Do orientals (living in their home lands) say they live in the Far East? Obviously, this is a Western bias, but what do they have to say about it? - Jinx
You’re likely to get some backlash about using the term “Orientals.” Overall, “Asians” appears to be the most accepted nomenclature around here, and other places, as well.
Chinese tend to say that they live in the “East.” In fact, there’s a famous Mao-era song called “The East is Red.”
Since they would probably not be speaking English, whatever term they use could probably be correctly[sup]*[/sup] translated as whatever equivalent the translator preferred.
[sup]*[/sup]Assuming the translator chose a term deemed to be correct in it’s target language.
The name for China in Chinese means ‘middle kingdom’ or ‘middle country’ (zhōng gùo in Mandarin with pinyin Romanization). I’m not sure when this name began to be used or if it means geographically in the middle or ‘middle’ in a chronological or historical context. Judging by the other meanings of zhōng (middle, center) it would seem to be geographical, but I can’t confirm that. Maybe that means that the Chinese thought of themselves as living in the middle rather than the East, which is certainly logical since a culture would tend to think of geography with reference to other locations rather than with reference to the Iron Curtain or the Caucasus.
In modern conversations in English, Asians would probably think of themselves as being from the East or Far East. Of course these terms show a Western bias, because they’re terms in a Western language. Since England and the United States and other English-speaking countries are mostly located in or close to the western hemisphere (itself a biased concept, of course), these countries and those with similar cultures are ‘the West’, and countries to the east are ‘the Near East’, ‘the Middle East’, ‘the Far East’, etc. (Probably, these terms evolved when England was the dominant English-speaking country.)
Since the term now mostly connotes the type of culture in the country, someone in Australia is a Westerner, but someone in Indonesia just to the north is an Easterner.
What is the question here? I’d assume they say things like “I live in Shanghai” or “I live in Vientiene” or “I live just outside Kobe.”
Sorry, but I can’t understand what in the world you’re trying to ask here.
Well, I don’t normally think I live in the “far east”.
I normally say I’m from Singapore, or maybe from South East Asia, and I’ll be damned if I have to point out to someone that I’m asian. 
(Chinese decent)
Have to say that I’ve never used “Oriental” to describe myself, though. Makes me think of ancient Chinese and Japanese stuff, like food, or perhaps traditional dance forms.
This isn’t such a ridiculous question. I routinely say “I live in the west” or “western society” etc. to refer to US/Europe. It’s concievable asians do not refer to asia as “The east”
Ah yes, I’ve heard that it’s called the middle kingdom because of the mountains to the west, mongolia to the north (you have to admit that place is just a tad desolate), the sea to the west, and inhospitable jungle to the south. And barbarians all around. Of course they’d call themselves the middle kingdom.
Well… I dunno, actually. I’ve never called myself an “easterner” before. Asian, yes, Chinese, maybe, Singaporean mostly, but easterner… hmm.
Interesting enough, though, in Chinese I would refer to myself as a “xi fang ren” (eastern people), and Chinese medicine as “xi yao” (direct translation), so I guess those “directionisms” have somehow spilled over to Chinese. I’ve never used, or heard anyone use the english version of that, though.
You know, I have no probelm being PC, but who are we suddenly kidding? Like all of Asia is owned and operated by the Pacific Rim? I am trying to distinguish the Orientals from the Russians, Indians, and even Israelis…all of which occupy the Asian continent! I really have a problem with this, and I don’t know how suddenly (in recent times) this word “Oriental” became so offensive? Along these lines, so many products which come from the Far East are known as being from Orient and hence are Oriental, like rugs.
I think people should be proud of their heritage. Why should they want to be assimilated into the rest of Asia, anyhow? The cultures and lands there are a lot to stand up and be proud of. To say “oh, we’re just Asian” is to hide in shame of their heritage, IMHO.
One day, we’re just ALL gonna call each other Panasians, right? (Wasn’t that the term for one continent, Panasia, IIRC? - Jinx
That wouls be Pangeans, Jinx.
I was upbraided by a 19 year old for using the term “Oriental” a few years ago (I am 37). She angrily informed me that only rugs and vases were “Oriental”, not people. I apologized.
