marcusf329

hey db123,

on the app, the last table asks for preferred advisors, why does it have a "name:" space when there are choices from 1st to 5th right underneath?

marcusf329

This guy just makes me laugh.. no offense.. but you haven't even been in the US yet AND you're basing your opinions on ONE friend.. who has been here for TWO months..

galoisien

Say db123, I can't remember whether you said you were in the 80 series for chemistry? (Or do we have to call it the 800 series now?) Just curious!

re: pafn -- I'm in it and I do like it, but I wish my family sent more emails more often because otherwise I always felt out of the loop on events they were holding. I suppose I thought it would be more than nifty advice for first-years, but I suppose if you're looking for any closer camaraderie one has to rush and join a frat, lol!

veshch

db123: you just made me laugh. you seem to be a big fanatic. especially for pafn or something.

oh marcus? my friend has been there for 2+ years. she stayed in singapore before that. so she basically knows the stereotype well. seriously, you guys should go urbandictionary asian or something. you get the general stereotype there. and even wikipedia. all edited by actual people.

'nincompoop'? lmfaooooo please tell me you do not use this word in real life. also, thanks for stalking me. at least you know where i'm coming from. i don't dislike east asians or whatever, my best friend is like from mainland china. a fact is a fact.

um and how am i 'wrong.'? prove it at least. i have that azn sorority link to show you.

"Currently, the MGC consists of Latin, Asian, multicultural and local fraternities and sororities. The sororities and fraternities of the Multicultural Greek Council are:"

UVa alpha Kappa Delta Phi

'asian american'

SYZ > Lambda Chapter @ UVA

these are your asian sororities. as in east asian.

this happens in america. not just your pafn. so chill out. and sorry, but it's not changing the fact that most of your pafn people are east asian. what's your problem anyway? that i said a majority of the pafn comprises of east asians and they claim it to be for asians? okay so i can see 1-2 other asians there. but i'm talking about majorities. :| don't scare potential members away. i'm raising a concern for you too, that happens in US. seriously, go ask any caucasian/afro-american friend of yours what comes to their mind when you say 'asian'. do it.

from urbandictionary (the people's dictionary):
Urban Dictionary: asian
"(Attempting to add a decent, more serious and accurate definition to the lot.)

In the United States, the most common use of the word refers to people originating from East and Southeast Asia (China, Japan, South/North Korea, Vietnam, among others). Indians and Pakistanis might be referred to as South Asians, where as Filipinos and Samoans might be called Pacific Islanders.

In England, "asian" most commonly refers to people of Indian or Pakistani descent, whereas "oriental" might refer to East and Southeast Asians (NOTE: "oriental" is certainly considered politically incorrect in the United States)."

you find something like that on wikipedia too.


oh and i am a girl, marcus. i am not basing an opinion on what she has told me after living there for 2 years, but i'm basing it on MEDIA (tv shows, movies, internet) and active correspondence with my american friends. i have many. just because i haven't been to a particular country doesn't mean i don't know anything about it.

and yeah since i don't live in US, i actually recognize this issue. americans don't.

veshch

oh something i forgot:

so i said: "my friend who moved from singapore to US 2 years ago told me herself. "

and you replied: "oh wwwwwwow! you have 1 friend! That's how many you'll stick with if you keep this up."

oh wow i'm so lonely i just have one friend because i am so ignorant!!1111! loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool seriously, how old are you? what is the level of your comprehension skills? next thing you know you'll be twisting this whole issue and saying i'm a racist and i am declaring genocide against east asians. i hope i don't find any UVA seniors like that. you are immature.

veshch

another thing i want to say is that i am not saying americans are stupid or ignorant. i know UVA kids are smart enough to know that india/the philippines/malaysia etc are in asia. all i am saying is that the whole american definition/stereotype of 'asian/azn' is exemplified in UVA at times (what i see on its website. i am not on grounds yet). it's just that if you were to tell an american on omegle.com or something that you're asian, he/she'll immediately think of east asian. or if you ask an american if he/she would like asian for dinner, he/she will probably ask you for chinese takeout/sushi or something. although to be fair... naan is pretty popular everywhere.

and mind you, i still believe UVA is tolerant to all races and it is multicultured. no issues with UVA whatsoever; i love UVA so far. all i am saying is that i had previously always heard of how americans would say asian and immediately think chinese/japanese/korean etc. i didn't know if it'd happen in UVA as well, but hey, i guess it does, kind of at least! what is the problem anyway - i'm not saying UVA kids are geographically stupid or ignorant. it is an american definition. though PAFN doesn't mean to only cater to east asian kids, i guess it kind of attracts them more. so yeah, i'm not saying PAFN isn't for pakistanis/indians/middle easterns/filipinos etc. i'm just saying what i noticed about the definition of 'asian'.

so i have no issues with pafn/america/UVA/db123. perhaps i should have been more subtle so you wouldn't misunderstand and think i had issues with the stated entities. i apologize if i was rude or came off too strong. i don't plan to argue on this anymore... especially since i know this issue has become a natural phenomenon and you and i cannot change it with words.

shirker

Not to further derail this thread from the OP's question, but veshch, do you prefer being called Asian, South Asian, or Indian?

