>>213719248Back in high school, I constantly saw the Koreans and the Chinese bullying Cambodians, Vietnamese, and Filipinos all the time for not being truly Asian and for being too dark-skinned. It's really sad. And as you mentioned, Southeast Asians and East Asians have way more in common physically than almost any other group out there.
The Japanese and Chinese can have tanned skin, have double eyelids, and easily be mistaken for Southeast Asians. But if you tell them they look Filipino? Holy shit, do they act offended, like you insulted their ancestors or something.
You tell a Vietnamese or Filipino who is light-skinned that they look Korean, they just laugh it off and don't feel offended, and they correct you that it's a common mistake, but it's no big deal because they get confused sometimes over it.
Yet the East Asians will outright tell Southeast Asians that they have every right to act disgusted if people mistake them for Southeast Asians, while the South Asians could consider themselves lucky and blessed that people see them as Chinese, Korean, etc.
The superiority and outright racism were disturbing to me. I honestly couldn't say that to a Latino or Middle Eastern person who can pass as White. It just ends up offending everyone involved when you phrase it like that.