You see, while I could remember the term “Oriental” as non-offensive because of my age, apparently it is no longer the most appropriate term. Cool. I am white-on-white, so it’s not up to me what may be offensive to a Chinese person.
Uh…I can remember “oriental” (as being used to describe a person) as offensive for the last 10 years.
I can recall this discussion going on before, and IIRC the non-Western-oriented way of saying it is “East Asia” – which incorporates Japan, the Ryukyus, Taiwan, the Philippines, and the Malay Archipelago in much the same way as “North America” includes the West Indies.
It is, however, rare, speaking completely of stereotypes here, to see an East Asian of whatever nationality identifying with the region as opposed to his home nation – “East Asian” as a self-identifying concept is about as unlikely to be heard as “European” for a denizen of that continent before World War II. One was a German, a Frenchman, an Italian, a Serb, or whatever – and one is a Korean, Japanese, etc. today.
This is not to say that there are not people who think trans-nationally and regionally there, but to focus on the generalized self-identification. (And, by the way, my information is about ten years old, so attitudinal patterns may well have changed in that decade.)
I mentioned this in a post here yesterday. I used “Orientals” in a post in a Usenet NG, and someone upbraided me. The problem is that there really is no other English language term that conveys the idea “those people who would commonly be associated with eating with chopsticks” that doesn’t suffer from vagueness. “East Asian” doesn’t cut it. That part of Russia across the Bering Straight from Alaska is in East Asia, but the people who live there aren’t “Orientals”.
And, as a fellow US national who came to my defense pointed out, no American whose intent was to use a racial slur would ever use the word “Orientals”. They’d use “gooks” instead. I say this is PC running amok.
So because you don’t think it’s offensive, nobody should be offended by it?
What if I use your same logic to assert that ‘Paki’ isn’t offensive?
I asked Mrs. Shibb (native Thai) about this one last night. According to her, Thais think of Thailand and everything else, without so much care about the direction of that place. So there is Muang Thai (colloquial for Thailand, literally the Thai City or Country) and everywhere else. They do refer to Asia, Europe, America, or other places specifically (Pratheet Joraman would be Germany, for example), but there is no directional indication of “Far East” or “East”. The exception might be direct translations from Western news or media.
Yeah, I’m sure this is heading toward GD or the Pit, but I don’t think anyone actually considers Russians to be “East Asians.” That’s one of those terms in which the common understanding is a bit less general than the literal meaning; in the same way that one could argue that “Americans” could include Canadians, Brazilians, and others, but we all know that that is not what people understand from the word.
In any case, I came by again because I was reminded that in the mid-90s, there was quite a bit of debate about “Asian values.” Many scholars and government officials from China, Singapore, Indonesia, and other Pacific Rim countries argued that things like strong governments and limited human rights (as defined by Westerners) were a cultural trait shared among the people of those countries.
The bottom line is that these folks feel that “Asian” is a sufficiently specific term to describe the people you’re talking about. (Of course, many British people would dispute that reading of the term Asian, just adding more to our linguistic confusion.)
One problem here is that all in the US aren’t that well educated that they would pick up on these nuances in the language. If I were talking to some folks on a street corner of the poorest part of the urban area of where I live, if I referred to someone as being an “Oriental”, they’d get the drift. If I said “East Asian”, there eyes might glaze over. And the truth is a lot of middle class people in the US are quite geographically ignorant. Recently amongst a group of people when someone mentioned they were from Azerbaijan, I was the only person who understood where that was. For the rest he had to explain where his country was located. 
Wait a minute.
How do these terms imply a Western point of view?
I live in Maryland, which seems like the center of the world to me, but I don’t refer to it as the center of the world, I refer to it as the West (in a global context).
It is a Roman or Greek point of view, isn’t it? Where the middle of the world is the Medi - Terranean = Mediterranean? With the Orient and the Occident on either side?
But isn’t xi is the word for west in Manderin. Xiyi or Xiyao (I don’t remember which) is western medicine, zhongyi or yao is chinese traditional medicine. Dong is east.
smacks forehead There was a reason why I came to London to study, and I guess this was it.
slinks out of thread