Where Do Orientals Say They Live...?

Factual Questions
21

Most people in Asia in their native language refer to themselves by their place name. China or usually more specifically where the ancestral home/language is.

When refering to some concept of “asia”, in Chinese, most common is “huangzhongren” or “people of the yellow type” as Asian. They also use much less frequently “asian” or “oriental”. I can’t think of an example where in CHinese they would say the equivalent “I’m from the far east.” You can hear that someone is from “east Asia” or “south Asia”

I met a Russian guy from Vladavostok who said in English he was from the Russian Far East.

There are multiple threads on the Oriental versus Asian (as used in the US to refer to Asian Americans). Here’s a link to where I think it all started in the 1960’s:
http://www.hyphenmagazine.com/features/issues/summer03/theforgottenrevolution.php

And yes, there are many of us that remember (it wasn’t very long ago) when “Oriental was not a rug” and a racial slur toward an Asian was obviously a slur and could not remotely be construed as a racist term when viewed through PC glasses.

22

Where do you live in the US? I’m in Michigan, and have never heard anyone use “Oriental” as a racist term, and I am 43 years old. Around here the general slur would be “gooks”, or if they wanted to be more specific things like “Chinks” or “Japs”, etc.

And, “Asian American” is so vague it is near useless. India and Iran are in Asia, so are not people of that ancestry also “Asian Americans”? “East-Asian Americans” would at least be useful, as most people in the US wouldn’t use that term to describe someone from Vladavostok.

23

I live here in China as well and have heard the Chinese say that this is “the East”.

The policy of our school is, “Best of the West and Best of the East”. It’s a Chinese school.

http://www.harborviewschool.com/

I work at the elementary.

24

I was just about to say, is there no one from Asia here other than the Singaporean?

Anyways, being ethnic half-Chinese half-Vietnamese (born in the US), I actually prefer Oriental because it does distinguish from the Indians and Russians, etc… In Britian I understand that Oriental refers to people from China, Japan, Korea, etc… while Asian refers to what we here in the US refer to as South Asian. BUT, most Asian-Americans feel this pang when they hear Oriental, much like say, blurting out, “Negro.” That word is or isn’t offensive, too, depending on who you ask. BUT, since most Asian-Americans I know don’t like it, I just don’t use it too often around them when I don’t have to. These racial labels we have in American English is kind of dumb, up to a point. Generally, you got Black, White, Red, “Brown,” and Asian. Four colors and a location? Pbbbbttt…

As for the original question, most Chinese people from Asia do refer to America, England, Austrailia as “XiRen,” or “West People.” They usually refer to themselves as, “Zhongguoren,” (referring more towards the country) or “Huaren,” (referring more towards ethnic Chinese, including those overseas) or “Tangren,” (referring to the Tang dynasty, something only Cantonese speaks use I believe) depending on waht dialect you’re speaking. However, the “Western” moniker is reserved more for what we use Oriental for, namely, ethnicty/race. Black Africans are not Western to them, but White South Africans are. Which makes it really disturbing when you see some Japanese saying that they “love everything Western” :smack:, because yes, that’s what they really mean.

I’m not sure what the other East Asians refer to themselves as. Mostly just their countries of origin I believe. The Japanese call themselves mostly “Nihonjin,” which is just, “Japan People.” I beleive the Koreans usually say, “Hanguk,” which…is kind of confusing. The way I understand it it refers to both a people and a country. I’m not too clear on that.

25

The problem here was that the folks that prefer not to be called “Orientals” promoted the vague PC alternative of “Asian Americans”. When the Negroes promoted the PC alternative of “black”, everyone could switch to the new PC term without causing any problems. “Asian American” lumps in Pakistanis with the Chinese, and there is a big cultural difference between the 2.

26

Yes. I’m pretty sure most people can see that.

Most of the people who promoted “Asian-American” were ofcourse, those of East Asian descent. There WAS another term these “leaders” thought of, but had a bigger problem than Asian-American. I forget what. Anyhoo, I think the reasoning was that there just weren’t nearly the number of South Asians or even Southeast Asians in America at the time?
The same problem goes with the Native American/Indians/American Indians. Other than Native Americans (which many take offense to now), they can also give you the wrong idea.

And I don’t think African-Americans ever really pushed for “Black” as a PC term. I think that’s been around forever. They pushed the term, “African-American,” which again, is kind of vague, because of the Egyptians and Caucasian South Africans and all. Somehow we live with that. So I don’t see why we can’t live with Asian-American, even though I personally prefer Oriental.

27

The push for “African-American” came after “black” became the standard. And, note they are NOT synonymous. I have a co-worker who is a resident alien and a Nigerian national. Which means while he is a black guy, he isn’t an African-American. African-American is an ethnic classification; black is a racial one.

28

Think you are using SE Asian Chinese words rather than what is used in China. Never get called xiren/western person in China, what is occaisionaly used is xifangren/western direction person. Most common is waiguoren/foreigner, laowai/foreigner (polite form), oumeiren/European-American, bairen/caucasian. Mainly when using the equivalent term of western the Chinese use “yang” as in most commonly yangguizi/western barbarian. The “yang” 洋 means foreign as in a yangfang/foreign style house (implied it is western sytyle but literally is foreign).

