# Oriental Asians **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 22, 2003, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oriental-asians/163387 "2003-03-22T17:00:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dogface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oriental-asians/163387/21 "2003-09-02T04:18:07Z")
My problem with “oriental” is that it’s too imprecise. I’ve found sources that refer to the “oriental” practices of the Eastern Roman Empire. What they refer to is adopting court customs of Persia. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oriental-asians/163387/22 "2003-09-02T04:51:54Z")
The most plausible explanation I have heard (even if **Rusalka** dismissed it above) is that there is nothing offensive per se about the word “Oriental”. The problem is that it looks at the world literally from a western standpoint. Oriental means “eastern”, and for something to be eastern, it assumes that the speaker and the listener are both “western”. It’s a relative term, in other words. It describes a people only in terms of how they are positioned from westerners. “Asian” is not a relative term. No matter where you are positioned in the world, including in Asia itself, Asia is Asia (or whatever the continent is called in the local language). It doesn’t look rely on a western viewpoint to see itself. ---
**Author:** ![hoboonmoto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hoboonmoto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hoboonmoto)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oriental-asians/163387/23 "2003-09-02T05:09:38Z")
The ethnic background should be refered to. i.e. Korean, Chinese, ect. any _ **"orientals"** _, disagree? CATCH 22 ---
**Author:** ![Doobieous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/da6949/32.png) [@Doobieous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doobieous)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2003, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oriental-asians/163387/24 "2003-09-04T04:41:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Rusalka \* > \*\*“Native American” also includes Hawaiians and Eskimos and may not be accurate when you’re talking in generalities. \*\* Since when was Hawaii a part of the Americas? It isn’t. Hawaiians are not “American” (except by nationality), _if_ anything they’re a part of polynesia, or just “hawaii”. ---
**Author:** ![Doobieous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/da6949/32.png) [@Doobieous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doobieous)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2003, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oriental-asians/163387/25 "2003-09-04T04:46:36Z")
Here’s a question: What do you refer to Indonesians, Malays, and Filipinos? They’re not a part of the “orient” (which means east), and they have far more in common with each other, and even Polynesia than typical “oriental” groups. This is why pretty much any label except an ethnic label are imprecise. Here’s my take on the word. It’s not offensive, it’s just stilted, archaic, and dated. Why not say “east asian” for Chinese.Japanese/koreans, and specify the areas of Asia various groups originate if you’re going to lump them into one group? Indians are sometimes called “South Asian”, Malays and Filipinos “South East Asian”, and Arabs, Israelis and Turks “West Asian”. Makes FAR more sense to me. ---
**Author:** ![Doobieous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/da6949/32.png) [@Doobieous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doobieous)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2003, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oriental-asians/163387/26 "2003-09-04T04:49:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Doobieous \* > \*\*Here’s a question: What do you refer to Indonesians, Malays, and Filipinos? > > They’re not a part of the “orient” (which means east), and they have far more in common with each other, and even Polynesia than typical “oriental” groups.\*\* Addendum: I’ve heard the above groups called “orientals” by a lot of people. When really, what do the above groups have in common with Chinese/Japanese/and Koreans? ---
**Author:** ![biqu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@biqu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biqu)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2003, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oriental-asians/163387/27 "2003-09-04T13:07:06Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Walloon_ > Oriental means “eastern”, and for something to be eastern, it assumes that the speaker and the listener are both “western”. **Alan Owes Bess** made a [post in GD](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=3887235#post3887235) on this topic, clarifying the origin of “orient” and “occident” for non-latin scholars. The connotation you infer (looking at things from a western perspective) probably never even crossed the minds of those who initially adopted the term. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2003, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oriental-asians/163387/28 "2003-09-04T17:34:38Z")
**amore ac studio** , I read the post by **Alan Owes Bess** , and I don’t see that his post and mine disagree. The sun rises (_oriens_) in the east. Orientals live to the east of Occidentals. The term Oriental is a relativistic term, meaningless to the people who live in Asia, who are not eastern to themselves. (P.S., I did study Latin for two years.) ---
**Author:** ![biqu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@biqu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biqu)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2003, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oriental-asians/163387/29 "2003-09-04T18:37:59Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Walloon_ > The term Oriental is a relativistic term, meaningless to the people who live in Asia, who are not eastern to themselves. Would you also agree that the term Occidental is a relativistic term, meaningless to the people who live in Europe and America, who are not west of themselves? ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2003, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oriental-asians/163387/30 "2003-09-04T19:07:17Z")
Yes, I would. Occidental was used only when talking of Oriental. ---
