If “oriental” is a no-no, is its complement?
Opine, svp.
No, oriental is supposed to be associated with a negative attitude towards the people & their culture. Occidental doesn’t have those connotations, so it’s OK. Plus it’s hardly ever used.
Since “Oriental” was created by people in the Occident(Europe) to describe Asian people, countries, etc., it has no equivalent in Asian languages. The concept of being “from Asia” does, although most people will describe themselves by country or ethnic group now. “Occidental” isn’t used as much, but it doesn’t mean much other than “Not Asian”. Why not just call us “round-eyes” or “white devil”?
As far as I can tell, “Asia”, like “the Orient” still just basically means “not European”. Chinese & Japanese that I’ve met (I’m talking people who were born & grew up there) see themselves as Chinese or Japanese, not East Asians. And I’ve never known someone from East Asia who identified with South Asians, much less middle easterners (who are “oriental” but not usually referred to as Asian.) (Although I’m white myself, I don’t see myself primarily as a member of the white race. Wait til I go down to the hood.) But the descendants of immigrants from East & South Asia seem to be willing to be identified as a single group.
Incidentally, the word the Chinese used to translate “oriental” just means “eastern”. The expression for non-Chinese white people is “foreigners” (waiguoren) or in colloquial Chinese “laowai” (some say this is informal, others insulting). The truly negative term “foreign devil” I’ve never heard except in jest. There’s no term for “round eye” and white is only used in the context of “white race” or white person, usually as opposed to “black” person rather than “yellow” person. Chinese don’t see themselves as yellow.
Re: OP
Only if it’s on purpose…
My opinion (often stated before) - a word is “offensive” when people take offense at it. The more pertinent question, in my mind, is “Do you respect the person’s feelings enough that you want to avoid offending them?”, and/or “do you think that there is sufficient justification for the person being offended?”
Oriental vs. Asian. I looked up Oriental in Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary and noted that it did not label “oriental” as being derogatory. However, it seems many people (at least in the USA) prefer the term “asian”, so I’ll use that term, since I don’t have any particular reason to use “oriental” instead. In addition, the asian community (in the USA), partly due to its status as a racial minority, has been subjected to unpleasant (and in my opinion unwarranted) actions in the past (Japanese-American detention camps in WWII) so that, out of sympathy for the underdog, I will try to refrain from hurting their feelings.
As far as the term occidental goes - I’m not aware of any group that considers the term offensive. If someone showed me an opinion poll saying “80% of europeans think the term ‘occidental’ is offensive and prefer ‘european’; only 10% think ‘european’ is offensive and prefer ‘occidental’”, then I would use the term ‘european’, unless I were in a group of people who all prefer the term ‘occidental’.
Another example - if I were writing an article for our local human rights group’s newsletter about members of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s “Front National” (a french political party), I might very well use the term “racist” to describe those people. If a member of that party told me “I consider that term to be offensive” I would be indifferent since I feel little sympathy for that group or its adherents. However, if I were writing in a newspaper or magazine that is attempting to attract a wide audience, I would obviously try (within reason) to avoid affronting potential readers.
Clear as mud?
P.S. - Short answer: “occidental” is not a no-no.