318
submitted 1 year ago by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to c/world@lemmy.world
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] steven@infosec.pub 3 points 1 year ago

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)

[-] wahming 7 points 1 year ago

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

[-] steven@infosec.pub 3 points 1 year ago

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?

[-] wahming 1 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] SnipingNinja@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 year ago

I think there's a super group Chinese people are part of like caucasians, I don't remember the exact term

this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2023
318 points (95.2% liked)

World News

39104 readers
1458 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS