What’s your ethnicity?

When filling in forms, you always have a personal information section where it asks you to select your nationality/ ethnic origin etc. Sometimes I myself staring at the form trying to decide which box I should tick, lol. Recently I was watching one of my friends fill in a form for something and she ticked the box for ‘British’ under the question, what is your ethnicity. Ok so I may not be an expert but I was slightly puzzled as to why she hadn’t ticked Indian?

Friend: “Well I wasn’t born in India, I was born in Britain therefore I’m Asian/British. Simple”
Me: “Yea but that makes your nationality British, like me. The term ethnicity suggests that they want to know what your ethnic origin is, i.e. where your parents/grandparents originally come from.”
Friend: “So what should I tick?”
Me: *laughing* “Err, well Indian I guess!”
Friend: “Well Saims, there isn’t a box for Indian. Will south asian do?”
Me: “That’s ridiculous. There must be a...” *scans form* “Ok, you’re right. Weird, that there’s no Indian option. That’s a first!”
Friend: “Never mind that, I’ve just realised I’ve been filling in forms incorrectly for ages!”

We laughed and just chatted about what it really means etc. It made me wonder though, who does the term south asian actually refer to? More importantly, if there are south Asians surely that must mean there are north Asians as well – possibly even east and west? Ok so maybe I’m going off on a tangent, but I needed answers! Therefore when I got home I looked at the huge world map that is currently pinned to my 10 year old brother’s bedroom wall.
Exhibit A – A world map:

Ok so where do I draw the line? Should it be at A – thus dividing half of China as north and half as south asian? Actually I don’t feel comfortable doing this to China; they’ve had division issues in the past! So how about at B – making Kazakhstan south asian as well as the whole of China and Mongolia. Err, however according to the map, this would now make the Russians north asian? Lol!
My next course of action was “Dammit Google, tell me the answer!” And this is what Google said...or Wikipedia rather...

Exhibit B – Wikipedia:
Quote from Wikipedia
“South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities (see below), also includes the adjoining countries on the west and the east.

Topographically, it is dominated by the Indian Plate, which rises above sea level as the Indian subcontinent south of the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush. South Asia is surrounded (clockwise, from west to east) by Western Asia, Central Asia, Eastern Asia, Southeastern Asia and the Indian ocean.

South Asia typically consists of Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Republic of India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Some definitions may also include Afghanistan, Myanmar, Vietnam, Tibet, the British Indian Ocean Territories and Iran.”

Ok, this is better clarification. But is there such a thing as north asian? In short according to Wikipedia – err no. We can refer to the actual land of Russia as north Asia (however that is NOT common practice) but calling actual Russians as north asian is a no no. Ok fine. So basically all Indians, Pakistani’s etc can put a big tick next to “south asian” when next asked about their ethnicity on a form and so on. We are all one big happy family and are totally cool with using a shared term to identify ourselves. Just like the English, Irish, Welsh and Scottish are happy to be called British; the Indians, Pakistanis, Bengalis, Afghanis etc are happy to be called South Asian. Ok so I’m clear on all that now. Good. Sorted :)

I should probably now get back to my uni work on neurology and... Oooh wait, nope. Sorry. I have just found an article that may not be entirely happy with everything I just written... (Googling to avoid doing Uni work, plus news about Bollywood – err why yes of course I’m going to read it!) Ok so maybe not everyone is happy with the term. I guess you can’t please everyone all the time. Meh, so after all that thinking, I guess it’s back to being just British then? lol!

Update:
Thank you dear reader for the following website: http://www.indiansareasian.com/index.html it definitely made me giggle, lol.