Why do Indians, Pakistani, Bangladesh etc use the term Asian to deacribe only their kind of people?

[FenderMustango]

I work at a company in UK where I am the minority worker white British. Not being racist just 70% of the work force is Indian, Pakistani etc. Yet people I get on with say stuff like I like Asian women or Asians do things this way etc. However I find that a bit offensive to the other ethnicities that live in Asia you have Japnese, Korean , Thai Chinese technicaly some Middle East countries etc. However when people from the Indian sub continent area reference Asian they simply mean people of their own kind or similar. Yet if I asked the guy at work would he date a Korean answer would most likely be no yet they are of Asian decent.

To me when someone says Asian I think of Oriental ethnicities over Indians etc I consider Indian almost a seprate ethnicity in itself.

What are other peoples opinions on the the term Asian to describe a persons ethnicity.

[Cubus]

Depends what you mean.

If you use geographical meaning, then everyone who lives in Asia is Asian, including Indians, Arabs, and Russian.

If by Asians you mean "Asian race" then it only means "East Asians" so Japanese, Chines, Korean etc. In this case Indians are Caucasian.

[RichardoStyle]

I describe South Asia as the region where usually Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages ​​are spoken. 🇵🇰🇮🇳🇧🇩

[NerdInDenial]

In the US, Asian often refers to East Asian; Indians, Pakistani, Bangladeshi are South Asian.

[OddBeMe]

And we’re called “Western civilization” but from Asia, we’re East! What the hell?

[Anonymous]

I'm guessing probably because in the UK thats where the most people from Asia came from. Whereas by definition, an Asian is literally anyone from anywhere in Asia.