Based off of what my Indian friends have told me, they prefer to be referred to as "Indian" since they understand that here in the U.S., "Asian" commonly refers to East Asians, just as you have said. They certainly don't take any offense to the issue though.

galoisien

veshch, hush please.

If you have a problem with the Asian labelling thing, you can write to the CavDaily when school starts, mmmkay?

galoisien

East Asia is a geographical term. Genetically, Japanese, Vietnamese and Chinese are very very much apart. In fact, I believe the Japanese are either closer to the Turks and the Finns (Ural-Altaics), or were Austronesians who were subjugated by Altaic influence. The Vietnamese come from a very very ancient people who have an extremely long archaelogical history there (the Khmer). The origins of the Chinese are interesting -- they're a very young people obviously, but it's hard to map their origins -- the Chinese languages are full of Austronesian, Khmer, Turkish, Mongolic and Indo-European substrata so there's good evidence Old Chinese was the product of this nifty little process called creolisation.

So IMO PAFN is quite diverse. The Indians often have their own clubs so maybe that draws most of them away from PAFN. We also have people from Nepal, Tibet. I have good friends from Pakistan but they tend to align themselves with the Kuwaitis, Egyptians and *gasp* the Indians, though I don't know all of PAFN. Is Russia European or Asian, Occidental or Oriental? Hmm, ancient question that confronted Tchaikovsky and Peter the Great. Russians however, do have their own community, support network and language house. PAFN would welcome people from Central Asia and ethnic Siberians, if more of them applied to UVA.

As a Singaporean Chinese immigrant to America I feel this huge disconnect with people from Mainland China actually -- I can recognise some of the things they say, despite their r-coloured Northerner drawrrrl, and some of their cultural customs but it's like looking at a long-lost brother who grew up in another country. I think PAFN does a good job of integrating those who would be vulnerable to self-segregating because of the lack of a support network.

canuck01

vesh, listen hon, just because you have one friend who has been here for 2 years does not mean they understand the sterotype well, or even understand the simplest aspects of american culture. They may not even understand the subtler aspects of the english language. Come back in a few years once you have actually lived here and have a personal understanding of the stereotypes and cultures. How would you like it if I commented on stereotypes of your country because a friend of mine had lived in your country for a couple of years?

veshch

^um, go ahead? i mean if it makes you happy... lol. singapore isn't my country. i have no attachment towards it whatsoever. i am not a local so um yeah. and of course singapore has its own stereotypes and i tell you today that they're true. i'm not one to lie. in fact if you want to know, even india has its own stereotypes relating to the different cultures of the country. i don't take if offensively actually; i accept it because it's actually happening.

stop harping on my friend when you should be discussing the media issue. that's what makes the most impact anyway. tv, movies, the internet. the friend point was just to prove that i have personal knowledge as well and that i'm not just watching mtv and basing everything on it.

galoisien is probably correct. i think the indians, pakistanis, filipinos etc have their own groups. i think it's just a thing in US; like i have this other friend born in boston who's an indian and he told me he doesn't call himself 'asian' because 'asian' usually means east asian in US. rather, he refers to himself as an indian, as do his other indian friends. so it's a thing that happens there.

shirker: yeah see, exactly. you proved my point. and hereafter i think i'm going to go as 'indian' in US. and weird, but i'm not taking an offence whatsoever o.O in fact it's probably good i'm going to be just referred to as indian. so east asians can be asians, i'm cool with that

U.Va_hopeful

Okay, I just felt the need to contribute to this nonsense.

First off, I'm American, 100%. (although admittedly not Native American)
Second, I've lived in Korea, I've been to Singapore and Malaysia, and Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan, China, and Thailand.

And I'd like to say that when people say "Asian" to me, I don't automatically assume they mean "Chinese" or even East Asian.

Just thought I'd throw that out there so there's at least one exception to the generalization right here on this post.

But yeah, Americans do love being stereotyped. Every single last one of us.

melli

While there may be a lot of Chinese in PAFN, in my experience I've also found a lot of Indians, Vietnamese, Filipinos, Koreans, and Japanese.

I'm away from this board for a couple months and this is what happens? Oh my.