All Asians Are Alike: Difference between revisions

* In ''[[Black Lagoon]]'', Revy refers to Shenhua as "Chinglish" and is corrected and told that Shenhua is in fact, Taiwanese. Although the island of Taiwan is technically part of the Republic of China and almost all Taiwanese are ethnically Han Chinese, most Taiwanese do in fact prefer to assert their distinct cultural and political identity. Revy herself is Chinese-American.

* Likewise [[Inverted]] in ''[[Azumanga Daioh]]''. In order to show off her English skills, Yukari goes up to a blonde, blue-eyed man and starts speaking English to him. Turns out he's German.

 

== Comic Books ==

* In 1942 the US State Department developed a comic book for US personnel in China called "[http://www.ep.tc/howtospotajap/howto01.html How to Spot A Jap]." The book relied on [[Values Dissonance|stereotypical depictions]] of Japanese.

* The DC Comics [[Alternate Timeline]] [[Crisis Crossover]] event ''[[Flashpoint (comics)|Flashpoint]]'' was criticized when [http://www.blogcdn.com/www.comicsalliance.com/media/2011/05/flashpointmapbig.jpg a map of the world] was released that listed an "Asian Capital" in China, since it fell into this trope.

 

== Films -- Live Action ==

* Played around with in the courtroom drama ''[[True Believer]]''. A man on trial for murder was identified as the killer in a lineup. His defense attorney tries to get the cop who supervised the lineup to admit that all of the other people in it were Chinese, while the defendant is Korean, which could have helped set him apart from the decoys. The question is stricken by the judge, however, who rules that the detective is not an expert in ethnicity and could not distinguish between them by sight alone.

* In the original ''[[Iron Man]]'' comic book, Tony Stark met professor Yinsen in Vietnam during the Vietnam war. Now, Yinsen is a Chinese rather than Vietnamese name, but the comic book character comes from a fictional place called "Timbetpal," so it's at least possible he is of Chinese descent. However, the origin of Iron Man was later retconned so that he met Yinsen while both of them were being held captive by terrorists in Afghanistan. The ''[[Iron Man (film)|Iron Man]]'' movie follows the retconned origin story, except that in it Yinsen comes from a village in Afghanistan and clearly looks like a man of Middle Eastern descent (he's played by the Iranian-American actor Shaun Toub), but inexplicably he still has a Chinese name.

* Played for comedy in ''[[Black Dynamite]]'', in which Vietnam War veteran Black Dynamite recalls a mortally wounded Viet Cong child and repeatedly calls him Chinese.

* ''[[Gung Ho]]'' is about American factory workers and Japanese auto executives learning to work together. The phrase "gung ho" is actually derived from Chinese words meaning "work together." Ironically, it was coined as an Americanism by soldiers in WWII who were ''fighting'' the Japanese.

** Jackie Chan plays a "Japanese Thug" in ''Kung Fu Girl''

** ''Duel to the Death'' features an entirely Hong Kong cast in a film where half the characters are Japanese.

 

== Literature ==

* Demonstrated in ''Tangerine'' with the (South) Asian twins Maya and Nita, whose names in the paper following a soccer match are wrong, to Paul's dismay.

 

* In a season two episode of ''[[M*A*S*H (television)|M*A*S*H]]'', the Korean liaison officer semi-sarcastically explains the difficulty in finding the father of a half-American baby as, "You all look alike to us." There's also several episodes that deal with or make reference to the difficulty in people being able to tell the difference between Japanese, Chinese and Korean people. An Asian blackmarket salesmen posing as a general even uses the trope to deflect suspicion away from himself, claiming, "We all look the same." The show often reused actors as [[Fake Nationality|multiple races]]. Japanese-American Pat Morita appears as a South Korean officer, while Japanese actor Mako appears as a Chinese doctor and a South Korean interrogator.

{{quote|'''Frank Burns:''' When are you going to learn about Chinese treachery? Didn't Pearl Harbor teach you anything?}}

* Played for comedy in ''[[Eastbound and Down]]'' when Ashley Schaeffer entertains some Korean business executives with Japanese food and a crossdressing geisha dancer. In the series finale, he brings it up again to lampshade it and admit his mistake.

* Averted in ''[[Tomorrows Rejects]]'', When Keiren is introduced to Phil Nguyen at his job interview, he said that he could tell just by looking at him that he's of Vietnamese descent, which impresses Phil so much that he gives him the job. Keiren later admits to Gilligan that Nguyen is the Vietnamese equivalent of someone with the surname Smith. In fact, it's estimated that up to 40% of the Vietnamese population have this surname.

 

== Music ==

* There is a song by a bubblegum dance group called Banaroo. They have a song called "Hong Kong Song," which, in the lyrics, mentions samurais, geishas, kimonos (which were technically derived from Chinese garments, so that can be overlooked) and uses a lot of vaguely Asian-sounding words. This all results in sentences like, "The lonely construction worker." WHY.

* All over the fucking place in "China in her Eyes" by Modern Talking. With an extra dose of [[Asian Gal with White Guy]].

