# WTF is the stupid outrage over "Oriental" about? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 22, 2014, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163 "2014-10-22T17:47:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/21 "2014-10-22T19:18:56Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > The same reason that some people consider Jap, Chinaman, or chink to be offensive: these words were used in a derogatory manner for a period of time towards a group and now it conjures up connections with those times and mores. The change must have happened sometime in the mid-late 1990s, I’d guess. Earlier than about 1993 or so, it was what my self-described Oriental friends from elementary, middle and high school called themselves and preferred to be called to being considered a racial slur. Sometime after college (ca. 1997), “Asian” was the term in vogue. And, FWIW, their use of it wasn’t in the same way as some black people use “nigger”; rather it was just the term that was used by everyone- white, black, etc… if we weren’t getting more granular and saying Vietnamese, Chinese, Cambodian, etc… I’m pretty sure it wasn’t ever a derogatory term, but rather like others have said, one that eventually grew to be one that the group chose to not be called. (FTR, [I grew up square in the middle of this area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinatown,_Houston), so it’s not like I’m some guy who went to school with two Asian people or something.) ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/22 "2014-10-22T19:29:45Z")
> [@Cubsfan](#): > > Didn’t read the rest of this thread but wanted to say that I was raised (38yr old American Male) that Oriental referred to “objects from east Asia” like carpets and food. Asian referred to the people. > > Now I’ll go back and see if others were told the same thing. No, they were not. Clearly your parents are racist. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/23 "2014-10-22T19:53:10Z")
As an Asian, I don’t find it derogatory. It is a bit outdated, though; kind of a World War I era term. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/24 "2014-10-22T20:01:54Z")
One of my grandmothers used it. She was born in 1918. She also used terms like schvatzer and coloreds. That’s how outdated and inappropriate it sounds to my ears. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/25 "2014-10-22T20:04:30Z")
The Chinese family that run the Oriental Garden restaurant down the street need to get with the times. I think it began to be seen as objectionable on a widespread basis in the 70s/80s, when Edward Said’s Orientalism became a very influential book in academia, and college kids started being taught that it was a derogatory term. As **Velocity** says, it’s a generational thing. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/26 "2014-10-22T20:09:55Z")
FWIW, I often use words like “Asian” etc. Sometimes the very ambiguity of “Oriental” (not so long ago, it was applied to countries as Westerly as Persia) lets me suggest, tersely, a general contrast between Western and non-Western philosophies. Here is the post for which **Really Not All That Bright** “reprimanded” me: > [@Is what Westerners call "logic/logical" a matter of cultural perspective?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-westerners-call-logic-logical-a-matter-of-cultural-perspective/699970/22): > > Some say Oriental thought is more holistic, with Occidental more reductionist. Orientals seek compromise, while Western perspective is often based on competition. It’s sometimes said that Aristotle’s Law of the Excluded Middle is an impediment to Western thought! > > An example of the difference is “fuzzy logic,” which is embraced by Japanese engineers but generally scorned in the West. Regardless of my word choice here, did my point have validity? That my point was completely ignored to focus on the word choice did irritate me. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/27 "2014-10-22T20:17:02Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Your willful ignorance here is so obnoxious, lazy, arrogant, and stupid that it almost deserves its own Pit thread. Oh whatever. I can’t be bothered to read everything closely. Sometimes stuff happens. You’ll be a lot happier if you just accept that mistakes will be made sometimes and people aren’t malicious or otherwise ill for making them. Like you’ve never skimmed through a topic ::oldrolleyes:: I had good reason to assume so I did, nothing wrong with that ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/28 "2014-10-22T20:20:28Z")
> [@bump](#): > > The change must have happened sometime in the mid-late 1990s, I’d guess. Earlier than about 1993 or so, it was what my self-described Oriental friends from elementary, middle and high school called themselves and preferred to be called to being considered a racial slur. Sometime after college (ca. 1997), “Asian” was the term in vogue. It’s very dependent on geography. In the midwest well into the 80s, everyone used Oriental. I moved to the SF Bay Area in the mid-80s, and the first time I used the term, I was very quickly corrected. But it still was more of an insensitive term, not an outright insult like Jap or Chinaman. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/29 "2014-10-22T20:22:01Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > FWIW, I often use words like “Asian” etc. Sometimes the very ambiguity of “Oriental” (not so long ago, it was applied to countries as Westerly as Persia) Wait, you _wouldn’t_ call Persia Asian? I don’t understand how this resolves any ambiguity from the older usage. ---
