really bad. It's also bad in the sense that, Asia is ... What is it? What is it?

When people say Asians, I know immediately that I'm not part of the mainstream Australia. I'm being cut out of it.

Jay Ooi

Correct.

Ying Jie Guo

So I'm being classified as a different group, an out group or whatever. So, I know where I belong. That's okay. I've learned to live with that. It's just that it's almost my lot. I'm not going to change that, because I can't change it. Even when people ask me, "Are you Chinese?' I said, "Well, it depends on what you mean by that, because I'm a Australian citizen. I came from China. What is that?" "Oh, you're Chinese, you're Chinese." So, people are very happy to call me Chinese. They're more reluctant to call me Australian, because, by Australian, they don't mean nationality, they mean, my looks, my ethnicity, or whatever that they use as a benchmark or criterion.

Jay Ooi

Yepp, because Australia is essentially an extension of European culture being a British settlement and all, we’ve inherited their views of other people. Now this “other” has shifted over time, but as Ying Jie points out, if someone says ‘Asian’, you automatically know that it’s something different to mainstream Australian culture, whatever that is. It’s a way of harnessing social capital and saying you’re not quite us.

Ying Jie Guo

I'm not fighting with you for a piece of land or something, but I might be competing with you for social prestige, or for opportunities to talk, or for where I stand, or where I sit. For the way people look at me with more respect, with less respect, do I get more respect than others? And those things are not that conscious. And people do this subconsciously. But, nonetheless, we are still competing for something. And that is why these different categories are created, why people are classified as Asians, Africans, and so on, and so forth.

Jane Park

I mean, the big stereotype of Asian-Americans, and I would say the same of Asian-Australians, is that no matter how long you've lived in the country, you are seen as a perpetual foreigner.

My name is Jane Park … Jane Chi Hyun Park. I'm a senior lecturer in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney. I'm second generation Korean-American. My parents migrated to the U.S. when I was four, and then I migrated to Australia. I won't tell you my age then, but a little over a decade ago. I've been living here for a while now.

Why is that, right? Why do they want to separate you from whatever they think is Australian?

This has been happening ever since Asian migrants have been coming to White settler colonial nations.

Jay Ooi

Yes, racial groups exist in order to separate who’s in and who’s out.

Hyun Jin Kim

This phenomenon is referred to as Orientalism by 20th century scholars, most famously by Edward Said, who was a, I suppose, a post colonialist left-wing academic. He argued that since the time of the Greeks, the West, or Western Europeans systematically othered the East Asians, Middle Eastern people and Africans. According to him, Easterners were assigned all the negative roles and traits.

The West was by contrast romanticized and elevated to a superior status. That was his thesis, which is highly exaggerated. It's not entirely wrong, but I think it oversimplifies a very complex process

Jane Park

he was sort of grappling with why certain representations of Arabs, in mostly anglophone, but Western media culture, why did people from the Middle East keep getting represented in certain ways, i.e. as feminized or crazy? It's a huge region, but people all kind of getting lumped together into one group.

Jay Ooi

Orientalism. It’s this way of seeing a whole bunch of people as this one separate group, with traits that are often exaggerated, in order for the dominant population, Europeans in this case, to see themselves as superior. And it justifies a lot of things like colonisation, and quote unquote rescuing certain peoples and nations.

Jane Park

If the Orient is sort of this fantastic idea of all of Asia, which is so diverse, imagined by its counterpart, which needs this kind of necessary other to assert itself as human or as the subject.

Hyun Jin Kim

There was an attempt amongst assertion, imperial writers as it were, during the imperial and colonialist period to systematically denigrate the East. Originally this was, I suppose this denigration was applied to people of the Middle East, right? So people of Islamic origin. But then of course, gradually, especially after the 18th century it was applied to East Asia as well.

Jane Park

An Asian-American is a racialised group that encompasses lots of different ethnicities.

Clearly the Japanese and the Koreans for instance, don't have that much in common in Asia, but in the United States they were racialised as “orientals” or chinks or whatever.

It was through that solidarity, that political solidarity having experienced the racism that the identity of Asian-American came out. What's happened since then, from the 80s on is it's become a commodified sort of identity, hence Asian-American month where you get like chicken nuggets with some, I don't know like sweet and sour sauce or whatever at McDonald's. Right?

