What do you think?
Rate this book
成為黃種人：一部東亞人由白變黃的歷史
In their earliest encounters with Asia, Europeans almost uniformly characterized the people of China and Japan as white. This was a means of describing their wealth and sophistication, their willingness to trade with the West, and their presumed capacity to become Christianized. But by the end of the seventeenth century the category of whiteness was reserved for Europeans only. When and how did Asians become "yellow" in the Western imagination? Looking at the history of racial thinking, "Becoming Yellow" explores the notion of yellowness and shows that this label originated not in early travel texts or objective descriptions, but in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scientific discourses on race.
From the walls of an ancient Egyptian tomb, which depicted people of varying skin tones including yellow, to the phrase "yellow peril" at the beginning of the twentieth century in Europe and America, Michael Keevak follows the development of perceptions about race and human difference. He indicates that the conceptual relationship between East Asians and yellow skin did not begin in Chinese culture or Western readings of East Asian cultural symbols, but in anthropological and medical records that described variations in skin color. Eighteenth-century taxonomers such as Carl Linnaeus, as well as Victorian scientists and early anthropologists, assigned colors to all racial groups, and once East Asians were lumped with members of the Mongolian race, they began to be considered yellow.
Demonstrating how a racial distinction took root in Europe and traveled internationally, "Becoming Yellow" weaves together multiple narratives to tell the complex history of a problematic term.
From the walls of an ancient Egyptian tomb, which depicted people of varying skin tones including yellow, to the phrase "yellow peril" at the beginning of the twentieth century in Europe and America, Michael Keevak follows the development of perceptions about race and human difference. He indicates that the conceptual relationship between East Asians and yellow skin did not begin in Chinese culture or Western readings of East Asian cultural symbols, but in anthropological and medical records that described variations in skin color. Eighteenth-century taxonomers such as Carl Linnaeus, as well as Victorian scientists and early anthropologists, assigned colors to all racial groups, and once East Asians were lumped with members of the Mongolian race, they began to be considered yellow.
Demonstrating how a racial distinction took root in Europe and traveled internationally, "Becoming Yellow" weaves together multiple narratives to tell the complex history of a problematic term.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
15 people are currently reading
344 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 17, 2016
Indians - and even more occasionally Native Americans, Jews or Arabs - were sometimes described as "Yellow" before the mid-18th century. The Chinese and Japanese were white (or brown if they had been in the sun) in the eyes of Europeans. How did we get from there to the remarkable belief that East Asians (also a problematic concept, but see my review of Kowner and Demel 2013 for THAT one...) are yellow?
Whether examining how different Latin and German words for various colours were applied to groups of people through the 18th and 19th centuries (even if we only had the twelve or so early editions of Linnaeus' Taxonomy we would have already quite a history of muddle-headed incipient racism on our hands), or shining light on "scientific" methods of categorisation and physical measurement that flourished not so very long ago, or demonstrating how moral concepts (degeneration, perfectibility, etc) and aesthetico-moral concepts (white beautiful; yellow/Mongolian ugly; me Jane you Tarzan) invaded various discourses, Keevak is persuasive and writes nicely.
My main reaction to this concise history of a surprisingly powerful idea was: what an intellectual mess people, some of them extremely clever people, made. When he discussed how people with Down's syndrome came to be called "mongoloid" it is enough to make you weep. When he said, quite calmly, 'I can't speak for other scholars but when I look at Chinese skin I don't actually see the colour yellow' (and of course it really is as simple as that, the erudition that preceded that observation is just the icing on the cake), you just have to laugh at the sheer ridiculous delusion of the prison house of language, culture, habit, prejudice and a naive belief in the objectivity of scientific concepts.
What Keevak doesn't discuss is how Chinese and Japanese scholars and popular writers appropriated the idea of yellow skin, the Yellow race, etc, though the 20th century. For that, the classic 1992 work of Frank Dikötter is a good place to start...
Whether examining how different Latin and German words for various colours were applied to groups of people through the 18th and 19th centuries (even if we only had the twelve or so early editions of Linnaeus' Taxonomy we would have already quite a history of muddle-headed incipient racism on our hands), or shining light on "scientific" methods of categorisation and physical measurement that flourished not so very long ago, or demonstrating how moral concepts (degeneration, perfectibility, etc) and aesthetico-moral concepts (white beautiful; yellow/Mongolian ugly; me Jane you Tarzan) invaded various discourses, Keevak is persuasive and writes nicely.
