Comparing Asian Nationalities | Asian American Poll

COMPARING ASIAN NATIONALITIES
(Updated Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 05:20:30 PM to reflect the 100 most recent valid responses.)

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WHAT YOU SAY

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TSJ,

Believe or not, there are many Hawaiian dictionaries in Honolulu.
Based on one of them, the word hapa means half Hawaiian and not eurasian.
papasmurf Friday, March 29, 2002 at 01:51:00 (PST)

TSJ, I believe you mentioned that you are a fairly recent immigrant so let me enlighten you. Hapa in this context means half white and half asian. ABA's know all about this term and are very familiar with it. It started off as describing Hawaiian mixes, you were right on that, but it is now commonly accepted as half White half Asian in the Asian-American community. Glad I could help you out.
abc to TSJ Thursday, March 28, 2002 at 20:50:42 (PST)

To fromwhich province:
Hm.. are you sure ur Chinese? Usually Chinese aren't too hairy - my uncle is though! But he's Han. :D I'm 1/4 Manchu uh... I dunno why but I'm really white and... not so slender (damn that American beef!) but I'm really tall let's see about 5'7" (170cm). You might be a mix of more than one type of Chinese tribe. You should do some research on the tribes of China. I wish you luck on your quest for identity (dramatic), and it's good to see people curious for their ancestry. I'm generation 1.5 and believe me, I LOVE it!
Cha Cha Thursday, March 28, 2002 at 15:29:15 (PST)

Hoklo Taiwanese,

There are also some mixing with Hoklo Taiwanese words . . . along with Japanese words. Somebody told me that many "electrical" word ('dian') is actually of Japanese origin.

I think the Japanese influence on both Hoklo Tai-yu and Mandarin Kuo-yu come from distinct yet related sources.

(1)Post-Meiji Japanese Industrialization
Japan was able to modernize and industrialize faster than China, and therefore Japan had to grapple with Western terms and words that had no easy analogues in Kanji/Hanzi. The words they came up with by using Kanji/Hanzi were imported by the Chinese and incorporated into the language. Possibly it was the Japanese who decided to update the use the word "den" for electricity, which was then easily adopted by the Chinese into Mandarin.

(2)Japanese Occupation of Taiwan
The connection here is pretty easy. 50 yrs of Japanese rule had a linguistic effect on Hoklo Tai-yu through the importation of words like "obasan" "depato" "apato" "otobai" "radjo" "shimbun" (compare to the Hoklo Tai-yu word of "boh-tsua" for newspaper). I think there are also Hoklo Tai-yu words that sound like a localized version of Japanese words, like "den-weh"(Tw) versus "den-wa" (Jp) (and note "dian-hwa" (Mnd)) or "ben-soh" (Tw) versus "benzyo" (Jp) for toilet/bathroom (note the Korean "pyun-soh").

(3)Modern Era
And of course Japanese popculture continues to wash up in languages all over the world. Karaoke and sashimi are truly universal terms.

But of course, Mandarin, Taiwanese, Japanese, Cantonese, Korean, and even Vietnamese pronunciations of many Hanzi/Kanji terms all originate with Ancient Chinese pronunciations, so it is hard to say if some words in Taiwanese are Japanese imports or are merely coincidental modern pronunciations deriving from the original Ancient Chinese pronunciations.
Oyster Pancake Thursday, March 28, 2002 at 14:58:48 (PST)

I have a question. What is the meaning of "hapa?" I always thought it meant half Hawaiian, but most people here seem to use it to mean mixed anything. We always use the term "mestiza," which is Spanish for mixed. I have never heard the word "hapa" other than on this board and in Hawaii. I'm from Norcal, by the way. Maybe it's just a regional thing?
TSJ Eric@KristinKreuk.net Wednesday, March 27, 2002 at 11:28:31 (PST)

I love asian americans! I am half japanese half caucasian. I'm HAPA! My boyfriend is half japanese half caucasian. I would love to see more HAPA's in the public eye! Hooray for HAPAs!
Kristen hapagirl6@aol.com Tuesday, March 26, 2002 at 16:39:53 (PST)

Chinese observer:

The Beijing Dialect adds alot of R's after words. Most other mainland accents don't do that...especially in the southern areas.
Beijing Angelique Tuesday, March 26, 2002 at 15:45:57 (PST)

In Taiwan, they have their own version of Mandarin- pronunciation is different, but so are some vocabularies.

There are also some mixing with Hoklo Taiwanese words (tehre is an increasing trend to incorporate more Hoklo Taiwanese words-not just among the lower class people) along with Japanese words.
Somebody told me that many "electrical" word ('dian') is actually of Japanese origin.

The Mainland Mandarin Chinese (at least to me) sound like there are more "r" and "sh" sounds and even more lisping (almost like Castillian Spanish's lisping of Spain compared to Mexican Spanish).
Hoklo Taiwanese Tuesday, March 26, 2002 at 12:06:25 (PST)

Could anybody locate my family's roots??

(We've given up Chinese surnames because we were immigrants and lost all the con- tacts to the mainlanders.-Most of us are pale,white-skinned,tall,slender and hairy. I guess this is a description for a minority race rather than that for the Han race.)

fromwhichprovince? Tuesday, March 26, 2002 at 09:41:31 (PST)

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