Since I mentioned this in the Playmates thread (and now that the server is working again for me), I’d like to add that your understanding of how Said’s Orientalism was received in the academic community is waaaaay off. It was – has been – taken very seriously in Asian studies, history, anthropology, comparative literature, comparative religion, postcolonial studies, and so on. The book has received its fair share of criticism as well, of course, but it has been tremendously influential and it continues to be discussed and debated. (Do a google search on “orientalism university press” and you’ll see what I mean.)
Personally, I don’t think one can adequately understand the changing attitudes in the U.S. today toward “Orient” and “Oriental” without considering the impact of Said’s book. Countless undergraduates have been exposed to it in one form or another. Just try a google seach on “orientalism syllabus” to get a sense of how the book continues to be taken up in undergraduate classes. Very, very influential book. And yes, it’s much more likely to have influenced youngish university-educated Asian-Americans than Asians in Asia, Asian immigrants to the U.S., and so on.
Kimtsu, thanks for the links and I’ll try to get those books. I’ve been looking for something along those lines.
The opinion on Said’s work came from my former Chinese professor at UCD (Chinese wife, PhD from Harvard, Korean war vet). I’ve also discussed this Oriental issue with him at length, and he doesn’t have a real handle on the whole negative connotation that evolved.
I think you’re way off base on “Jap” (yellow bellied Jap, dirty Jap, double crossing Jap). Maybe it started out as an innocent abbreviation, but it sure has been tainted. IMHO, Oriental certainly does not have this type of connotation.
As for Asiatic, sheesh, this battle was fought many many many years ago. Asiatic mind, Asiatic traits (sorry can’t think of more off the top of my head) was clearly more “colonial” and full of sweeping and very inaccurate and negative generalities. Read Kim by Kipling if you want to see some usage around the turn of the previous century. But yes, interesting point “Just goes to show how strongly one’s own personal experience affects one’s views of what is “certainly” or “obviously” an offensive term.”
It’s also why everytime I’ve heard someone say “Oriental is a rug” I’ve always internally given it a big ol’ WTF? And still do for that matter, but maybe that’s because I grew up when “Oriental was not a rug”
Anyhoo, thanks for those links and I’ll see if I can find them next week when I leave the Orient for a visit to the US.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Times they are a changin’. If this helps, it has always seemed to me that “Oriental” is comparable to “Negro”, e.g. it’s a word that was not originally a slur, but has become outdated because it harkens back to a time when those people were oppressed. It’s not like “Nigger” or “Jap”, which WERE slurs at the time. So, while it’s certainly WORSE to say “Jap” than to say “Oriental”, that doesn’t mean “Oriental” is o.k. - We don’t use the word Oriental for the same reason we don’t use the word Negro; it’s just outdated, that’s all.
And no, you’re not gonna find this stuff out in a dictionary. Dictionaries list the literal definitions of words and don’t spend a lot of time on connotations.
I always felt the new nomenclature of “Asian” started at American universities and kind of trickled into the popular culture. I grew up in Hawaii where I comfortably referred to myself as half Oriental or hapa and never encountered any adverse reactions. When I got to college on the East Coast (1992), however, I was berated by (you may have guessed it) Asian-American students for referring to myself as Oriental, some of whom danced around accusations that my (white) father succumbed to Orientalist thinking when he married my (Japanese-American) mother. I gave up on them soon after.
Now, when asked by the occasional stranger, I simply say I’m half Japanese.
I didn’t think the word “hapa” was considered by anyone to be a slur. Why would you have expected “adverse reactions”? As for “Oriental”, maybe it’s only out of favor on the mainland? I understand from this thread that it’s still considered o.k. in England, for example; so maybe that’s the case in Hawaii as well?
Sorry, you lost me. What do you mean by “danced around accusations”? What is “Orientalist thinking”?
Oops. Didn’t mean for hapa to be lumped in with any potential slur; that was poor sentence structure on my part. I also wanted to agree with other posters who said Oriental didn’t seem to have the negative connotations it does on the mainland.
As for the other stuff, some students implied that my white, Welsh father was guilty of considering Asian women to be mysterious, exotic, and subservient and therefore more attractive. I considered that to be accusing my father of Orientalist thought, as in ascribing certain qualities to non-Occidentals. In a sense, then, they considered my father to be sexually colonizing my mother by marrying and having children with her. My mother simply explained it away as bullshit, bless her.
It’s real obvious what has happened. Some ivory tower types have decided Oriental is a bad word that no one should use, and the langauge brown shirts have picked up on it. Tell 'em to go stuff themselves.
So is the feeling of the anti-Oriental-nomenclature camp that Asians outside of America should follow this judgment?
Well, I said above that I personally didn’t think that was necessary—if there are groups of self-described “Orientals” who aren’t bothered by the term, why shouldn’t they go on using it in contexts where it’s okay? However, I think it’s only common sense to say that they should be aware of the fact that some other people, particularly in the US, have very different opinions on the subject.
And thank you Evil Captor for that mature and intelligently considered response. :rolleyes: I can just see you when some Asian person who doesn’t know what you’re like tries to explain to you seriously and sincerely why they find the term “Oriental” unpleasant, and automatically associate it with decades or centuries of ignorant racist remarks by bigoted louts, and would honestly prefer that you not use it to refer to them. And then you dance around making faces and shouting “Oriental, Oriental, Oriental, neener-neener-neener!” And then, of course, they know what you’re like.