Jay Ooi

Asian-American. It’s actually quite a common term in the States and is used by a diverse group of people as a way to identify themselves. But most of us Asians in Australia don’t really use the term Asian-Australian, or at least didn’t growing up. We’re just Australian. And personally I think it’s a shame that we shy away from our cultural heritage. But yes, it may be a consequence of Asians being Orientalised in that we’ve all been grouped into this one umbrella term despite our diversities. So what do we make of this?

Hyun Jin Kim

if we were to sort of delve deeper and say do you believe in an Asian culture? Well, I would ask what culture do you mean? If people were to talk about Asian ethnicity, then I would ask him what ethnic group are you talking about? Even within an ethnic group, then I would ask, is that really an ethnic group or is that an artificial construct? Because ethnic groups are usually just a social political construct. I don't like, I suppose identity politics as it were and people being sort of categorized as a particular group and needing to behave in a certain way.

Jay Ooi

I guess you've got this term, Asia and Asian, which is, I've been coming to learn very much construct. But yet it's also a term that we identify with. I guess that's what I'm struggling with is like, I don't know if I should identify with this term because it was used as a way of othering.

Jane Park

Absolutely. That's a really good question. There's a term, reclaiming and that's basically how Asian-American identity was constructed. They reclaimed. I mean it's funny though because we didn't reclaim Orient. We're not calling ourselves orientals. Right? It's funny what terms then are used and what aren't. You think of like the N-word and how it gets reclaimed by some black men for instance, or women. How problematic it is when somebody who isn't black uses the word or queer. I think language is complicated and it's powerful. I think again, like Asian-American, Asian-Australian, Asian, yes, it is a construct.

This is not just a thing that happens in our heads. It has really important political, military economic consequences as we can see from what's been going on in the Middle East since the 90s, so that all of these things are kind of connected. But reclaiming would be the term I use.

I mean Asian-Americanness is an imaginary culture, it's an imaginary identity. But I say this as somebody who's really interested in stories. The stories that we tell each other become fact. Stereotypes are little stories that are told constantly. It does shape the ways that we think of ourselves and the way we treat people that are labeled in such a way.

Jay Ooi

Let me just repeat that for you. This Asian identity is an imaginary identity. It only has meaning because of the meaning we and everyone else gives it. And yes, stereotypes shape the way we see others and see ourselves. But, despite this, we can reclaim the term. We can own it and use it to our advantage.

Jane Park

I personally, I don't know if anybody else thinks this, but I feel like if a group, a minority group is being oppressed systematically by the dominant group, whether it's Asians or LGBTQ people or Muslims, then that group, in order to have power in that society and to not keep getting beat upon and oppressed, need to have solidarity. Right?

Jay Ooi

Yes.

Jane Park

And need to organize. In order to do that, you need to create a language to get people to ask these questions and to come together. Ultimately it's very, very pragmatic.

Jay Ooi

The term Asian is useful. Despite a whole heap of different cultures being lumped into one, and yes that’s not a good representation of the diversity of Asia, coming under this one umbrella term gives us solidarity and a bigger voice and more power. One issue this does present though is who’s voice is heard.

I've spoken to a few people who are, say, Vietnamese, or a different Asian nationality that's not Chinese, and they feel a little bit of a frustration that Asian is often used to refer to Chinese people, or Chinese culture, in particular.

And I was like ... It just occurred to me that they don't ... The Chinese has dominated the word Asia and Asian?

Ying Jie Guo

It boils to down who is the dominant group of Asians. It so happens that in Australia, Chinese stand out among the Asians. You have a large number of Chinese people.

It's unfair for China or Chinese to be representing Asia in any sense. They would have a problem. If they are from Vietnam, Cambodia and other places, yes, but what do we do with that? It's just the way people naturally think, "Oh, China is a big chunk of Asia. So when we think of Asia, we think of China, and probably a few other places." And. India hasn't quite come up that far,

Jay Ooi

But even beyond that, the modern boundary of Asia includes most of Russia and Turkey, as well as most of the Middle East. That’s right, Lebanese people are Asian.

someone who's from say Turkey or the Middle East too, it's technically part of the continent of Asia, but we don't refer to it as Asian and they probably don't identify with the Asian identity that has sort of emerged.

