# US Dopers - reaction to this supermarket sign? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 14, 2011, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-reaction-to-this-supermarket-sign/592675 "2011-08-14T12:38:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Toucanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3bc359/32.png) [@Toucanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toucanna)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-reaction-to-this-supermarket-sign/592675/41 "2011-08-14T20:50:54Z")
The term “Mongoloid” (now considered offensive) was still used in academia in the latter half of the 20th century (when I was growing up). Please keep that in mind when I say, at that time, “Oriental” was the accepted word for people who lived in Asia and had “Mongoloid” features. Today, the major supermarket chains where I live stock products from China, Japan, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Burma, the Philippines, etc., in the “Asian” or “International” aisle. There are many local mom-and-pop grocery stores owned by Chinese, Phillipinos, Koreans, or Thais that are called “{Name’s} Oriental Grocery”. My husband is from “south-central Asia” and his ancestry is Aryan-Caucasian-Semitic. Thus, his “race” (a term I don’t think is very useful in describing people, BTW) is Caucasian. However, if he covers his hair with a hat or “do-rag” he could pass for “high yellow”. When he was pulled over by cops, some couldn’t figure out what “race” he is. He’s been labeled as Black, Hispanic, White, Caucasian and others. It was pretty funny. (And, yeah, he used to speed a lot when he was younger.) So, was I offended when I saw the sign? No, because the term was okay to use when I was growing up, so I don’t have negative associations with it. Further, knowing that the sign was in a British store, where the term “Asian” is often short-hand for Indian or Pakistani, leads me to believe that no disrespect was intended by the use of the word “Oriental” in that context. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-reaction-to-this-supermarket-sign/592675/42 "2011-08-14T21:17:53Z")
> [@StephenG](#): > > While I could be misremembering, I’m fairly sure I’ve seen “Oriental” on aisle signs both in Massachusetts and here in Ontario. The chains where I may have seen it would be: Stop ‘n’ Shop, Star Market (now owned by Shaw’s), Shaw’s, and Roche Bros. (all in MA), and Loblaw’s, Fortino’s, Dominion (now owned by Metro), and Metro. > > So, to directly answer the OP: I wouldn’t even bat an eye. Shaws and Star both use “international foods” on their signage and have for many years. ---
**Author:** ![LurkerInNJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ed655f/32.png) [@LurkerInNJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkerInNJ)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-reaction-to-this-supermarket-sign/592675/43 "2011-08-14T21:24:29Z")
> [@Wallenstein](#): > > Just wondering how US dopers (or other non-UK dopers) react to it… I’m aware of the cultural differences, but would this make you feel uncomfortable, or just a raised eyebrow, or would you not even register it? I would think it was the aisle where I would find soy sauce, thai peanut sauce and the like. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-reaction-to-this-supermarket-sign/592675/44 "2011-08-14T22:58:45Z")
It’d make me think it’s an old sign. IMO ‘Hispanic’ vs. ‘Latino’ is a similiar situation (though not food related) ---
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-reaction-to-this-supermarket-sign/592675/45 "2011-08-14T23:27:51Z")
I was called out in a thread I made about pho ([link](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=597698)), for calling T&T an oriental supermarket. That’s what it is. It’s foods which come from the orient. Apparently, from what I had once been told, “Oriental” does not carry the same perjorative weight in Europe it does in North America, in part because “Oriental” was a classification in N.A. associated with the head tax East Asian migrants had to pay. I don’t know if that story is true or not, but it certainly sounds plausible! ---
**Author:** ![picker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/picker/32/13969_2.png) [@picker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picker)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-reaction-to-this-supermarket-sign/592675/46 "2011-08-14T23:28:02Z")
I was always taught that “Rugs are oriental and people are asian” And non-oriental/asian folk from asia - i.e. Indian, Sri Lankan, Pakistani, etc are South Asian, leastways round here. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-reaction-to-this-supermarket-sign/592675/47 "2011-08-15T00:13:28Z")
Seeing that sign in the OP’s link was like a punch in the gut. I felt all the blood drain from my face; my heart began to race. I actually almost had a panic attack, and had to take a valium to calm down. When at last I managed to regain my composure, I wrote a good long letter to the Anti-Defamation League about this horrific incident. Something must be done about this vile and insensitive sign, or else we don’t stand a chinaman’s chance at building a civil society. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-reaction-to-this-supermarket-sign/592675/48 "2011-08-15T01:19:05Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Pretty mild reaction of surprise - not because I find the term offensive, but because I know others do, and I’m used to supermarkets that don’t try to piss off their customers so blatantly. The supermarket in the photo is not trying to “piss off their customers so blatantly.” The store is in the UK, not the US. I wouldn’t have even given it a second thought. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-reaction-to-this-supermarket-sign/592675/49 "2011-08-15T01:35:53Z")
I also didn’t get the memo that “oriental” was a racial slur. I guess that’s why we have the Dope! Please don’t tell me that television news reports will start referring to it as the “o” word. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-reaction-to-this-supermarket-sign/592675/50 "2011-08-15T01:52:14Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > I also didn’t get the memo that “oriental” was a racial slur. I guess that’s why we have the Dope! > > Please don’t tell me that television news reports will start referring to it as the “o” word. This isn’t a new thing. Oriental’s been on the outs since I started growing up (in California, FWIW). It wasn’t exactly offensive, but it was the word used back when folks stereotyped East Asians heavily in ignorance, even more so than today. Asian is the less loaded word now. That’s word connotation for you. It could just as easily have been the other way round, but it isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Runs\_With\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/278dde/32.png) [@Runs\_With\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Runs_With_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-reaction-to-this-supermarket-sign/592675/51 "2011-08-15T02:07:43Z")
