Oriental sounds archaic to my ears; we don’t call Europeans “Occidentals.” I’d always say Asian. (And yes, if I know that someone is specifically Korean- or Japanese-American, I’d say that, but it’s not easy to tell.)
It threw me for a loop the first couple times I heard Brits referring to Indians as Asians; I’d call them just Indians or (if I wasn’t sure) South Asians.
I’m fine with Asians. Eh.
There’s no reason Oriental should be considered racist. As a word. I wouldn’t have a problem being called Occidental. But, it has aquired a whole lot of historical baggage. Involving the mysterious, the bizzarre, the exotic, the inscrutable.
Particuarly the exotic.
And I don’t think it’s ridiculous to want to avoid that “exotic” shite, particulatly if you’re from Cleveland. So Asian makes more sense to me, as it’s at least more neutral.
(As for Indians being Asian, well yes, technically, but more importantly they are part of the big happy Indo-European language group. And isn’t that what really matters? Isn’t that really how we should classify people? Shouldn’t all Indians, Africans, Europeans, come together and recognizes their common humanity…and gang up on the Hungarians?)
<snif> That’s right: Increase the peace. Decrease the Hungarians. And don’t forget the Finns.
About 25% of them are not :).
Even worse, then. 
In my experience, I’ve found that people who use the term “Oriental” tend to be racist or have some other serious flaw. I’m sure there are well-meaning, nice people who use it that way, I’ve just never met any. Futhermore, most of my asian friends don’t like it, saying that a thing is oriental, a person is asian.
Well then they have no place in our Happy Family. They’ll just have to be weeded out and shipped off the the camps…I mean relocation centers…in Hungary. And Finland. After all, we need Sprechensraum.
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According to my wife (Chinese) using the term “Oriental” is like referring to black people as “Colored”. While not racist, quite out of date and indicative that the user is probably clueless. She gets a bit miffed when she hears the term.
What really gets her going is the way people tend to lump all Asians together, as if they are one big homogenous ethnic group. She hates the term “Asian-American”. She is Chinese-Canadian!
When, roughly, did “oriental” become incorrect/archaic/offensive/whatever? I was first corrected against using it in the middle or late 1990’s.
Does anybody track this stuff? It seems a rich field of study for linguists. Who first began taking offense at the use of previously neutral word, and how did this spread to others? I guess it must have started with a small group or individual, surely every person of Eastern descent didn’t just wake up one morning and coincidentally start taking offense at the word. Or was it always considered offensive and somehow I missed that until the 1990s?
But as I said, it doesn’t seem to me it was a neutral word. It had a lot of associates (exotic, inscrutable…carpets) that I could see Asians wanting to get away from.
Lord knows changing the language doesn’t mean changing the reality…at least, it’s not that easy. But in this case I think it kinda made sense.
there are many threads on this. long story short, oriental was originally a colonial word, and inherently neutral to negative. a lot of people from Asia in the US perfer to be addressed as asian rather than oriental. more preferably by their actual ethnic group. for example, you want to make my wife happy you call her shanghaiese or even better ningboese. miss manners would say call people by their preferred form of address.
in hawaii, my understanding is they don’t get their panties in a twist over oriental versus asian
in the uk and many commonwealth countries, asian tends to refer to the indian sub continent, while oriental to east asia.
i think the only true pan-asian identifiers in asia itself is pop culture like mtv or jacky chan.
in one of the old threads there is a link to a group in berkeley in the sixties that formally launched the use of asian to replace oriental.
some pc types really get heated over this. i’ve noticed in the past decade or so that two catch phrases have entered the logical arguements. ‘oriental is like n*gger.’ we can all think of or have heard derogatory terms for asians that are far far worse.
second is ‘oriental is a rug.’ And swiss is chees - you gotta point?
Based on what my Indian (from India) friends call themselves, they prefer the term ‘brown’.
Oriental just has so many negative connotations, as has already been mentioned: exotic spices, submissive women, crazy carpets… (heh). Although I never really minded the term until I started studying literary theory in univeristy. Said’s Orientalism is an interesting read, if you’re really into the subject.
If I had to choose, I’d rather be called Asian. Or Korean-American. :: shrug :: Within Asia itself, it gets a bit tricky - Koreans hate to be mistaken for Chinese or Japanese, although for different reasons, and most East Asians would take offense at being called Southeast Asians, I suppose.
Excuse me. I happen to be Hungarian.
By the way, WE prefer the term “Magyar.” Or in my case, Magyar-American. I’m from Chicago.
No offense, but really, how does she expect people to know that she’s ethnically Chinese? Most people can’t tell Chinese from Japanese from Korean, and rather than risk offense by guessing the wrong one, Asian-American is a good alternative. Of course, once they get to know your wife better and are told her heritage, that’s a different matter.
The same goes for white people as well. For the vast majority of white people I meet, I can’t tell if they’re ancestry is German, French, British, Irish, etc. So they’re all just “white,” until I’m told otherwise.
Malodorous, buddy, where’ve you been?
The term is Asian-American.
kunilow, aren’t the Maygars a specific ethnic group in Hungary? I thought the majority were ethnicly German. I maybe I’m thinking about Austria.
Asian is unspecific? Where, exactly, is the Orient? Asia is at least a specific continent - the Orient is more of a concept than an actual geographic location.
I understand the term isn’t always used in a racist context, but the fact remains that many Asians feel it is insulting. If a certain group feels that a specific term is an insulting way to address them, then maybe the use of said term should be dropped.
sighs
When I grew up they were called Indians.
Then in high school I learned to call them Native Americans.
Once the new term has finally sunk in, they decide to go back to being Indian.
That’s it. I’m making up a new term and using it to refer to everyone, regardless of race. From this day forward, you’re all Mumpkin.
I will concur with this based on my own personal experience.
And my Asian friends (I believe they’re all of Chinese descent, though I’m not actually certain) mostly prefer “Asian”, although I’ve heard “yellow”.