Ancedotally, The whole “oriental” becoming a slur caught me by surprise on this message board a few years ago. Only politically correct California university campuses in the mid 1980’s, Oriental was still not considered derogatory by the Asian’s I hung out with. Had a 1/2 Japanese very politically correct and active girlfriend who adored being called “ornamental” as a pet name.

Now there are enough people in the US that find “oriental” when referring to a person to be a bad word that Miss Manners would dictate being cognizant of this and avoiding the use of Oriental around in a US context. As pointed out, has a bit different meaning in the British Commonwealth or former commonwealth countries, and I’ve yet to meet an Asian in Asia that was even aware of that this was an issue in the English language.

29

I think “Yellow” was a standard for Asian-American at the time, too, though I wasn’t alive to really say. For one reason or another, that term completely faded while Black or White hasn’t. And I think “Negro” was still a standard, judging from old film footage I’ve seen of the Civil Rights era. I really don’t see much of a difference between the Oriental/Asian-American and Negro/Asian-American analogy.

And uh, sorry, “Other Guy” (I can’t see your screenname right now as I post :slight_smile: ), where in China are you? I’m sure by now you can tell the amazing difference in the way people speak based on region. And I don’t mean just dialect, but vocabulary choice when speaking Mandarin. Now that I think about it, yes, “Xi-Ren” would be much more common in the Cantonese-speaking regions of China, and pretty much the standard in Hong Kong, but I HAVE heard it said in Beijing. I’ve never heard the others using “fang” or “yang,” and neither has my friend who’s also currently English teaching in China. “Waiguoren,” ofcourse. Even I got referred to that half the time, though they kept thinking I was Japanese at first sight ;). I often used bairen in Hong Kong (in Cantonese, ofcourse), and everyone gets that, but I couldn’t get anyone in Beijing to understand that. Nor has my friend in Zhejiang province ever heard it. Go figure. And oh, he hasn’t been called, “Xi-ren” yet, either :dubious: .

And I have no idea why any Asian would care about Asian-American politics. Just as importantly, I don’t get why anyone ever mentions Asians from Asia when discussing Asian-American matters. I really don’t know your context, so I’m not really directing it at you, but usually this happens in a “they don’t care, why should you,” context, which can be irksome.

30

Dunno about “yellow”, but I believe in the Civil Rights era “colored” was the PC term. Note what the C in NAACP stands for.

31

Well, I’m pretty sure “colored,” was ONE of the pc terms back then. But I don’t see how this relates to “Asian-American” or “Oriental” being a bad or confusing term (or even how it even relates to the original question).

32

Hanguk is Korean for “Korea”. Dae Han Min Guk is the official name in Korean (Republic of Korea). Hangukin means Korean people, or Hanguk saram.

As for what Koreans call Asia. They call it Asia. Pronounced AH-SHE-AH due to the transliterization into hangeul (Korean alphabet).

South-East Asia is translated directly, in Korean its Dong-Nam-Ah-She-Ah. (Actually directly its East-South-Asia).

33

The NAACP was named that in 1910 – I don’t think “colored” has been the poliote thing to call African Americans for a very long time. Similarly, Berkeley, CA is one place where it hasn’t been safe to call Asians “Orientals” for at least 20 years.

34

More like with Europe to the north, Asia to the east, and Africa to the south.

I wouldn’t know if the romans would have used words like orient and occident in this context (like in “the Gauls is an occidental country, the Persian in an oriental country”).

35

True for Japan. China, Korea, Singapore, etc., that’s “The East.” Japan, on the other hand (at least according to many people I’ve heard or asked), is part of “The West.”

36

The whole “Western society/culture/country” thing is stupid anyway. NZ and Aus are both “Western” countries in terms of culture etc, yet we are both Southern as far as geography is concerned. Is there a Southern culture?

Asians come from Asia, so they are Asians. It may break down more then then that politicaly (as it does for Aussies and NZ) but as a people thay are Asian.

37

The Civil Rights era was the mid to late 1960s, and that was quite a while ago. I thought it was around this time that the transition from “colored” to “black” as the PC term happened. And Berkeley, CA isn’t terribly representative of the US as a whole. Peoria would be.

38

The whole thing is bizarre. “Oriental” simply means “Eastern”, but one word is offensive and another not. I used the term “Paki” with abandon until I was upbraided by a British friend for doing so. It was used neutrally here by cricket commentators (“the Pakis are three for fourty seven”) until recently. I told my friend that “Paki” as a shortening of “Pakistani” is no more offensive than “Aussie” for "Australian, and she had to concede the point, but still warned me not to try using it on a London street.

Similarly, using the term “Asia” to refer to averything between Istanbul and Tokyo is known here in Australia, but only in a formal sense (geography lessons, etc). In practice, " Asia / Asian" means Vietnamese / Chinese / Japanese / korean etc. Indians are “Asian” in London but “Indian” in Sydney.

39

It’s very true that it’s bizarre. It’s bizarre that any word can be so offensive. There’s nothing inherently wrong with Oriental, or Paki, nor with fuck or spastic. It’s usage that makes them offensive - if repeatedly used in a derogatory manner, as ‘paki’ is in Britiain, it takes on those derogatory characteristics.

(Incidentally, the British Library is currently winding uptight people up further, with the third element of their 26-piece exhibition interpreting each letter of the English alphabet :wink: …)

40

GorillaMan writes:

> What if I use your same logic to assert that ‘Paki’ isn’t offensive?

Well, in the U.S. it wouldn’t mean anything.