Okay to get it out of the way, yes, Asia does not exist in the Discworld. So no one is Asian any more than someone can be any other real world ethnicity. But the Agatean Empire we see in Interesting Times very clearly is a pastiche of orientalist stereotypes, predominantly China (not that that stops him throwing the McSweeneys in as a prominent family, which imo is hilarious every time I read it). So whole Two Flower isn't literally Asian, I hope you understand what I mean when I call him one.
Anyway, the question is, is this something that is readily apparent in the character's first appearance. It's been a long time since I first read The Colour of Magic, so my memory is a bit hazey. I certainly didn't get the impression he and the Agatean Empire he came from were Asian inspired. It seemed to be a more generically foreign, with the only real stand out thing being that it was full of gold. This made me think more of Mayan or Aztec culture than anything oriental. But, now that I'm reading Interesting Times for the first time, everything about the character seems to click into place. A bespectacled Chinese tourist cheerfully taking photos of everything is a stereotype which exists and seems to fit Two Flower really well. His name, in light of how people in the Agatean Empire are named, also seems like a really obvious transliteration of a name born from the Chinese character system.
But then I thought on it more and the first thing I questioned is how popular the Chinese tourist stereotype would actually have been when The Colour of Magic was written, back in the early 80s. This was only a few years after Deng's reforms and China started opening up to he world. So I imagine there wouldn't have been many Chinese tourists jet setting around the world at that time. Or, maybe it's the opposite, maybe it was a sudden large influx that gave rise to this stereotype.
So then I finally looked up Two Flower's name and found, to my surprise, that Pratchett said in an annotated edition of the Colour of Magic that he just wanted something obviously foreign and that may of took the name from Mayan naming schemes. Which brings me back to square 1 that originally Two Flower was conceived as a sort of Meso American tourist, which is kind of way weirder and funnier than a more grounded Asian tourist.
So, my question for people more familiar with the Colour of Magic (and to some extent The Light Fantastic), would someone be able to read it and conclude he's an Asian inspired character without it coming across as a leap in logic, or was he just generically foreign (or possibly even explicitly Meso American)?
It should be noted there has been an adaptation of the Colour of Magic where Two Flower is played by Sean Austin, a white American, but this adaptation was also made well after Interesting Times already existed, so an obvious Asian reading of the character would have been clear to anyone familiar with the full set of Rincewind stories. And also he is visually depicted in the cover of The Colour of Magic, where he famously has literally four eyes. So that's not particularly useful.
Anyway, the question is, is this something that is readily apparent in the character's first appearance. It's been a long time since I first read The Colour of Magic, so my memory is a bit hazey. I certainly didn't get the impression he and the Agatean Empire he came from were Asian inspired. It seemed to be a more generically foreign, with the only real stand out thing being that it was full of gold. This made me think more of Mayan or Aztec culture than anything oriental. But, now that I'm reading Interesting Times for the first time, everything about the character seems to click into place. A bespectacled Chinese tourist cheerfully taking photos of everything is a stereotype which exists and seems to fit Two Flower really well. His name, in light of how people in the Agatean Empire are named, also seems like a really obvious transliteration of a name born from the Chinese character system.
But then I thought on it more and the first thing I questioned is how popular the Chinese tourist stereotype would actually have been when The Colour of Magic was written, back in the early 80s. This was only a few years after Deng's reforms and China started opening up to he world. So I imagine there wouldn't have been many Chinese tourists jet setting around the world at that time. Or, maybe it's the opposite, maybe it was a sudden large influx that gave rise to this stereotype.
So then I finally looked up Two Flower's name and found, to my surprise, that Pratchett said in an annotated edition of the Colour of Magic that he just wanted something obviously foreign and that may of took the name from Mayan naming schemes. Which brings me back to square 1 that originally Two Flower was conceived as a sort of Meso American tourist, which is kind of way weirder and funnier than a more grounded Asian tourist.
So, my question for people more familiar with the Colour of Magic (and to some extent The Light Fantastic), would someone be able to read it and conclude he's an Asian inspired character without it coming across as a leap in logic, or was he just generically foreign (or possibly even explicitly Meso American)?
It should be noted there has been an adaptation of the Colour of Magic where Two Flower is played by Sean Austin, a white American, but this adaptation was also made well after Interesting Times already existed, so an obvious Asian reading of the character would have been clear to anyone familiar with the full set of Rincewind stories. And also he is visually depicted in the cover of The Colour of Magic, where he famously has literally four eyes. So that's not particularly useful.
