I never thought about this but I was recently talking to some people who have never been. I tried to explain that places in Asia are actually really advanced and much nicer in many ways compared to Europe and North America. They don’t seem to believe me and say they will never go because it’s not nice…some of them live in pretty crappy places and not like the vacation pictures you think of.
I’m curious of what you guys and girls that came over thought of Asia or Asian countries before arriving.
For Europeans, is Asia a single place, like Europe is a single place for me?
I know my English is bad, but hope this post makes sense.
I feel like they think of China when they think of Asia, most of the Asians here are chinese IME. I’m also interested to know.
Kind of like Hawaii but more Asian people.
Or Hong Kong maybe ?
Colonial houses with fans and palm trees in the garden.
Jungles.
I had very little idea to be honest , I’d barely even met any Asian people my whole life. In fact I can count them , first were three Japanese engineers who were living in a family rental, and then there was the kid in my brothers class from the family that ran the Chinese restaurant, and there was the mixed Asian kid that I knew but was 100% local. That was it and I grew up in the capital city ! It’s a lot different now though…I mean there’s tonnes more Asians of all types living there. People have more of an idea but they still don’t fully understand how advanced a lot of stuff in Asia is now. Well they are mostly familiar with holiday destinations like Thailand .
I thought it would be like a James Clavell novel.
I thought it would be sweet and sour pork, Peking duck, Shanghai steak and egg fu yong. I was disappointed that it was just muck in a bowl, instead.
Guy
Glad to see you back to your cheery self this morning.
Years back when we thought of Asia we would think of Vietnam and Japan and Hong Kong and Thailand and the Philippines . Only relatively recently has China and Chinese become more well known I feel. And of course Korean pop music is popular with (some) younger Westerners.
Saying Asia is more advanced than Europe or North America is a stretch.
Sure, you got pockets of prosperity in East Asia, but once you go to central asia or Western Asia its a shithole(excluding perhaps some oil rich micro states).
What is Western Asia, Russia ? 
Oh yeah and I’ve been to Brunei (south east Asia), it didn’t look very prosperous at all for a supposedly super rich place. But it is very much worth a visit if you are into wildlife.
Around Iran, Iraq, etc.
Never heard of it.
Taiwan wasn’t my first landfall in Asia. Japan was. As a child, growing up in the US during the 80s and 90s, my exposure to Asian culture was limited to Chinese restaurants. Which, of course, have almost zero to do with anything over here. It wasn’t until my late teens and early twenties that I actually had Asian American friends. My friends were a mixture of Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, Korean Americans and Filipino Americans.
I really liked the warm closeness the Filipino families had and I almost married a Filipino American. That didn’t work out and I got interested in Japanese culture. Real culture. So I packed up and headed to Japan.
I kind of already had a good idea of what it would be like. But was surprised at how different Japan and Taiwan are once I got to Taiwan years later.
It’s better to expect less than be surprised than the other way around. I thought Europe was perfect before then once you visit it’s like lol.
And he comes from a place where they eat caterpillars!!!
Guy
Haha. Totally true.
I think it must not be lol since European countries are the most popular vacations destination worldwide by a long way and both of you went to study there 
. Oh and half of Africa and the Middle East would like to live there too.
This.
When I went to Thailand for the first time, I had zero expectations of any kind. When I arrived, I was amazed. Better to just be surprised and enjoy the differences.
Most of those are Schengen travelers, I suspect although I might be wrong.
Going to Spain from Sweden over the weekend is not really any different from going to kending, more or less the same travel time. …