Ask for a name, and use that instead of "Asian" or "Oriental". It's not that hard Honestly, people are free to describe me however they want. Using "Oriental" just makes it sound like you still work for the East India Company, that's all
The Northeast Asians( Chinese, Japanese, Koreans) referred to themselves as Asians. BTW, Asians don't all look alike nor do they think alike. By posing a question as to how Asians think about a subject has no meaning at all.
As others have said "oriental" isn't necesarrily offensive but it certainly is dated and the analoguous to "negro". On a side note I've noticed is how freely people are throwing around "chink" yet you can't even type out "n^gger" (with a strategic "i") missing. I had tried typing the "N" word on one of the "Chinaman" threads a few years ago and I remember the Clutchfans filter edited it out. I guess some racial slurs aren't considered as offensive as others.
Originally Oriental wasn't just far east. The Middle east was also the orient. But that changed. There is a problem with Asian, and that is that it is just too encompassing. If I see someone from Israel he is also an Asian. So is someone from India, Pakistan etc. Oriental is outdated, and I think that is sad, because it was a better word. It was more descriptive. Saying Asian is just too damn broad. I don't call people Oriental, but I do refer to the Far east as the Orient from time to time.
Could be that it has other uses such as a "chink in armor"? I know it can be offensive but you can't edit out all possible slurs. "N" word has one use, except maybe as the title of a song or something.
I remember back in grade school we would refer to anyone who was Asian as Chinese. I remember a guy by the name of Hugh getting upset because he was Vietnamese. To make a long story short, we went on to become friends and since than I pay close attention to people's nationalities and the history between them. If you called an Indian guy Pakistani he probably wouldn't like it.
Oh man don't even get me started on that... One word is of unknown origin (but most likely Germanic or Scandinavian) dating all the way back to 1300 meaning "stingy" The other word has Latin roots as seen in Spanish (negro) or French (negre) and was adopted by as a racial slur in the late 1700s by a bunch of closed-minded idiots. The two words have absolutely nothing to do with each other, yet we fire someone for using the Word #1 in a budget report because it "sounds like" the racial slur. The PC-awareness level in this country is ridiculous.
Well, obviously, and I would rarely if ever use the racial identifier as the sole means of describing someone. For example: Person A: "Tell me about the people in your office." Me: "Well, there's this guy Paul. He's sort of loud sometimes, and can be a bit of a dick hogging the photocopy machine, but he's been friendly to me so far. He's short and skinny, with black hair. He's asian; he hasn't told me from where exactly yet, but he looks Korean. He works in the same section as me, modifying database entries. He's a big basketball fan, which is cool." Or, with more limited information: Person A: "What are your neighbours like?" Me: "I don't really know much about them yet. We haven't had the opportunity to meet them. All I can tell you is that there are two guys and one girl, all asian, and that they play loud rap music and smoke pot -- we can smell it out from our balcony sometimes." Is there really anything wrong with either of those descriptions? The term is just one of the things that all piece together to describe somebody. I'm not good enough yet at distinguishing differences between Japanese, Korean and Chinese asians, although I do my best to try. However, I don't want to offend anybody by getting it wrong; I know I wouldn't like it too much if somebody called me an American instead of Canadian. That's why I need to rely on a more encompassing term at this point. I am hoping to get a lot better at telling the subtle differences when I go away to teach English in South Korea this fall. Anyway, these issues are getting away from the main point. I just wanted to know if some people found the term oriental offensive, and apparantly there are some out there that do find it so (as well as outdated), so I will continue to avoid using it.
It doesn't offend me. But then again, I'm not Oriental. The thing that confuses me is why are only "Orientals" referred to as "Asians"? I'm fron India, but I have yet to hear anybody refer to me as "Asian".
We've had this exact discussion so many times on this board -- if one group of people doesn't want to be called something then don't use the term.
So are we accepting calling someone from Asian descent "Asian"? Is that OK? I am laughin' so hard at Mexican and Caucasian kids callin' each other "n199a this" and "n199a that"... and I ask some of them: "Why do you call him that...? That's so wrong on many levels... you're just making the whole race situation worse..." And hearin' Asian kids call each other like that is just completely incomprehensible. On the other hand, I am waitin' for Mexican kids to start callin' each other "wettie" or "spickie" or some other term of endearment, and Asian kids start callin' each other "ch1nk13" or somethin' like that, and everybody will think it's ok... I can't wait for that to happen... my God, I will laugh even louder at that...