My main reaction to this concise history of a surprisingly powerful idea was: what an intellectual mess people, some of them extremely clever people, made. When he discussed how people with Down's syndrome came to be called "mongoloid" it is enough to make you weep. When he said, quite calmly, 'I can't speak for other scholars but when I look at Chinese skin I don't actually see the colour yellow' (and of course it really is as simple as that, the erudition that preceded that observation is just the icing on the cake), you just have to laugh at the sheer ridiculous delusion of the prison house of language, culture, habit, prejudice and a naive belief in the objectivity of scientific concepts.
What Keevak doesn't discuss is how Chinese and Japanese scholars and popular writers appropriated the idea of yellow skin, the Yellow race, etc, though the 20th century. For that, the classic 1992 work of Frank Dikötter is a good place to start...
September 2, 2016
The interaction between (eastern) Asia and Europe has been going on not for decades but for centuries since the Age of Discovery. Early accounts of merchants and missionary describe eastern Asian as a fair skinned people, adjectives ranged from white to olive to brown, but never settled on any of which. So why Asian suddenly becomes yellow by late 19 century?
Keevak is a professor of the foreign language department of Taiwan National university, he set out his research in order to answer above question. While, his research is clearly extensive, the structure of the book does not seem to follow a typical research report structure, which makes the book easier for general consumption. However, this does not mean the book is easy to read, more so due to how closely related I am to the topic, however the light humour and carefully chosen words do make some of the chapters easier to bear. Without spoiling the book, I think the book is very interesting and very informative, professor Keevak clearly knows what he is talking about, even the sections about Asian cultures are on point and free of the misconceptions western writers so often makes. One thing I'll say is that the author clearly has a very high command of German, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, and not all of the quotes in the book have English translation.
Keevak is a professor of the foreign language department of Taiwan National university, he set out his research in order to answer above question. While, his research is clearly extensive, the structure of the book does not seem to follow a typical research report structure, which makes the book easier for general consumption. However, this does not mean the book is easy to read, more so due to how closely related I am to the topic, however the light humour and carefully chosen words do make some of the chapters easier to bear. Without spoiling the book, I think the book is very interesting and very informative, professor Keevak clearly knows what he is talking about, even the sections about Asian cultures are on point and free of the misconceptions western writers so often makes. One thing I'll say is that the author clearly has a very high command of German, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, and not all of the quotes in the book have English translation.
November 2, 2024
Keevak's ambition was to retrace the notion of "yellowness" in racial thinking. That is to say, when did Europeans and Western thinkers started to use "yellow" to reference East-Asian people. Though the book looks quite promising and I do have to say that I'm impressed by the amount of sources Keevak read, in the end, I did not learn much. Even worse, the very final sentence of the book is the question he asked at the beginning. If at the end of your 200 pages you find yourself asking a similar question as the one at the beginning of your journey, there might be an issue in your delivery.
Keevak does know his subject but he does not go in-depth enough! You cannot write that the "Mongol" triad of invaders made of Gengis Khan, Attila and Tarmelane is made-up without explaining why this triad is an aberration: first of all, Attila is not even Mongol, let alone Asian. And Tamerlane is from the actual Uzbekistan, before creating the Timurid empire and reigning over a territory going from Turkey to Pakistan.
The same goes for his analysis on the attribution of the notion of "Mongolian" or "Mongolianness" to people suffering from the Down syndrome: he does not mention at all how degrading that must have been for these people, nor how this participated in a validist social environment for so long.This wouldhave been the perfect opportunity for Keevak to take it to another level and mention how the notion of "yellow" as a racial category is intrinsically intersectionnal!
Not to mention his style, very difficult to read, to understand where he wants to get. At first I was seduced by his non-conforming writing style because as a research student myself I know how tiring it can be to read thick volumes in anthropology/sociology/history with complex phrasings. However, more than once was I lost while reading him. You can clearly see that his thoughts were not properly structured and he goes back and forth so many times that it eventually does not really make sense anymore. Moreover, I do not think it was wise to not choose a chronological organisation for this book because in the end, not only does he follow a mostly chronological development, but by trying so hard to be thematical he goes back and forth in the same sub-chapter, which is not easy to follow or understand.
Still, it is quite an interesting book for those who know nothing about the concept of "yellowness" and would like to know how stereotypes on Asian people were constructed in the West!
Keevak does know his subject but he does not go in-depth enough! You cannot write that the "Mongol" triad of invaders made of Gengis Khan, Attila and Tarmelane is made-up without explaining why this triad is an aberration: first of all, Attila is not even Mongol, let alone Asian. And Tamerlane is from the actual Uzbekistan, before creating the Timurid empire and reigning over a territory going from Turkey to Pakistan.
