A Study of Asia, the Continent

After I wrote my post, Unseen, I realized it might be time for me to take my American and world history education into my own hands and begin my own research on Asian American histories. Notice I say histories? The thing about using the term Asian American is that it is never accurately used to talk about all of the various American communities that have roots in Asia. However, I believe that if we are to use this term going forward then we need to understand the accurate representation of the phrase alongside the colloquial use of it. Because, colloquially, the term "Asian American" usually gets connoted with primarily East Asian and (sometimes) South Asian populations. But, even then, "Asian American" often only gets associated with more popularly known countries such as China, India, Japan, and, in recent times, Korea. The truth is, though, that when the colloquial use of an umbrella term like "Asian American" is only used when referring to a small section of those who actually fall under it, our culture begins to neglect the remaining communities that factually have a right to the same term.

This is very close to home for me because, honestly, it isn't until recently that people began to make more conscientious efforts to respect people and their countries of lineage as distinct and varied, under the term "Asian". For a majority of my childhood and early adulthood, people would look at me and greet me in Chinese because their minds so narrowly associated Asian with Chinese, only. And, on the other hand, while I know that I am Korean, I don't actually know how to talk about other Asian ethnicities. Knowing the complexities of Korean history, I understand that there can be many stances on a country's history, but not everyone puts in the effort to actually learn about the entire story of where everyone is truly coming from. So, I find it very important for me to properly understand the histories of each community of people that semantically fall under the term "Asian American". Also, as an added note, I do think it is very interesting and I'm pretty excited to learn about these histories *high five to my fellow history buffs*.

Because my understanding of Korean history has helped ground me a bit in who I am, I want to take the histories of the Asian American community back to the Asian continent. Specifically, I'm interested in learning about each of the countries' locations, histories, interactions with western societies if any, culture and politics, and relationship to America today. This, I hope, will give me a more accurate idea of who we are really talking about when we refer to "Asian Americans", how the term affects each community within it, who has been neglected from the conversation, who has been misunderstood by the umbrella term, and, from a personal objective, get to the bottom of why "Asian American" just doesn't quite sit well with me as an identifying word for myself.

. . .

There are 48 countries and 3 territories in Asia that are acknowledged by the United Nations as so. Geographically, these countries and territories are broken up into six main regions. Here is a break down of these regions and the countries that fall under each:

1. Central Asia

   1. Kazakhstan (transcontinental) *

   2. Kyrgyzstan *

   3. Tajikistan *

   4. Turkmenistan *

   5. Uszbekistan *

2. Eastern Asia

   1. China

   2. Hong Kong ("territory")

   3. Japan

   4. Macau ("territory") *

   5. Mongolia

   6. North Korea

   7. South Korea

   8. Taiwan ("territory")

3. Southern Asia

   1. Afghanistan *

   2. Bangladesh

   3. Bhutan **

   4. India

   5. Maldives *

   6. Nepal *

   7. Pakistan

   8. Sri Lanka

4. South-Eastern Asia

   1. Brunei **

   2. Cambodia

   3. Indonesia

   4. Laos *

   5. Malaysia

   6. Philippines

   7. Singapore

   8. Thailand *

   9. Timor Leste **

   10. Vietnam

5. Northern Asia

   1. Russia (transcontinental)

6. Western Asia

   1. Armenia (transcontinental)

   2. Azebaijan (transcontinental) **

   3. Bahrian **

   4. Cyprus (transcontinental) **

   5. Georgia (transcontinental)

   6. Iraq

   7. Israel

   8. Jordan

   9. Kuwait

   10. Lebanon

   11. Oman **

   12. Qatar

   13. Saudi Arabia

   14. State of Palestine

   15. Syria

   16. Turkey (transcontinental)

   17. United Arab Emirates

   18. Yemen

* The countries with one asterisk are the countries I know absolutely nothing about, but that I have at least heard of.

** The countries with two asterisks are the countries I have never heard of.

Other than North and South Korea, I know very little about the remaining countries. What about you? I am seriously curious how much of me not knowing this is due to my education and how much is due to how irrelevant it all seemed to me until now...though I do doubt that it's just me.

. . .

On a practical, organizational note, this particular post will serve as the home page for my research. And, as I unravel more information about each country and other international stories, I will link my findings accordingly while writing about the research process.

Deciding to Embark on this Journey...

Holy cow! This is a MASSIVE homework assignment that I just gave myself spontaneously...

I seriously didn't even know how many countries there are in Asia. I also was a little confused about whether or not Russia is considered an Asian country, and, I didn't know that there were more transcontinental countries other than Russia. Dang, I am being really vulnerable over here about all that I don't know. But, I'm okay with it! >.< I hope you are too. This is going to be an interesting and long journey ahead of us. I'm GIDDY! *raises glass of Riesling* Here's to the beginning of a long journey!

good luck to self,

michelle 11/11