Well, I grew up in the northeast, and Asian was definitely the word of choice. My grandmother still refers to Asian people as Oriental, and every time she says it, it kinda just makes me crings. The same as when she says Colored. She’s not horribly or overtly racist, it’s just that that was what you called people back then, it wasn’t necessarily derogatory, there just wasn’t another word for that ethnicity.
Now, however, it has turned derogatory (at least where I grew up it has, since there seems to be some debate over that). I don’t know how it has, maybe just in response to the 60s when there was a lot of tension between the races and people wanted to draw a clear line to separate from the mindset then and now (not that I’m saying there’s no racism now, just that it’s a lot better). I wouldn’t say that Oriental is on a par with Ni**er, at least not in the states, because that word has a hell of a lot of baggage attached to it.
And yes, I still refer to rugs as Oriental 
Just for definition’s sake, I’ve always thought of China, Japan, Korea, SE Asia and such to be Asian and India and Russia separate (Russia is I believe part of Europe and India is just it’s own entity).