**Author:** ![Octarine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/22d042/32.png) [@Octarine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octarine)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/30 "2014-10-22T20:22:18Z")
To me, it’s not an outright racial slur, but it’s a red flag that the person saying it might hold other beliefs. It’s a very old term, so if the person using it isn’t wrinkled and in a wheelchair, I’d assume it was a conscious choice and intentionally provocative. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/31 "2014-10-22T20:23:27Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > FWIW, I often use words like “Asian” etc. Sometimes the very ambiguity of “Oriental” (not so long ago, it was applied to countries as Westerly as Persia) lets me suggest, tersely, a general contrast between Western and non-Western philosophies. Here is the post for which **Really Not All That Bright** “reprimanded” me: > > Regardless of my word choice here, did my point have validity? That my point was completely ignored to focus on the word choice did irritate me. Honestly, I think the word’s usage in your point is worse than in isolation: it brings up all these stereotypes of the mysteriously wise East. “Orientals seek compromise”? Keep in mind this is the part of the world that brought us Genghis Khan, the Cultural Revolution, and the Rape of Nanking. Fuzzy logic is scorned in the west? It was [coined by a guy from Iran](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotfi_A._Zadeh), true, but he developed his theory in California. The two other theorists who are noted for their work on fuzzy logic in the Wikipedia article are both Polish. I can find no signs that it’s scorned in the west. There may be something to what you’re saying; it may be that some strands of thought in some parts of Asia are more amenable to compromise than some strands of thought in Europe and America. But the way you put it sounds more like Confucius Say stereotypes than like real evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/32 "2014-10-22T20:25:13Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Oh whatever. I can’t be bothered to read everything closely. Sometimes stuff happens. You’ll be a lot happier if you just accept that mistakes will be made sometimes and people aren’t malicious or otherwise ill for making them. Like you’ve never skimmed through a topic ::oldrolleyes:: I had good reason to assume so I did, nothing wrong with that I don’t think you’re malicious, but you’re profoundly lazy and smug about your ignorance. Nobody says you have to read everything, but if you don’t read it, comment on it anyway, get called on your misunderstanding, and can’t be arsed to apologize for your laziness, you suck. That’s not a mistake, that’s just being a lousy poster. Limit your contributions to times when you CAN be bothered to read everything, and you won’t suck as much. ---
**Author:** ![babygoat666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2acd7d/32.png) [@babygoat666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/babygoat666)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/33 "2014-10-22T20:28:48Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > And similarly assume my rudish response was against the poster you might have been, not the one you are. 😃 > > I think my irritation was as much against the cryptic, sanctimonious and oh-so-very-very-precious comments like > > rather than against the politically-correctism itself. > > Which segues into: > I can’t be arsed to google “dafuq” but whatever it means, I’m rubber and you’re glue. 😃 How would you like it if people referred to you as “an old”? ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/34 "2014-10-22T20:29:05Z")
It’s not that huge of a deal. It just dates anyone who says it. Kinda analogous to calling black people “negroes”, although a bit less offensive since it’s been verboten for a shorter period of time. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/35 "2014-10-22T20:32:18Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Honestly, I think the word’s usage in your point is worse than in isolation: it brings up all these stereotypes of the mysteriously wise East. “Orientals seek compromise”? Keep in mind this is the part of the world that brought us Genghis Khan, the Cultural Revolution, and the Rape of Nanking. Fuzzy logic is scorned in the west? It was [coined by a guy from Iran](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotfi_A._Zadeh), true, but he developed his theory in California. The two other theorists who are noted for their work on fuzzy logic in the Wikipedia article are both Polish. I can find no signs that it’s scorned in the west. Zadeh himself has noted the divide. In AI and engineering in the West we generally use probability with binary logic. In Japan they use fuzzy logic in things as basic as washing machines. It’s a bit overblown as a cultural difference, but in academia it’s pretty true. Unless you’re at Berkeley in the US, you probably won’t be working with Fuzzy Logic or Possibility Theory (Fuzzy Probability). ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/36 "2014-10-22T20:36:08Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > I’m still trying to not use _oriental_ to refer to people, but it’s tough. You just need to re-orient your thinking. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/37 "2014-10-22T20:59:09Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > To be honest, I didn’t spend a lot of time reading what you wrote since this is the Pit and I don’t feel I need to be as thorough > [@YogSosoth](#): > > Oh whatever. I can’t be bothered to read everything closely. Same here. The obvious answer is the OP should put the Oriental rug in the living room to make his wife happy and he can put his My Little Pony Rainbow Dash rug in his hobby room. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/38 "2014-10-22T21:22:04Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Wait, you _wouldn’t_ call Persia Asian? I don’t understand how this resolves any ambiguity from the older usage. Language evolves. I hear “Asian” referring to those from East Asia and Japan, but not Persians, Indians, Pakistanis or Bengalis. Though all those groups are from countries within Asia. Orientals, as I understood it, would refer to the same countries that “Asians” refers to today in popular US usage (China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, etc.). To my ears, oriental is now a little like “Colored”, an antiquated term. I’m not happy with the term Asian (as I understand it), since it seems to cheat the Indian subcontinent. But whadya going to do? What’s the usage in South Africa? ---
**Author:** ![Amberlei](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e56c9b/32.png) [@Amberlei](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amberlei)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/39 "2014-10-22T21:28:46Z")
As a kid on Oahu in the 80’s, everybody used the word, “oriental”. Most of our teachers were Asian, but self-identified as Oriental. We had an Oriental Student Association and Oriental Culture Week. I don’t think I ever heard anyone describe a person as Asian until the 90’s. I personally am more than happy to call someone whatever they’d like to be called, but sometimes it really is hard to know what term is most PC. Not to hi-jack your thread, but as an anecdote on how hard it is to be politically correct at times… I have a friend from Uganda. He went to an English-speaking boarding school from the time he was six until he moved to Guatemala for college and speaks perfect English with perhaps just a tinge of a British accent. I met him in grad school and assumed he was American until someone referred to him as an African-American. “I am not an African-American. I am Ugandan.” In later conversations, he’s said he doesn’t like being called colored, doesn’t mind being called black (even though, as he says, he’s really just dark brown), and he despises the term African-American. He says it’s egocentric of us to think that all black people in America are Americans. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/40 "2014-10-22T21:39:30Z")
Hang on, the use of the term Asian can have some pretty negative connotations - certainly this is the case in the UK, especially in the light of recent failures by various agencies to deal with crimes committed by a very small subset of the population of that continent. For starters, what the hell do you mean by ‘Asian’, you are talking of an area across five maybe seven time zones, with getting on for two thirds of the entire population of the planet, depending upon how you decide what is, or is not ‘Asian’ Just to let you know how it feels, try this on for size, All you Americans are all the same, you know jack about geography and the demographics of other nations unless there is a war that involves American multinationals, with perhaps the added bonus of oil rights included, yes, that right ALL AMERICANS ARE LIKE THIS. Now how do you feel about being nationally stereotyped? So folks - or rather the politically correct Ofenderatti - just to point something out, if you really want to go the whole hog on \*\*Septimus \*\* with your self congratulatory righteousness of political correctness, I will just mention, I do not wish to be called ‘Asian’ by such as you. Instead you should refer to me by a far more localised term, instead of the insultingly generic term ‘Asian’ - which is what you use for little brown people who are not black and are from ‘somewhere over there’ Call me Indian, Burmese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indonesian, identify me as Japanese, or Cambodian, perhaps go as far as Oriental Russian. - but Asian I ain’t. What do you mean, you don’t know how to refer to me? Why not bloody well ask! Instead of making the assumption that I am ‘Asian’ based upon my brownish appearance- that’s the pig headed height of nationalistic stereotyping rudeness Just as Columbian, Mexicans _et al_ are American every single bit as much as you are - its just that you don’t generalise about the Western continents as much as you seem to do about others. US ‘Americans’ like to refer to themselves alone in that term and exclude others who should also properly be called such, so why not try for the much more clumsy ‘USian’ which at least has the small benefit of being correctish. Either that or get off his back. At least ‘Oriental’ is a rather narrower term than ‘Asian’ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163.md?page=3)