is language necessary for cultural identity?

"How are these people seen by the people in their 'root' country? Are they considered 'wannabes'? If you are, say, German, and you meet a tourist from America who speaks no German but is proud of German lineage, what would you think? "


To me as a German, a German-American who doesn´t speak German but washes his car regularily, loves country music and drinks beer is as German as any other German speaker living in Berlin or Bonn.

"euh, no, since they say Jesus Christ is Korean, Christianity is Korean, and everything of the world starts in Korea, it's utterly high time that I learn Korean!"


Do you mean the Unification church? 統一 (I realize that the characters may not show on all screens). I clicked on the link and was surprised to hear this on a Japanese show (just a little). I can see why you would be upset.

I was surprised to hear the remarks about Confucius/Hanzi.

反中 feeling in Korea? I wonder if the Japanese are a little premature in thinking that their government is getting along well with China, though.

It could be a rumor. Who knows? But you see the power of hidden propaganda - now, many of us even concur with the Japanese regarding these misunderstandings. To put it mildly, some people tend to have more reflections than rants - that "huh, actually I don't think its food, its drama, and its culture is very interesting after all". I'm afraid that quite a few are taking these wordings literally, possibly unlike how others ridicule *some* others without very serious implications.

I couldn't find more info. atm since I don't know their languages, but there are some more...like maps of ancient times drawn by some Korean idiots. Something like

http://rokdrop.com/2007/02/05/korean-nationalism-blamed-on-the-japanese/

this.
I know it could be drawn by some *other* idiots, but for some cultural reasons, it's so convenient to turn everything against the most suspected people. This map is one good example, with the three kingdoms of Korea (around the 6th century) occupying almost everything except the "Sui" Kingdom they puts at the tiny SW corner where is now the southern flanks of China and Vietnam.

Of course, if you can read my native language, you'd find a lot of even more awful stuff on one of our best search engines...

http://images.google.com/images?
q=%E9%9F%93%E5%9C%8B%20%E5%9C%B0%E5%9C%96&sourceid=navclient-
ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B3GGGL_enHK216HK216&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi

(I have to cut it up, sorry)

My search word is simply Korea and Map, and you see

http://ef.cdpa.nsysu.edu.tw/IBForum/uploads/post-10-1144855386.jpg

something like this, even on a Taiwan .edu site.

Actually, many ppl I see tend to put the blame not on their nationalism, but on their... cultural emptiness? Being divided - inferiority complex? That's what they say that drives them to draw something silly to feel better.

But since this has been so much lopsided, I'd be glad to see Koreans explaining the stuff for us (if most forums still haven't got any).

Another huge controversy involves

http://source.xiaonei.com/blog/20070214/1230/418164/orig95285.jpg

this photo. Again, I'd be glad to see Koreans explaining to us. This has been available on wikipedia...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baekdu_Mountain#Recent_disputes

if you search for 長白山是我們的, you'll find a lot of Chinese sites with photoshopped photos, like Mars belongs to us, we are also prostitutes, and so on...

Btw, for similar reasoning, when many of my people discuss international politics, among every side of China's borders, even the part near North Korea is of some concern, because for natural reasons these nationals bear a grudge against something that "could" possibly harm their country, the country which they often actually bash. Some are speculating the "consequences" of the unification.

Well, let me just stop here for now... I'm only trying to present our year-long internet meme.

is language the fundament for cultural identity?

No, not as much as social hirarcy, moral and religion, historical and genetical background.


is language necessary for cultural identity?

Yes, by definition...

German : « To me as a German, a German-American who doesn´t speak German but washes his car regularily, loves country music and drinks beer is as German as any other German speaker living in Berlin or Bonn. »

Alors un Chinois qui se balade à Pékin avec une baguette sous le bras, une bouteille de vin à la main et un béret sur la tête est sans doute plus français qu'un Français qui travaille dans les tours de la Défense...

I don't think language is necessary. I had a hard time with Japanese-Brazilians who referred to me as "Brazilian" when most people I've met speak poor Japanese and don't have Japanese nationality.
It's funny to see these people come to Japan and be called "gaijin". It must be a shock to them.
Happily I have no identity problems because all my known relatives are Brazilians and my grandmother's grandmother(Don't know how to say that in English) was native Brazilian. I also heard that my great grandfather on my father's side was from Mozambique but don't feel so close to Africa.
Maybe my son will have identity problems because he was born in Japan, his name is totally Brazilian but he still doesn't speak Portuguese. Gotta take him to Rio de Janeiro soon...

Xie: Koreans can be a pain in the neck when it comes to nationalism. Once I tried to talk about the war and that Koreans should move on about what happened during WW2(Related to Japan) just to be attacked by their non-solved hatred...
They asked what I would do if a Japanese soldier had killed my grandma...I told him that even if that was true I have no right to hate the generation(Japanese) that didn't do anything to Koreans.
Also, when I went to Korea in 1998 I had to put up with people who felt "offended" because I was speaking in Japanese and expected me to speak in English...
I don't know how are things in Korea now but 反日 is still alive...

"grandmother's grandmother"=your great, great grandmother.

The way you wrote it was fine. It makes it more personal.

>>Also, when I went to Korea in 1998 I had to put up with people who felt "offended" because I was speaking in Japanese and expected me to speak in English...
I don't know how are things in Korea now but 反日 is still alive...

