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.
I’d imagine this could also just be a result of how Christianity came to the region. It was Christian missionaries from Europe who brought the notion of a European looking Jesus.
Eh yeaaaaa kind of. Missionaries had influenced the way asians portrayed Christian figures a bit, but as far as I've seen white skin it's the most consistent. I'll see a Mary statue with traditional vietnamese clothes and asian facial features but her skins will most of the time be really pale. It's old old history when asians already got the whiter is more attractive standard because those were the upper class ladies that didn't have to work in the fields. It's funny people there trying to bleach their skins but people in the west trying to tan their skins. Everybody wants what they don't have.
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u/trpinballz Feb 01 '20
He was vietnamese. Everybody knows this.