**Author:** ![biqu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@biqu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biqu)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2003, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oriental-asians/163387/31 "2003-09-04T20:05:14Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Walloon_ > The problem is that it looks at the world literally from a western standpoint. Taking this reasoning to an extreme, it must also be a problem that the word “oriens” (to rise) looks at the world from an Earth-based standpoint. Surely a hypothetical observer at the center of the sun would not observe the sun “rising” as we do on Earth. If and when we ever encounter intelligent life beyond our planet, we might have to shed other linguistic artifacts of our Earth-based existence, such as a 24-hour day or a 365.2422-day year, in order to facilitate interplanetary communication. By that time we will have been amply prepared for such a sweeping reform, having discarded along the way many other terms, such as Orient, that reflect a peculiarly western perspective of the world. This subtlety is where your post disagrees with that of **Alan Owes Bess**. You see a problem with terminology that reflects the culture in which it was introduced. **Alan Owes Bess** accepts the terminology that is dependent on a particular cultural perspective, rather than declaring it biased and promoting its disuse. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Alan Owes Bess_ > As practically no one who attends university today, as a student or lecturer, particularly in the Arts or Humanities faculties, would be aware of the origin of the words, it makes it easy for some Political Science Cabal, as part of a power play, to declare a word taboo for any reason they choose to conjure up. Whether those reasons are true or false doesn’t really matter if the ploy is successful. > > The only people who take these silly mind games seriously are those who think attaining a Mickey Mouse BA degree majoring in Political Science (or Anthrop, or whatever) is a really big deal. I’m not saying that you’re part of a “Political Science Cabal” trying to “declare a word taboo” for “conjured up reasons”, but your arguments could be used to promote the causes of such a cabal. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2003, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oriental-asians/163387/32 "2003-09-05T00:05:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by amore ac studio \* > **This subtlety is where your post disagrees with that of Alan Owes Bess. You see a problem with terminology that reflects the culture in which it was introduced. Alan Owes Bess accepts the terminology that is dependent on a particular cultural perspective, rather than declaring it biased and promoting its disuse.** Ah, there is where you are wrong. I have never said the term should be disused. Reread my original post. I said that the explanation that I gave was “the most plausible explanation I have heard.” ---
**Author:** ![biqu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@biqu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biqu)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2003, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oriental-asians/163387/33 "2003-09-05T00:48:27Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Walloon_ > Ah, there is where you are wrong. I have never said the term should be disused. Reread my original post. I said that the explanation that I gave was “the most plausible explanation I have heard.” I quoted you as saying that the terminology was problematic in that it looked at the world from a western standpoint. You prefixed the previous sentence with the phrase “most plausible explanation I have heard”, and I did not carry that disclaimer over to the subsequent sentences automatically. Simple misunderstandings like that are bound to occur when standard English usage generally avoids the use of grouping symbols like { } and ( ) to enclose the thoughts to which a disclaimer is supposed to be applied. Even if you personally believed that the terminology was problematic, I would not draw the conclusion that you wished it to fall out of use. Tech support staff find the proliferation of clueless computer users problematic, inasmuch as it causes them headaches when answering calls, but they don’t wish it away, since their job security is dependent on the existence of users who don’t know what they’re doing. ---
**Author:** ![Eolbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@Eolbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eolbo)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2003, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oriental-asians/163387/34 "2003-09-05T07:08:22Z")
Racial terminology seem to go through a natural evolution from polite to offensive. I wasn’t aware the term oriental was offensive although I avoid the term myself as it does sound quaint and old-fashioned to my ears. Asian is the word that comes naturally to me. Sort of like how back in the day well meaning people referred to American blacks as ‘negroes’ or ‘colored’ in contrast to the offensive ‘nigger’, and those terms if I’m not mistaken are now suspect themselves. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oriental-asians/163387.md?page=1)