Asians

“ Asia, Captain Gray, for all our American investigations, is a mystery to us. We think we have removed the veil from its history, and we have only detached a thread. The religion of Asia is built on its past. And religion is the pulse of Asia. The Asiatics have taught their children that, from the dawn of history, they have been lords of the civilized world. What would be the result if it were proved that a white race dominated Central Asia before the Christian era? The traditions of six hundred million people who worship their past would be shattered. ”

“ Around the elevated central region that you see pictured upon the chart in the heart of Asia, we find the three fundamental types of humanity: the black man, the yellow man, and the white man. Black men are at the present time widely enough dispersed. We see them still, however, in the peninsula of Malacca and in the isles of Andaman. Again, we find traces of these blacks in the east of Asia, at the isle of Formosa, at the south of Japan, and in the Philippines: the Melanesia belong to them. The yellow race occupies almost all the southeast part and even the centre of Asia ”

“ No very long acquaintance is required with any Asiatic race, however, to satisfy us that their instincts and ours are by no means the same—in fact, that they are at opposite poles. We shall lay no stress upon the redundancy of honorific terms in all Asiatic languages, some of which in this respect are indefinitely more elaborate than the Chinese. ”

“ If we want to realize Pan-Asianism in this new world, what should be its foundation if not our ancient civilization and culture? Benevolence and virtue must be the foundations of Pan-Asianism. With this as a sound foundation we must then learn science from Europe for our industrial development and the improvement of our armaments, not, however, with a view to oppressing or destroying other countries and peoples as the Europeans have done, but purely for our self-defense. ”

“ The mere antiquity of Asiatic things, of their institutions, histories, modes of faith, etc., is so impressive, that to me the vast age of the race and name overpowers the sense of youth in the individual. A young Chinese seems to me an antediluvian man renewed.... It contributes much to these feelings that Southern Asia is and has been for thousands of years, the part of the earth most swarming with human life. The great officina gentium. Man is a weed in these regions. ”

“ Those women, whose profession is publicity, are an important part of the social structure of every Asiatic race I have known, except only the Parsi race. To ignore their existence, when travelling through Asia in person, or with pen, is stupid. To slink by the strong position that they hold in the East, the big significance of their firm placement in the East, and the several lessons they will not fail to teach us, if we do not fear to learn, is prudish. ”

“ Within this generation, a new Asiatic power has suddenly appeared in a part of Asia far removed from the region in which the wise men of old lived and studied, and the might of that nation is even now checking the progress of huge and haughty Russia. But brilliant as has been the meteoric career of Japan, there is another race in Asia, which, though now moving more sluggishly, has possibilities of development that may in time make it a dominant factor in the future of the world. ”

“ Nevertheless, the leading scientists of the day believe that Asia was the early home of the human race and that whatever light may be thrown upon the origin of man will come from the great central Asian plateau north of the Himalaya Mountains.
Thus his antiquity will doubtless interest man to his dying day. Slogans epitomizing the spirit of races fan the flames of human conflict. Conflict wears down the differences between them, or shatters them and scatters them to the whirling winds. ”

“ Lately in America we have heard the school system of the Chinese much lauded. And since Minister Wu, at Washington, has so distinguished himself and his race by his striking addresses, many people have jumped at the conclusion that an ignorant Chinaman is the exception. But I am told by those who ought to know, that in China only about one man in a hundred, and one woman in ten thousand, can read. The Japanese alone of Asiatic races are more literary than the Burmese. ”

“ THE CHINESE FEAST OF THE DEAD.
Weird and Ghastly Scene in a Chinese Temple at Midnight.—The Story of Concatenation Bill.—The True History of the Great Indian Fight on the Gila.
What a strange, peculiar people are these Chinese! Dwelling among us, they are not of us; but are born and grow up, and toil and die here in the midst of the boasted civilization of the nineteenth century, just as they have been being born and growing up, and toiling and dying, for ages on ages, in the "Central Flowery Empire" on the other shore of the blue Pacific. ”

“ When we take into consideration the further fact that the typical white man, the world over, acts as if he were a lord of creation, and treats Asiatics with more or less condescension as if they were his inferiors, we can understand the very natural resentment of the Chinese, who have just as much pride of race as we have, and who indeed consider themselves the most highly civilized people in the world. ”

“ We know, too, enough of Asiatics in general, and of the Chinese in particular, to feel secure that much of what we know, and much of what we possess, would be to them of inestimable benefit. True, for many centuries they have lived without assistance from the Western world, and there must have been considerable value in the laws and customs by which such an enormous mass of human beings could have been held together for so long a period. ”

“ Their very simplicity, their childlike naivete, deceives one into a conviction of their openness, while a mysterious, invisible, unconquerable barrier rises forever between us and them. The divergence of life and thought began in Western Asia too many ages since for the races that followed the setting sun to find, at this late day, the clew to the race that sought the source of the sun’s rising. China, which once gave the Japanese their precepts and models and teachers, shows now more differences than resemblances. ”

“ The topic of the day is "Pan-Asianism," but before we touch upon the subject, we must first have a clear conception of Asia's place in the world. Asia, in my opinion, is the cradle of the world's oldest civilization. ”

“ The cultural and economic penalty for not recognizing East-Asian talent is immense, and unsurprisingly in this century we have witnessed in particular the anglophone world recruiting Chinese students and immigrants in unprecedented numbers. In 2005, 65,000 Chinese and 75,000 Indians studied in the US; 60,000 and 20,000 in Britain (IIE, 2006; People Daily, 2006/04/05) . For comparison, only 6,800 US students came to China, most of them American ethnic Chinese or ‘hai gui’ (海龟, sea turtles) (Chinadaily, 2005/12/20) . ”