The same goes for his analysis on the attribution of the notion of "Mongolian" or "Mongolianness" to people suffering from the Down syndrome: he does not mention at all how degrading that must have been for these people, nor how this participated in a validist social environment for so long.This wouldhave been the perfect opportunity for Keevak to take it to another level and mention how the notion of "yellow" as a racial category is intrinsically intersectionnal!
Not to mention his style, very difficult to read, to understand where he wants to get. At first I was seduced by his non-conforming writing style because as a research student myself I know how tiring it can be to read thick volumes in anthropology/sociology/history with complex phrasings. However, more than once was I lost while reading him. You can clearly see that his thoughts were not properly structured and he goes back and forth so many times that it eventually does not really make sense anymore. Moreover, I do not think it was wise to not choose a chronological organisation for this book because in the end, not only does he follow a mostly chronological development, but by trying so hard to be thematical he goes back and forth in the same sub-chapter, which is not easy to follow or understand.
Still, it is quite an interesting book for those who know nothing about the concept of "yellowness" and would like to know how stereotypes on Asian people were constructed in the West!
August 7, 2018
As implied, the book is a history of race and racism, with a special focus on how and why Westerners came to see Asians as "yellow". The author talks about the history of race in general, the association of races with particular colors, and the evolution of racial thinking. A few key features stand out to me:
1. The author takes a long view of racial thinking, by extending this history both to the Middle Ages before the invention of race, and to the late 20th century when Western racism was seriously challenged by the rest of humanity. Altogether, the book encompasses some 800 years.
2. The author treats race and racism as social constructs with an actual developmental history in the West, and seriously examines the history of how these constructs evolved in Western thought. Since many people think that race is "real", biological, and immutable, it is fascinating to read about how many different ways even just Europeans divided the world, from T-O charts of late antiquity to the totally different and rapidly changing categories of the early modern period.
3. Counter-narratives: The author includes both Western counter-narratives from throughout this history (that is, people who thought "yellow", "Mongolian", or even "Asian" were stupid and incoherent categories) as well as East Asian responses to Western racialization.
I really liked this book, my only 2 suggestions for improvement are that 1) it would be nice if the author included a conclusion or an epilogue, and 2) I wish the history was extended all the way to the 2000s, instead of ending in the 1970s.
1. The author takes a long view of racial thinking, by extending this history both to the Middle Ages before the invention of race, and to the late 20th century when Western racism was seriously challenged by the rest of humanity. Altogether, the book encompasses some 800 years.
2. The author treats race and racism as social constructs with an actual developmental history in the West, and seriously examines the history of how these constructs evolved in Western thought. Since many people think that race is "real", biological, and immutable, it is fascinating to read about how many different ways even just Europeans divided the world, from T-O charts of late antiquity to the totally different and rapidly changing categories of the early modern period.
3. Counter-narratives: The author includes both Western counter-narratives from throughout this history (that is, people who thought "yellow", "Mongolian", or even "Asian" were stupid and incoherent categories) as well as East Asian responses to Western racialization.
I really liked this book, my only 2 suggestions for improvement are that 1) it would be nice if the author included a conclusion or an epilogue, and 2) I wish the history was extended all the way to the 2000s, instead of ending in the 1970s.
December 19, 2019
It was an interesting exploration on the origin of the yellow race in the western effort to racialize the world’s people, placing themselves on top as the most evolved race, and finding criterias such as arbitrary skin colour to construct a hierarchy of civilization to support white people’s innate right to colonize and enslave. I find the topic fascinating but found the author’s writing on the dry side, and less than riveting despite some eye opening facts and ideas. But in the end, I don’t think the author made any real strong closing remarks in trying to answer his own question and I am left a bit befuddled as to his conclusion.
Read
May 5, 2021nice
April 28, 2023
We were taught we are "yellow" in school. But the metaphors of yellow are different between Europe and East Asia. Illness and Royalty.
May 22, 2025
讀完就發現：種族和膚色歧視確實是一樣荒謬得令人大笑的概念可悲的是今天人類仍然在實踐和二百年前差不多水平的荒謬
//盧尚在一九一六年挖苦的表示，任何皮膚都是「牛奶咖啡」，就看它是如何調製出來//
//盧尚在一九一六年挖苦的表示，任何皮膚都是「牛奶咖啡」，就看它是如何調製出來//
December 28, 2023
上大學時沒修過奇邁可的課，總得讀過他的書（？
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews