Quote:
Originally Posted by WillowTheWhisp
You know Asia is an awfully big continent and when people in this country say "Asian" what they actually mean is "Pakistani muslim" but are afraid to say that for fear of being unPC. In the USA if you say "Asian" it means Chinese or Japanese yet here we are allowed to describe Chinese people as Chinese. Why can we not describe Pakistani people as Pakistani?
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Asian is just a general term - in the same way as European.
South Asian is often used to denote Pakistani/Bangladeshi and Indian. Again, that's like calling Polish people Eastern Europeans.
It's just location, not religion! No one is offended by being called Asian, just as we aren't offended by being called European.
Although, they sometimes should be, in my opinion - as it's used to describe ethnic origin, which is defining people by their skin colour and their parents heritage and not always the place that they were born. For example, why should my friend be described as Asian when he's rarely been there and was born in Lancashire?