 

== Recorded and Stand-up Comedy ==

* [[Russell Peters]] uses the same accent to depict 'Asians' [[Gratuitous English|trying to speak English]], which is a decidedly Hong Kong accent. The worst part is that a good half of his 'Asian' jokes talk about China. [[Did Not Do the Research|Hong Kong and China]] [[Unfortunate Implications|have been separate]] [[Oh Crap|for years]]. He has also made a joke about Singaporeans, using the same accent, even though Singaporeans sound nothing like the people from Hong Kong. Averted in that he has also made jokes complaining about people's tendency to use that same accent for all Asians, [[Hilarity Ensues|despite the fact that Indians are Asians too]].

* Played straight, but with a twist, by Henry Cho, a Korean comedian born and raised in Knoxville, Tennesse. At home, he never had problems finding his parents in a crowd, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH8E_nkDNDo but in Korea?]

 

== Theater ==

* ''[[Avenue Q]]'' -- "Tried to work in Korean deli / But I am Japanese." Or in the Australian performance, "tried to work in Chinese restaurant." The actress in the Australian performance was Filipino.

* Inverted in ''[[Flower Drum Song]]''. When Wang's son asks him what the man who robbed him looked like, he says, "Don't ask me what he looked like. All white men look alike."

 

== Video Games ==

* Invoked in ''[[Guilty Gear]]'': Anji Mito is a Japanese person (in this "verse," their race was almost wiped out in a war with the eponymous Gears, and are placed in protective colonies throughout Asia supposedly for their own safety) who takes up the guise of a Chinese person in order to travel freely.

* In ''[[Fallout 3]]'''s Mothership Zeta expansion, Paulson (a 19th century cowboy) refers to Toshiro Kago (a 16th century [[Samurai]]) as a "Chinaman" until he is corrected.

* In ''[[Syndicate]]'' reboot, the Aspari syndicate is formed from the Yakuza and Triads and employs both Chinese and Japanese.

* For the early ''[[Mortal Kombat]]''s Midway had trouble keeping the races of the Asian characters straight, which is why you have things like Chinese Ninja and the series' main character (a Chinese Shaolin Monk) being named after a Japanese samurai in preproduction and the like. Later games retconned all of this to make sense to a certain degree. This is also likely why all of the Asian characters yell gibberish when they [[Calling Your Attacks|utter battle cries]].

 

== Web Comics ==

'''Critic''': You're not Vietnamese.

'''Girl''': Who cares? All Asians are the same! }}

 

== Western Animation ==

** Parodied in "City Sushi" when a Japanese sushi restaurant opens next door to City Wok. The residents of the town refer to both restaurants as "Chinese"—and to the area where both restaurants are situated as "Little Tokyo"—much to the frustration of the owners, who are violently racist toward each other. The owners put aside their differences to educate residents on Asian cultural diversity in the hopes that residents will come to share their hatred of the others' culture. Ultimately it's revealed that {{spoiler|the Chinese guy is actually a white man with multiple personality disorder}}.

 

* These Failbook entries: [https://web.archive.org/web/20100728233412/http://failbook.com/2010/07/24/funny-facebook-fails-no-steven-they-arent/ 1], [http://failbook.failblog.org/2011/03/08/funny-facebook-fails-china-japan/ 2], [http://failbook.failblog.org/2011/03/15/funny-facebook-fails-looting-in-japan/ 3], [http://failbook.failblog.org/2011/03/20/funny-facebook-fails-youve-got-to-be-kidding/ 4]

* These [[(The Customer is) Not Always Right]] entries: [http://notalwaysright.com/incheon-further-away-from-the-answer/6491 1], [http://notalwaysright.com/if-at-first-you-dont-succeed-thai-again/6989 2], [http://notalwaysright.com/flipping-through-the-atlas/7035 3], [http://notalwaysright.com/incheon-further-away-from-the-answer-part-2/7283 4], [http://notalwaysright.com/the-tower-of-babble/5961 5], [http://notalwaysright.com/so-pho-so-crazy/8857 6]

* [http://memebase.com/2011/06/20/memes-comixed-like-this-only-with-less-facial-hair/ This]

* [http://www.fmylife.com/miscellaneous/17102517 This FML entry]

 

== Real Life ==

* Since the 9/11 attacks the number of [https://web.archive.org/web/20140220071424/http://www.civilrights.org/publications/hatecrimes/arab-americans.html hate crimes against Sikhs in the US] skyrocketed in number as many Sikh immigrants from the Indian subcontinent and their families were mistaken for Arab-American Muslims and horrifically beaten. This most likely relates to clothing customs: Sikhs are required to wear a turban by the customs of their religion. Many Westerns don't know the difference between Sikhs and Arabs, and typically associate turbans with Arabs.

* A common joke in the Russian [[Anime]] fandom is to call anime "Chinese pornographic cartoons" after one [[Critical Research Failure|utterly clueless]] and [[New Media Are Evil|sensationalist]] newspaper report.

* The website [http://alllooksame.com/ AllLookSame] invokes this trope and challenges you to tell the difference.

* For the 2011 ''[[Green Hornet]]'' movie, The Internet Movie Database [https://web.archive.org/web/20110303204323/http://www.movieline.com/2011/01/imdb-thinks-asians-are-pretty-much-interchangable.php at one point listed] Korean-American [[John Cho]] as Kato, when in fact the role was played by Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou. About 500 subsequent movie reviews have also committed the same error. Cho himself joked on [[Twitter]]: "I am beginning to suspect that I am not in the Green Hornet movie."

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Did Not Do the Research]]

[[Category:Race Tropes]]