At work, a client came in to see a salesperson he’d never met before. He asked in what area he could find her and what she looked like. He was told, “Maribel is down that row; she is petite with long dark hair; Oriental looking.”
Afterwards, Ms. H.R. came up and said, “Only rugs are Oriental.”
What’s up with THAT?:dubious:
I’ve noticed that to… but I always use the word… to me (I’m originally from the UK) Asian means Pakistani/Indian… Oriental means Chinese/Japanese/Korean, etc… If that makes me politically incorrect, so be it…
Personally, I’ve always heard Oriental to be un-PC and somewhat offensive…Asian, I think, is the right way to say it, but I could be wrong.
There have been threads about this recently. Long story short, Asian-Americans prefer to be called Asian. Among certain circles, the term Oriental has really taken on a nasty connotation in the past 15-20 years or so. Oriental means different things and has a different level of being an acceptable word in other countries than it does in the US.
Having looked into this matter for the past couple of years, the basis for this that makes sense to me is that Oriental was a colonial word and inherently contained a negative bias.
I’m with wooba.
Who is on the PC committee anyway?
Miss Manners would say you should refer to a group of people in the manner in which that group would like to be referred to. With all due respect, insisting on calling Asian-Americans “orientals” after understanding that it is not the “preferred” or “acceptable” term is crossing a line.
Maybe FiestyMongol has a point :eek:
Have you seen what Miss Manners looks like?
(Rather frightening.) 
Here’s a link to the recent, and informative Pit thread on The term ‘Oriental’ and racism in general. The english language is drifting yet again. King Canute himself, much less the anti-PC-police, are powerless against such mighty forces of nature.
Japanese/Korean - American (is that PC enough?) speaking.
I think the term “Oriental” strikes Asians as being more a term for something exotic; as you said, like Oriental rugs or something. “Asian” is probably most PC, especially if you don’t know if they’re Chinese, Japanese, etc. and some of them will actually take offense if you refer to them by the wrong race.
I personally wouldn’t care if someone called me Oriental or not. I’d be slightly surprised because it sounds old-fashioned, but it certainly wouldn’t offend me.
In addition to the objects/persons difference, in my experience (I’m Japanese-American), oriental is a term used and preferred by my parents’ generation (b. ~1950) and Asian is generally being picked up and preferred by their kids.
While I don’t take offense to being called oriental, I prefer Asian for the reason High Priestess mentioned. Oriental has old-fashioned “exotic foreign person” connotations that I wouldn’t attributed to me. There ain’t nothing exotic or foreign about people like me.
I assume that there are also U.S. regional differences in the level of disdain for the term “Oriental” (just like there is for the label “Hispanic”). Here in N Calif./Bay Area I think that term is clearly outdated and, though not Asian myself, I would certainly cringe if anyone used it.
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition:
AWB
Quite. “Oriental” = Fu Manchu, basically.