Hyun Jin Kim

... Oh yeah, definitely. They call themselves well, they would identify first as Turks, secondly as probably Muslims. If they, and of course in Australia they are called Middle Eastern people, not Asian people. Whereas interestingly in the UK, in Britain, the Asians are the Indians and the Pakistanis, right? Because that's the main Asian immigrants in the UK.

Definitions and categorizations are never-ending and what they do show is that there is a power dynamic involved and the debates are amplified and become more rancorous because of political ideologies and also because of mutual animosities between power books within any group, within any community.

It's very real. Ethnicity, race, real in the sense that it affects our lives, but unreal in the sense that they are artificial constructs that don't really hold up to scientific scrutiny.

Jelle Stoop

The question of whether Turkey ought to join the European Union, has been on the table for a long time. Really, the duration according to which it is on the table, just tells you how complicated the question is. Some people want it, but other people really do not want it. We feel it is close, it is obviously close, it obviously has ties, it is part of a larger Eastern European concept, but then we also think it is just Asian enough to not be included and to be treated according to different standards.

Jane Park

Friend of mine who was from Turkey, I remember I was giving some kind of a talk about Orientalism or no, not Orientalism. I was talking about Asia. She's like, “But I am Asian.” She's like blonde and everything. I'm like, “No, you're not.” I was young at the time and now I'm like, “Yeah, yeah, you were actually, you are.” The fact that … I mean, I think we can keep questioning these categories, but then still use them strategically in a political fashion.

Jay Ooi

This whole idea of what is Asia and Asian - it’s just so complex. And us in Australia use these terms differently than other parts of the world which means that it’s not a universal term. If we were to go by the geographical separation, that I’ll remind you is

… there's this border in the middle of a continent.

Jane Park

Absolutely.

Jay Ooi

That's

Jane Park

It is so random.

Jay Ooi

It's so random.

Yes this border is totally a construct that originates in the Ancient world and was essentially used to other one part of the continent. But if we go by this border, then Iranians and Israelis and Kazakhstanis are all Asian. But that’s not how we use the term. Asian has come to be its own exclusive group of people, mainly East and South East Asians, and in particular Chinese. Those of us that identify as Asian in Australia, it gives us a sense of one-ness and solidarity, but it also ignores all the differences between our cultures. And it’s also not great that we automatically exclude so many other cultures from the term “asian” when we say it, despite them actually being Asian.

So, where to from here? Firstly, as our guests today have pointed out, racial groups and ethnic groups are complete constructs, and it’s our job to question them. They’re real in the sense that they affect our lives and the way we interact with people, but not real in the sense that these divides and groups - they’re never ending and they’re an invention of someone at some point.

Having said that, they can be useful. They can give us a sense of community and familiarity - the explosion of Subtle Asian Traits is one great example of this. And they can give us a banner to fight under - after all, the similarities between homosexuality and transgender and intersex - there’s not that much similar, but having a unified platform of being LGBTQI+ - it gives them more of a voice, and similarly the banner of Asian can help us unite as minorities instead of being dispersed and too small as individual groups to make an impact.

So let’s use the term to our advantage, and band together under it to get more representation. And let’s celebrate the wonderful parts of being Asian. But let’s also be more specific when we’re talking about so called Asian traits. Because what is Asian culture? Are you talking about your experience as a Japanese or Malaysian Chinese or Cambodian? If so, then let’s use those terms. Let’s talk about what makes us different, even within the Asian community - what weird cultural traditions or characteristics we have that might be different from another Asian, or might surprisingly be the same as your white friend. Because yes we’re probably quite different to white people, but also just as different to other Asian people too.

The way we talk about culture is complicated. But the way we talk about culture ends up defining what this culture is. And that’s the power of your words.

That’s Asians and Asian

This episode of Shoes Off was written, produced and edited by me Jay Ooi.

Special thanks to all our guests Hyun Jin Kim, Jelle Stoop, Ying Jie Guo and Jane Park.

What are your thoughts on the term Asian? Let me know at facebook.com/shoesoffau

This is the last episode for this season, but we’ll be back next year with more Asian goodness, so stay subscribed, you can find it wherever you get your podcasts, or head to shoesoff.net

And if you know someone who could use some thought provoking cultural content, share this with them.

Next season we’ll be expanding our Asian focus a bit, and tackling topics like International Students, mixed race couples and food. If you have any suggestions, please do let me know.

Thanks, and catch you next season