Talking with fans and readers from different cultural background, I have noticed an uncomfortable tendency in East Asian media, especially in Korean and Chinese ones, of being racist towards black and Middle Eastern people, South Asians and Central Asians. In most of these media it's always lightskin to be celebrated as beautiful and darker tones are always depicted as ugly or darkskinned people are overly sexualized, especially women, or characters who should be on the darker tone because of their inspiration are whitewashed for no logical reasons (Genshin impact comes to my mind). Also, both black, south asian and central asian people, or their fantasy equivalent, are treated as violent wild uncultured savages and their cultures aren't given any depth or sense: one of the reasons why I am disappointed in Meng Xi Shi is how she depicted non-Han people in such racist way and not making any kind of research despite being a history nerd and having great historical accuracy when it comes to Chinese history (and making those research aren't hard either! I realized her mistakes or lack of work not because I am an historian of these cultures but I just looked at the articles and researches done by actual historians and archaeologists of them published on official sites, like JSTOR or Academia.Edu, easily found on Internet). Now, I know that China has a long history of racism and xenophobia against everyone who isn't Han Chinese and it may not like people from Central Asia and Mongolia due to their history of conflicts and invasions and that Korea may not like Mongols due to how the Mongol empire invaded and conquered the Goryeo kingdom, aka Medieval Korea; but it isn't an excuse to continue to be incredibly racist and continuing othering them! And it isn't good thing to absorb and believe in the orientalist stereotypes created by European countries and America during the age of colonialist empires! The only Chinese authors I found who aren't racist against Casians are Xia Da (and I wouldn't be surprised if the CCP will prevent her to complete "Chang ge xing" because the Uyghurs are depicted as people and their culture of the time faithfully and the government won't be happy of such depiction of the victims of their genocide) and Fei Tian Ye Xiang (though, his earlier novel "To rule in a turbulent world" still has some problematic aspects, his later works are better by this point of view). Ironically, it's in Japanese media that I found respectful depictions, despite the huge problems of xenophobia and racism in the country and the continual denial of Japanese war crimes in WWII, the existence of Ainu and Ryukuan people and the influence in both culture and genetics of Korean people: the historical mangs "A bride's story" by Kaoru Mori, "A witch's life in Mongol" and "Journey to Nakchivan" by Tomato Soup and "Yume no shizuku, kin no torikago" by Chie Shinohara are historically accurate depictions of 19th century Central Asia and Iran, 13th century Persia and Mongol empire, 13th century Caucasus and early 16th century Ottoman empire, respectively; the classic "Kaze to ki no uta" by Keiko Takemiya criticizes the racism of 19th century France and its treatment of Gipsies: the low fantasy shounen "Shoukoku no Altair" by Kato Kotono is clearly inspired by a good knowledge of Ottoman history and its darkskinned characters don't fit any stereotypes and are actually fleshed out (Abiriga is quiet, smart, observant and cunning , his built is slender and his name is an actual person name in an African language; Sara dresses as a belly dancer only when she do dancing spectables, otherwise she wears sensible clothes, and she is a skilled actress too and a survivor in difficult times since she's a smart brave kind knowlegeable woman; the setting equivalents of Gipsies are treated sympathetically and not sexualized) and the light novel series "The apothecary diaries" by Natsu Hyuuga describes the country of Shaoh deeply in a human way, all the cultures in the setting are shown as flawed and definitely not perfect or progressive and the protagonist, Maomao, snarks to her homeland tendency to believe in its superiority at one point in her musings. It's very depressing to see how diffused racism is :( I find it very disturbing and sad for its victims, and I am a white person. It's right to remember that literature and any media are political because they represent one culture's negative bias and prejudices, that lead to racist violence, too.

These are videos about colourism in manhwas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxdBx7EF_TU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMvV2Pdb9eU

These links are about the discussions that made me realize the existence of this problem https://www.reddit.com/r/OtomeIsekai/search/?q=Racism&cId=80292bf1-dca3-48a1-98fd-2257a5734f7d&iId=bf201e2b-0b0e-4dc4-9862-640ca52bd2c0 https://www.reddit.com/r/DanmeiNovels/comments/133c7cs/anyone_else_noticed_this/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DanmeiNovels/comments/1khp354/dropping_a_danmei_because_of_coloristracist/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DanmeiNovels/comments/qtaqwv/hypocrisy_of_sha_po_lang_tw_racism_genocide/ https://www.tumblr.com/geges/653007481221595136/good-morning-cnovel-readers-you-are-not-immune-to?source=share https://www.tumblr.com/geges/660442659205332992/sorry-im-a-bit-confused-about-what-youre-saying?source=share https://www.tumblr.com/geges/660524322275885056/confused-anon-here-again-yeah-i-get-that-the-dark?source=share https://www.tumblr.com/geges/660770990145634304/very-quick-question-first-of-all-thank-you-so?source=share https://www.tumblr.com/geges/660870476768346112/how-do-you-feel-about-portrayal-of-wu-xi-in?source=share https://www.tumblr.com/geges/664695099324776448/hi-i-wanted-to-ask-if-there-are-any-slurs-or-some?source=share https://www.tumblr.com/geges/660444079254110208/ive-noticed-that-the-looks-of-uyghur-people-and?source=share https://www.tumblr.com/geges/653071888681254912/whenever-i-see-any-mention-of-northern-people-in?source=share https://www.tumblr.com/geges/653071568600170496/thank-you-for-the-really-informative-post-im?source=share https://www.tumblr.com/geges/730835535366619136/getting-these-asks-right-after-someone-asking-me?source=share https://www.tumblr.com/geges/722195643717894145/hi-first-of-all-thank-you-so-much-for-discussing?source=share

These posts are about Abiriga https://www.tumblr.com/the-golden-city/157084793654/why-abiriga-is-important-breaking-stereotypes-of?source=share https://www.tumblr.com/the-golden-city/165578350201/abiriga-means-misery-or-hunger-in-the-lugbara?source=share