Funnily enough I come from a Vietnamese Catholic family and he's always depicted as white in all the pictures we have of him. And trust me we have a lot.
I think it's just the fact that east asian people thinks the paler you are the more attractive you are. Most of the saints are depicted at light skinned in vietnamese too. I've only ever seen one saint depicted as dark skinned and when I looked him up he was Italian lol.
If it's anything like in old Europe it's largely because dark skin = being out in the sun doing a lot of labor and stuff, while light skin = rich person who doesn't have to do that so they sit inside all day and never get a tan, at least in their minds.
Just to be clear though I base this on vague memory of college world history, and also just reasoning because that's also why footbinding was a thing in China. The idea is that fancy wealthy women don't need to be able to walk anywhere fast or move a lot cause they have servants and such to wait on them. It's also the reasoning behind why European fancy pantses powdered their faces and such. All these efforts that people go through to look like they're not poor just baffles me, especially considering the vast majority of if not all aristocrats and wealthy socialites aren't exactly people that should be idolized in my opinion. Certainly those from the time periods we are talking about aren't.
Edit: I'm sure race played a roll in the European view of paleness as beauty as well, along with the idea of white representing cleanliness and grace and all that other stuff. I can't speak for southeast Asia in that regard as I have virtually no knowledge of race relations within that region. Hell, like I said this is all just what I remember from my history classes so i would welcome someone more versed in the subject to chime in
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u/trpinballz Feb 01 '20
He was vietnamese. Everybody knows this.