Well, they are more technologically advanced in Japan, and I imagine it is probably a lot better living in Korea and Japan rather than living in China. China, however, is the largest country in the world (population wise) and can be very profitable if approached right. China and Japan both have a very rich culture, more so than Korea. The choice is ultimately yours, but I would suggest Japanese.
Chinese. It is more useful for communication. Japanese and korean are more or less interesting but aren't useful.
Korean. My second choice would be Japanese.
First of all, learning Chinese would be very helpful since it is a huge population and almost everything's made in China. However it's a very, very hard language, and I personally isn't interested.
Japanese has many appeals; mainly anime and manga, J-pop, and other merchandise. Japan was technologically advanced before, but nowadays Korea is gradually climbing up Japan or have even surpassed Japan already. Japan does make good cars, though. However Japan right now is not at its best, with sales rates declining. Also if you were to learn Japanese you have to learn the kanas and kanji, which is basically Chinese. Japanese would be much easier to learn than Chinese but still challenging. Tbh, since I already speak korean I would loooove to learn Japanese because of anime, but you probably don't know any of the three languages, so you should learn Korean.
Korean is proven to be the most scientific of the three languages, and maybe the easiest to learn. There isn't much Chinese involved except for words that originate from Chinese or Hanja, the Korean Kanji. Some appeals of Korea would be K-drama, K-pop, and FOOD (lol, this is again my personal opinion). Right now Korea has Samsung. In case you didn't know, it's that company that sells smartphones, like Apple.
Which language do you want to learn?
It reslly depends on what u wanna do in the future but i would say Chinese as it is like the most spoken language plus u can find chinese ppl everywhere u go
Chinese is either the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th most-spoken in the world based on the sheer number of ethnic Chinese people.
Whilst it may not be the most aesthetic-sounding language, you would surely have a business advantage learning it.
So I'm really interested in East Asia. It's so hard to pick one. In the past I was a frequent anime watcher, which brought Japan to my attention. Now I want to know more about Japan as in their actual culture and history. Currently I'm more into Korea because of my interest in korean popular culture (The music, the kdramas). I really want to learn how to speak the language. I haven't gotten into Chinese culture. But I feel like for my future it would be more beneficial since statistically speaking there are more Chinese people on the planet. Also I'm majoring in biology with future intentions of being a doctor. Which one do you think would be the best choice? Why?
Why would you want to minor in these 3 specific Asian Studies? What is your goal? Is you goal is to live and work overseas? Or just join a company that has branches over there and you reside in America? Or do you just want to learn their culture and understand more about their languages so that you could watch tv or listen to music?
In Japan, you could never find fake/counterfeit merchandises. They are all genuine and with high quality materials. However, they are super expensive from water and vegetables, paper to household items, fruits to fish, just pricy! They also have a super concept of rank that only Japanese knows how to follow.
Korea is gradually climbing up to stand next to Japan, however over the decades, they are still not quite there. No one can beat Japan's technology and their hardworkmanship.
Everything in China is fake. Eggs are fake, milk is fake, meat is fake, you name it. They are all made of plastic or rubber. Chinese people do not know what is manner? They pee anywhere they want - on the bus or in Apple Store, they don't care. Things made in China is super cheap. They break down in one day.
It really depends what you want to do?