Straits Times is a Singaporean newspaper, and Singapore is a majority-Chinese country. As a Chinese myself, it stings when people automatically assume I’m a China national. This is pretty similar to Jews having to clarify that Israel does not represent them.
Note that I’m not actually commenting on the article, no idea about its accuracy.
I’m trying to get your point. But a jew indicates a person of Jewish religion. In most dictionaries “Chinese” will mean “someone or something from China”. I don’t know what the word meant before the nation China arose or if there are ethnic meanings to it, but words mean what people understand them to mean, that’s language, so Chinese kinda means “from China” today. That’s why America now kinda means the country and democracy means republic or other form of majority-rule representative democracy 🤷 (the two lost words I miss the most)
In most dictionaries “Chinese” will mean “someone or something from China”.
You’re not wrong, and there’s the problem. There are around 50M people of Chinese ethnicity living outside of China. Most of us were born and raised outside of China, and have little to no actual connection to the nation. In many cases our families migrated away from China generations ago. Unfortunately, China is all too happy to claim all Chinese people worldwide as a monolithic culture and suppress whatever bits and pieces they don’t agree with. In the same way that Israel uses their reputation as THE Jewish country for political points, so does China.
Me, I’m not a nation-state, so the best I can do is raise a tiny bit of awareness wherever I go, that just because I’m ethnic Chinese, does not mean that I love Pooh Bear (well I do love the original one, but that’s a different story). Hence I’ll happily spend time explaining to new acquaintances that yes, I’m Chinese. But no, I’m not from China. Maybe one day the dictionary definitions will change. shrug
It’s dangerous to confuse a national identity with an ethnic one. But I grant you, it’s nations who are at fault with claiming the terms and other ones by acknowledging them.
But aside from that (and I just wonder), is there such a thing as a Chinese ethnicity? I always imagined China was pretty diverse, ethnic-wise. With the northern mountain people, the coastal people the western people (I don’t know names or terms) being quite different from one another… Is that not true?
I always imagined China was pretty diverse, ethnic-wise. With the northern mountain people, the coastal people the western people (I don’t know names or terms) being quite different from one another
You’re correct, but think of it in the sense of ‘Caucasians’. You can break them down into subgroups that largely correlate to specific geographical regions, but as a group they’re still pretty distinct and recognisable. Of course, things like this tend to get fuzzy around the edges, but that’s biology for you.
It actually is. There’s about 50M Chinese people worldwide who AREN’T from China. That’s a pretty significant number. Even moreso online, since the majority of people in China have no access to social media like this. In my part of the world, citizens of China are referred to as ‘Mainland Chinese’ or ‘Chinese nationals’. Chinese in itself is an ethnicity, and it would be nice if we could get that distinction more widely recognised so the CCP would stop using us as political pieces.
I get how colloquially “Chinese” may refer to those being ethnically Chinese. However, for ppl who aren’t from the Asian region, “Chinese” means “Mainland Chinese”. Imagine if Barack Obama said “I’m African”. He’s ethnically African, who is American, which is called “African American”, (which is specific to descendents of slaves, as their exact point of origin in Africa was lost unfortunately).
Anyways, the point is, perhaps referring to urself as “ethnically Chinese” when communicating with the international community would avoid a lot of confusion.
perhaps referring to urself as “ethnically Chinese” when communicating with the international community would avoid a lot of confusion.
I do make the distinction when it’s relevant, as I did in this case. The original point was to point out the difference between anti-Chinese and anti-China. That’s a pretty significant difference, similar to anti-Israel vs anti-Semitic. Particularly in this case, where the source itself is from an ethnically-Chinese newspaper.
Anti-China *
Straits Times is a Singaporean newspaper, and Singapore is a majority-Chinese country. As a Chinese myself, it stings when people automatically assume I’m a China national. This is pretty similar to Jews having to clarify that Israel does not represent them.
Note that I’m not actually commenting on the article, no idea about its accuracy.
I’m trying to get your point. But a jew indicates a person of Jewish religion. In most dictionaries “Chinese” will mean “someone or something from China”. I don’t know what the word meant before the nation China arose or if there are ethnic meanings to it, but words mean what people understand them to mean, that’s language, so Chinese kinda means “from China” today. That’s why America now kinda means the country and democracy means republic or other form of majority-rule representative democracy 🤷 (the two lost words I miss the most)
You’re not wrong, and there’s the problem. There are around 50M people of Chinese ethnicity living outside of China. Most of us were born and raised outside of China, and have little to no actual connection to the nation. In many cases our families migrated away from China generations ago. Unfortunately, China is all too happy to claim all Chinese people worldwide as a monolithic culture and suppress whatever bits and pieces they don’t agree with. In the same way that Israel uses their reputation as THE Jewish country for political points, so does China.
Me, I’m not a nation-state, so the best I can do is raise a tiny bit of awareness wherever I go, that just because I’m ethnic Chinese, does not mean that I love Pooh Bear (well I do love the original one, but that’s a different story). Hence I’ll happily spend time explaining to new acquaintances that yes, I’m Chinese. But no, I’m not from China. Maybe one day the dictionary definitions will change. shrug
It’s dangerous to confuse a national identity with an ethnic one. But I grant you, it’s nations who are at fault with claiming the terms and other ones by acknowledging them.
But aside from that (and I just wonder), is there such a thing as a Chinese ethnicity? I always imagined China was pretty diverse, ethnic-wise. With the northern mountain people, the coastal people the western people (I don’t know names or terms) being quite different from one another… Is that not true?
You’re correct, but think of it in the sense of ‘Caucasians’. You can break them down into subgroups that largely correlate to specific geographical regions, but as a group they’re still pretty distinct and recognisable. Of course, things like this tend to get fuzzy around the edges, but that’s biology for you.
I think there’s a super group Chinese people are part of like caucasians, I don’t remember the exact term
Yes, its totally unreasonable for people to conclude that a person who self-identifies as “Chinese” is from China.
It actually is. There’s about 50M Chinese people worldwide who AREN’T from China. That’s a pretty significant number. Even moreso online, since the majority of people in China have no access to social media like this. In my part of the world, citizens of China are referred to as ‘Mainland Chinese’ or ‘Chinese nationals’. Chinese in itself is an ethnicity, and it would be nice if we could get that distinction more widely recognised so the CCP would stop using us as political pieces.
I get how colloquially “Chinese” may refer to those being ethnically Chinese. However, for ppl who aren’t from the Asian region, “Chinese” means “Mainland Chinese”. Imagine if Barack Obama said “I’m African”. He’s ethnically African, who is American, which is called “African American”, (which is specific to descendents of slaves, as their exact point of origin in Africa was lost unfortunately).
Anyways, the point is, perhaps referring to urself as “ethnically Chinese” when communicating with the international community would avoid a lot of confusion.
I do make the distinction when it’s relevant, as I did in this case. The original point was to point out the difference between anti-Chinese and anti-China. That’s a pretty significant difference, similar to anti-Israel vs anti-Semitic. Particularly in this case, where the source itself is from an ethnically-Chinese newspaper.