I really appreciate you taking the time to properly discuss this with me. I'm not white, but not Asian in any form at all either, and have been mislabeled or whatever the proper word for it is and it's never bothered me. I've never personally experienced anything in everyday life or seen negative things happen to people over race even though I live in a predominantly white community of "county" type folks. I guess to my brain it's never been a big deal and I've never felt strongly about it? Also as someone who would be considered "mixed" I can't honestly imagine anyone being a pure "race" in this day and age so any sort of racial pride is sort of beyond my experience as well.
I'll try and explain my situation in choosing him. Honestly, I think people RP as people they know, in a way. I'm not sure that makes sense like I mean it to. He was one of the "Asian" faces I knew of. I could probably only recognize twenty Koreans (from South Korean shows/music/etc), and the same goes for Japan, but I've never actually seen anything from China, so the characteristics that make someone look Chinese aren't something I know. I even looked for this briefly, but didn't find any sort of set list to help. I don't honestly know many American actors (of any race) by name even, save for maybe 20 or so there as well.
I wasn't picking him because I knew he wasn't Chinese. In my brain, this wasn't even a cultural thing. Given the setting of the game as I'm taking it, China as we know it doesn't exist, as it would be included in this mythical setting, and yes there would be cultural elements, but race didn't occur to me until after I had thought about the character more, made the journal, and began looking for icons. To me, when I imagined Mulan and Shang (admittedly cartoon versions because I've only seen the movies and some artwork from the time of the folklore and such) he fit the idea of what I thought Shang's son would look like. Sort of long face, strong features, but a softness to his eyes and expressions like Mulan had that I remember. I wasn't even thinking in terms of him being Asian, I guess? It was just "I'd like to play them OH THIS GUY I REMEMBER FROM YEARS AGO KINDA HAS SHANG'S FACE". As I don't know any Chinese people right off (though, thinking about it I know two? that I'd probably recognize because they were a thing in Korea) my brain drew from what it knew. Using a PB that I had no knowledge of or cared about would probably make the character fizzle out fast for me. I've tried using new faces or requested ones and they just don't seem to stick like ones I've become fond of beforehand and thought they really fit because of mannerisms.
I can definitely understand in a historical, or even cultural aspect of RP why this would be a thing and all that. That isn't really an issue. I've played various east Asian characters in the past and never had an issue or anyone tell me that something I did was explicitly wrong. I've even played a "white guy" in a completely east Asian community before years ago and despite him being the only one, his history explained his being there and so on, and it made sense and he was welcomed fine with no one seeming to question WHY I picked him over someone else. Though, given this setting and the tweaking and plotting that would eventually come of it, I just didn't understand why it would matter as much, and so on, but that might just be some weird form of naivety on my part or something.
I said above that I've seen people be attacked through comments and things (over more than just racial issues) and I've never understood it. To me it's just meant to be fun, and a way to explore a character (and face) you enjoy, versus being exact and factual. In general, I've experienced that there's a fine line between RPing someone and it being fun versus it being a chore because you have to overthink things. These were the things I considered and ultimately made me decide against the character, but I still wanted the input.
I really do appreciate you taking the time to explain your standpoint and your patience, though. Thank you.