As a proud liberal, my hair turned white, my intestines emptied themselves, I screamed as if I’d been knifed in the back, and my spleen exploded. ---
**Author:** ![Namkcalb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c89c15/32.png) [@Namkcalb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Namkcalb)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-reaction-to-this-supermarket-sign/592675/52 "2011-08-15T02:17:36Z")
As others have already said, most English people use Asian to describe people from southern Asia. As you Americans would say, “oriental” still flys here, but of course there is a world of difference between “an oriental” “an oriental person”， I try to use their nationalities if I know them. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-reaction-to-this-supermarket-sign/592675/53 "2011-08-15T02:23:29Z")
> [@Namkcalb](#): > > As you Americans would say, “oriental” still flys here, but of course there is a world of difference between “an oriental” “an oriental person”， I try to use their nationalities if I know them. I still don’t follow the difference. Is it a slur to call someone a “New Englander”? Should I instead attempt to determine what state they are from (Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, etc.)? Why stop there? Surely there are regional differences within the state. Why not refer to someone based on the particular street they are from? An Asian person objecting to being called an “oriental” would be like me objecting to being called a “westerner.” It’s PC gone mad. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-reaction-to-this-supermarket-sign/592675/54 "2011-08-15T02:36:05Z")
Until I saw a commercial a little while ago where a guy used “Oriental” and was corrected by his girlfriend I had no idea people might have a problem with the word. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-reaction-to-this-supermarket-sign/592675/55 "2011-08-15T02:39:55Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > …It’s like that newspaper reporter from the US who asked Nelson Mandela what it was like to be the first African American leader of South Africa. I remember my 3rd grade teacher telling us how Nelson Mandela was was just elected the first African-_American_ President of South Africa and how wonderful that was. I pointed out that he wasn’t American at all; just African. She told me to be quite and that that wasn’t a nice thing to say. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-reaction-to-this-supermarket-sign/592675/56 "2011-08-15T02:54:07Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#): > > Oriental is pretty well understood to refer to the, for lack of a better word, pan-Confucian nations. Actually, there isn’t a lack of a better word - the word is Oriental. What about the Orient Express that only goes as far as Istanbul? ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-reaction-to-this-supermarket-sign/592675/57 "2011-08-15T02:57:11Z")
People people. We all know they have odd word spellings in the UK and even in France. Words in Welsh don’t even necessarily look anything like how they are pronounced. Hell, there is even a Monty Python joke to this effect. Obviously in the UK, the word “Oriental” is _pronounced_ “Asian”. ---
**Author:** ![thelabdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@thelabdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelabdude)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-reaction-to-this-supermarket-sign/592675/58 "2011-08-15T03:02:39Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > I also didn’t get the memo that “oriental” was a racial slur. I guess that’s why we have the Dope! > > Please don’t tell me that television news reports will start referring to it as the “o” word. Pretty please with sugar on it? ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-reaction-to-this-supermarket-sign/592675/59 "2011-08-15T03:22:41Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > Wasn’t Negro a replacement for Colored which had become a term that wasn’t supposed to be used anymore? Maybe it was the other way around. The point still stands it’s a constantly evolving thing. Oh yeah. “Colored” was once the modern, progressive term (see: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1909). Later “Negro” took that spot (see: Negro National League, 1920, through United Negro College Fund, 1944). “Black” rose notably during the Civil Rights Era, and the choice of terminology (versus those still saying “Negro”) was a major flag for some people. “African-American” followed still later, with Jesse Jackson establishing it as the PC term du jour in the '80s, though it has never seemed to achieve the standardization of any of the preceding three. I’m not black, but I say “black” because my black friends find “African-American” euphemistic, and some Africans find it presumptuous. > [@Hyperelastic](#): > > Oriental is a good word that ought to be rehabilitated. “Asian” could mean anything from Turkey to Siberia to India to Vietnam. Oriental is pretty well understood to refer to the, for lack of a better word, pan-Confucian nations. Actually, there isn’t a lack of a better word - the word is Oriental. > > I’m aware that “Oriental rugs” can come from central and southwestern Asia but that’s almost jargon, like “French fries” that don’t really come from France. No, “Oriental rugs” represents the classic application of the term. “Orient” means _east_, everything on the “far” side of the Bosporus. “Oriental rugs” encompass disparate traditions from widely-separated cultures–but they all looked sort of exotic to Europeans, so the distinctions weren’t important. Limiting the term to only the far-eastern or southeastern portions of Asia, that’s the modern “jargon” adaptation. I prefer to avoid “Oriental” with respect to people, rugs, food, everything. I don’t think there are any usages that aren’t improved by using “Asian” (if one really is speaking of the continent generally), or else specific-culture terms. If it’s a Persian rug _or person_, or a Turkmen, or a Tibetan, say _that_. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-reaction-to-this-supermarket-sign/592675/60 "2011-08-15T04:06:59Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > It’s PC gone mad. Please, let’s not get hyperbolic. It’s barely annoyed at best. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-reaction-to-this-supermarket-sign/592675.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-dopers-reaction-to-this-supermarket-sign/592675.md?page=4)