“ For, as has been already remarked, before Marathon was fought, the prestige of success and of supposed superiority of race was on the side of the Asiatic against the European. Asia was the original seat of human societies, and long before any trace can be found of the inhabitants of the rest of the world having emerged from the rudest barbarism, we can perceive that mighty and brilliant empires flourished in the Asiatic continent. ”

“ The Problem of the Asiatic Immigrant.—The problem of the Asiatic immigrant is quite different. It is a problem of race conflict rather than of race assimilation. The student of human society cannot minimize the importance of race heredity. In the case of the European it holds a subordinate place, because the difference between his heritage and that of the American is comparatively slight. But the Asiatic belongs to a different race, and the century-long training of an entirely different environment makes it improbable that the Asiatic and the American can ever assimilate. ”

“ Man alone has made differences between man and man, and the yellow man is no whit inferior to the white people in intelligence. During the Russo-Japan War was it not the yellow race that displayed the superior intelligence? I am sometimes almost tempted to say that Asia will have to civilize the West over again. I am not bitter or sarcastic, but I do contend that there are yet many things that the white races have to learn from their colored brethren. In India, in China, and in Japan there are institutions which have a stability unknown outside Asia. ”

“ There are, of course, reasons which, at first sight, would lead one to suppose that China and Japan could be taken in one group in comparison with the races of Europe and of Africa. To begin with, the Chinese and Japanese are both yellow, which points to ethnic affinities; but the political and cultural importance of ethnic affinities is very small. The Japanese assert that the hairy Ainus, who are low in the scale of barbarians, are a white race akin to ourselves. ”

“ Physical Traits of the Asian Race.—As the last mentioned adjective intimates, the prevailing color is yellowish, tending in different regions toward a brown or white, but never reaching the clear white of the western European. The hair is straight, coarse and black, abundant on the head, scanty on the face, almost absent on the body. The stature is medium or undersized, the legs thin, and the muscular power inferior to that of the Eurafrican race. ”

“ But as soon as the Syro-Christians were in the minority and the Christians of European stock in the majority, persecution and intolerance commenced, and the word of the great Oriental Prophet Jesus Christ was sadly mutilated and misunderstood by that superior race, the “Whites.”
But even then you could not rid yourselves of our subtle Asian influence. I know your gifts of energy and your spirit of progress; but we men of Asia have a power of resistance and a capacity for rapid recuperation which you can never fathom. ”

“ The race instinct is now slumbering in the North and Europe, and not strangely, for there is nothing to keep it awake; but it is not extinct, it exists and is ready to spring up on occasion into fierce and resistless activity. Of this fact our treatment of the Chinese has already furnished a striking illustration. We tolerated and even petted these industrious Orientals—certainly greatly the Negro's superior—so long as they were few in number and in no way embarrassing. ”

“ The only other argument is that, if this is the case, the white man must get out of Asia. There too, it seems to me, is a weak spot. The white man in Asia—as man to man—does not lower the standard of the civilization of the native; nor is he ever likely to migrate in numbers large enough to create a problem. ”

“ But when all is said and done, have not Asiatics just as much right to rejoice in the sunshine, such as it is, of the West as Europeans have to bask in that of the East? Is not the life of a Tartar, a Mongol, or a Mandarin really as sacred as that of a native of France or of England? ”

“ Being put to the test, no such lack appeared, but only aptitude, mental health, mental vigor, equal at least to those of the white man. The European ruled, then, because he had a larger share of the brute in him, because he had a sensual ambition to rule, because his taste found pleasure in humiliating and exploiting others, because he had a tougher conscience, and because luck had been on his side. Of any essential, irradicable, structural difference between race and race there was not an indication. What the Asiatic really lacked was opportunity, not intellect ”

“ Much more important has been the introduction of the negro, whose numbers have increased many fold, so that they form now about one-eighth of our whole nation. For a certain length of time the immigration of Asiatic nations seemed likely to become of importance in the development of our country, but the political events of recent years have tended to decrease their immediate importance considerably, although we do not venture to predict that the relation of Asiatics and white Americans may not become a most important problem in the future. ”

“ Our nation has the great middle region of the best continent of the world, and our people are descendants from the most vigorous races. Western Europe, (p. 229) over-peopled, sends us her most energetic sons and daughters, in numbers augmenting with each succeeding decade. Asia is beginning to send forth a portion of her surplus population to our shores. Though of inferior race, the Eastern Asiatics are industrious and ingenious cultivators and artisans. ”

“ During the observance of Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, we celebrate the cultural traditions, ancestry, native languages, and unique experiences represented among the more than 30 ethnic groups from Asia and the Pacific found here in the United States. We also recognize millions of Asian/Pacific Americans whose love of family, hard work, and community has helped unite us as a people and sustain us as a Nation. ”

“ The Asiatic, too, comes with hardly courage enough to lift his softly treading feet; while leading them all is this strident, giant child of the Anglo-Saxon race whose wind-swept cradle was rocked by freedom, and who with dominant will has spanned the oceans and crossed the mountains. ”

“ A word here as to that phrase 'Altaic mind.' What business has one to class the Chinese and Japanese together, and to speak of them (as I shall) as 'Altaic'—the Altaic Race? In the first place this term, like 'Latin' or 'Anglo-Saxon,' has the virtue of being quite meaningless. It is utterly silly and inappropriate from every standpoint; but as I need a term to include China and all the peoples that have derived their historic culture from her, I shall beg leave to use it. Neither Japanese nor Corean belong to the billiard-ball group of languages. ”