With their reasoning, I should then hate the Chinese since my great-grandfather (the dad of my grandpa, that is) jumped off to a well and killed himself for being a landlord in the 60s. Even the Japanese didn't harm my family as much as the "Chinese" - the only bad thing I can say is they failed to finish school because of the war.

Cultural identity.. I'd say, yes, while East Asia isn't like 1900s Europe, prejudices are still pretty much alive and prominent. From my perspective, less serious remarks would be "how to distinguish between Koreans and Japanese"; more would be why, how, and how serious is the myth that, for example, Japanese prostitutes turn down foreign customers, esp. "Asian"/yellow (such as Chinese), as a rule.

Few people EVER think of trying to understand people through talking to them. Now that English has given us a basic device, but still people are ridiculing the Japanese for speaking poor English, Koreans for their megalomania, and so on... then as an enthusiast, I wonder: wtf? Why should you believe what others say (ridicule, satirize, rant, whine), instead of discussing matters right with foreigners? A serious problem would then be LANGUAGE. I don't know what others think, but as a huge nation, I think my people are generally pretty much open to language itself - hence our stereotype that we are still more open than our eastern neighbors.

"The way you wrote it was fine. It makes it more personal."
Thanks K.T.さん！ I'm not a person who talks often about my family!!But seriously I got curious about my "grandmother's grandmother" because, according to my grandmother, she was captured in the jungle (Not so exciting, though) and I've always wondered about my red-colored skin (Even my American friends say that). Man, now I got curious to know what language she spoke (Tupi-guarani???). How about my Mozambican Great-grandfather (Swahili??)...But I guess Brazilians are so mixed that I can't feel close enough to any ethnicity...
Sorry for deviating from the subject!!!

"With their reasoning, I should then hate the Chinese since my great-grandfather (the dad of my grandpa, that is) jumped off to a well and killed himself for being a landlord in the 60s. Even the Japanese didn't harm my family as much as the "Chinese" - the only bad thing I can say is they failed to finish school because of the war. "
Xie: I'm glad you moved on about this hatred thingy. Some Brazilians still insist on hating the Portuguese (Who mostly have given us our DNA, names and language) when they should focus on being a multi-racial nation and be proud of it.

Oh , I also remembered that when I went to Taiwan people were happy when I spoke Japanese and feel quite the opposite about Japan because they see it as a country that invested in them. It seems that every country has its issues, which shouldn't be taken personally.

Here, I'd say cultural identity is relevant to immigrants _as well as_ to monolinguals - or, as I term it now, monoculturals (like me). Many of us would agree that English has become pretty much international (or else I'd remain very blunt, d'uh...), but still English appears both international and western imo.

With our self-stereotype as a more open people... like how we tolerate religion (no "huge" religious wars whatsoever), language... still the language issue is often complicated by unwillingness/inability to learn. Whenever people talk about foreign girls (the same guys talk about guys as well), it's been so convenient to consider 1) good English as the first requirement, 2) foreign guys are assumed to find easy girls, and 3) they often view people differently, such as their stereotyped fixation with Filipinas (like in my city; and again, we often think people, esp. girls, should _be_ pale, like how we are).

Here is my claim: if our sort of Asian guys, namely Chinese, claim many Asians to be (male) domineering, as many would assert for really loads of men in general (at least those I've met in my life, for cultural reasons)... so, even if they don't claim themselves to be, and since no one is proud of bad qualities, they may actually think it worked and will work as it is supposed to. But while male socializing patterns should be pretty much as male as they are elsewhere, as we also presume, there are often cultural stereotypes (pardon my poor wordings) even against ourselves. Sort of defeatist, but I do see some people whining about poor English. It may be a paradox for a domineering would-be. Shouldn't he expect foreign girls to learn his Chinese as well? Shouldn't relationships be pretty "bilateral" (at least)? They know that, for them, despite (open) cultural images they think their native language is darn hard (but this is now Eurocentric as well as Sinocentric - centuries ago no Chinese ever thought Chinese was difficult and when they met Western missionaries they finally found huge linguistic and cultural challenges).

For example, they do think Russia is generally not as affluent (to put it mildly) as western countries, and as they see prostitution and mail brides are common, they think (just like some western guys, I can imagine) mail brides could be very superb substitutes... and indeed a few of them do succeed and have been reported by news - since the Chinese like to watch loads of pieces of news that I can call small talks on TV (vocab gap: any single words for unimportant news?). So, when it comes to Russian girls, or anyone of similar background, they're again thinking of language barriers, and instead of what-you-know-I-would-say, they'd very probably stick on English, while whining about chronically bad English.

I've seen a lot of people (so, including our friends here) talking about cross-cultural experiences. Just because of language barriers, I can see opinions from people like me have been either underrated or underrepresented. So, the trend is, if you think I take it pessimistically, is the prevalence of Eurocentric and Sinocentric views. My people identity themselves naturally as members of the circle of the latter, but so far relatively few of them have been able to understand even before they think, again, just because they know too few languages to have anything to do with foreigners, even with English now. (I can go on to list loads of interesting little small talks among Chinese netizens who rarely/hardly travel/know foreign things, such as the claim that Beigians are Germanic, just like how Sinic they are as their ancestors, as descendants of an ancient people)